Three on O: Simpson, Wilson, Beck

After each game, we'll be highlighting three defensive and three offensive players and looking in detail at their performance. We'll wrap up today with the offense:

The Simpson things in life

The Alijah Vera-Tucker injury was an unmitigated disaster, but for John Simpson, it provides a decent opportunity. Not to suggest that Simpson would be pleased that it happened, of course, but now that it has, a strong 2025 season from Simpson could make him a priority to re-sign whereas before the season, the importance of him coming back would have been secondary to getting Vera-Tucker extended.

So far, Simpson - who had back issues in preseason that may still be dogging him - is not off to the best start. However, he has improved in each game so far and this week had a consistent game as a run blocker.

That still didn't translate to much overall team success though, and he had a few disappointing breakdowns in pass protection.

He was really late to recognize the stunt here and lost his balance so he couldn't recover to stop the interior pressure.

On this play, he was too focused on helping Josh Myers control his block and again late to react, this time to a defensive back blitz. Would he have been less occupied last season with Joe Tippmann at center instead of Myers? Quite possibly.

When left to block his own man or keep his head on a swivel to help his linemates as the spare man, Simpson did a solid job in pass protection. However, these blitzes and stunts created some havoc up front and you can expect other teams to have noticed this so they'll be looking to replicate that aspect of the Bucs' gameplan.

As for Simpson, he's not exactly stepping up to prove himself as the Jets' best interior lineman with Vera-Tucker out, which would be a path to a big money deal. He's still going to get decent starter money at this rate (maybe around $10 million per year) but a monster year might have had him able to command something in the $15-20 million range and right now that looks like it might be beyond him.

Becking the wrong horse

Fullback Andrew Beck is a useful asset but the Jets are wasting him to an extent because they haven't been able to run the ball as much as they'd like to due to the fact they're usually trailing.

Here's an example of Beck - who only played eight snaps, although that was a season high - making the key block on a short yardage conversion as the play is designed to flow to the right and set up a cutback lane. The Jets used to run a similar play about 15 years ago called "the swerve".

Summing up how the Jets aren't getting the best of Beck, this first down conversion was negated because Arian Smith lined up in the wrong place so the Jets got flagged for an illegal formation.

In addition, it was their ONLY red zone snap until the fourth quarter, which would ordinarily be the perfect times to get Beck in there.

As noted, he played a season-high eight snaps but this would have been more had they not been in hurry-up throughout the fourth quarter.

While his run blocking is a positive and he showed in preseason he can catch passes, Beck's pass protection is a bit inconsistent and his mistake here disrupted Tyrod Taylor's throw.

It stands to reason that the Jets would like to use Beck more and that they have plenty of other playcalls involving him that we haven't seen yet. Hopefully the game circumstances enable this to happen in future - and then hopefully it works out well too.

The Garrett and the Stick

For a period of just under 25 minutes from the 2nd play of the second quarter to the five minute mark in the third quarter, Tyrod Taylor completed just 3 of 8 passes for zero yards and an interception, while also being sacked twice. That being the case, it's pretty remarkable that Garrett Wilson was still able to rack up 10 receptions by the end.

A big part of that was just how efficient he is because he did that on just 13 targets. The difference between him and any other run of the mill number one receiver is that he makes so many catches with a tough degree of difficulty you start to take that for granted. Catches like the one in the above gif where Beck gave up a pressure and this play where he got separation and kept a low throw off the turf at full extension are good examples of that.

The only three targets on which he did not make the catch were a 3rd down fade to the end zone which was overthrown because the cornerback prevented him from getting over the top, one over the middle which was broken up and Jamel Dean's pick-six.

On the latter, Wilson did a great job of getting open on a stop route but Taylor's throw was late and Wilson didn't sense Dean recovering to jump in front of him. Wilson waited the ball into his hands rather than aggressively going to contest it, but this was definitely Taylor's mistake for not getting it to him sooner.

In the end, Wilson racked up 84 yards and a touchdown with a good mix of short and intermediate passes both over the middle and to the outside.

Once again, despite the offensive struggles, Wilson is right now on course to put up career numbers three games in. The Jets are lucky to have him and there's no sign he's going to rest on his laurels after signing the big offseason extension.

Previously: Three on D: Mauigoa, Baron, Moore