New York Jets: Spencer Long situation could affect future

New York Jets center Spencer Long has no dead money on his contract, but should Gang Green release him at the end of 2018?

The New York Jets have had issues at center this season, and it’s the second year in a row. This wasn’t due to poor play, but rather inept coaching and management.

Jets center Spencer Long has been playing with a dislocated middle finger in his right hand. That made it difficult for him to snap the ball in shotgun, but the Jets continued to trot him out there week after week and run multiple shotgun plays. It led to bad play from the quarterback due to timing being off from bad snaps. All of this comes after signing a guy coming off an injury.

So who’s fault is the mess at center for the Jets? Some would say that Todd Bowles deserve blame for starting him, and Jeremy Bates deserves blame for running too much shotgun. Both are 100 percent accurate.

Bates should’ve devised a better game plan for the injured center, and Bowles probably should’ve gone to Jonatthan Harrison sooner. I can’t disagree with anyone on either of those two facts, but what does it say about the backup if the starter is injured — there’s a difference between injured and hurt — and they won’t go to the backup.

Let’s be honest, Long was hung out to dry by being trotted out there, and the blame falls on the coaching staff for not benching him to heal and management for not finding an adequate backup. Some would say the Jets should cut him due to the snapping issues he had with the Jets in recent weeks.

He’s due a roster bonus in February. So they’d have to cut him before that for the cut to make sense, because they’d have to pay him that either way. Even if there’s no cap hit, they still have to pay him $3.5 million out of the $6.5 million he’s owed. That’s less cash on hand to pay free agents. The second issue is that the snapping issues were a result of playing injured and clearly not having an adequate backup in the minds of the coaches.

Despite playing injured, according to Pro Football Focus (subscription required), he has only allowed 14 pressures. Long has shown up on the injury report for his finger since Week five and has allowed eight of the 14 pressures since.

In the end, it’s a performance based business, and he probably will be cut to prevent the Jets from having to pay the roster bonus.  Jets fans may want him gone, and he may be gone, but remember this, cutting him will only shed light on the dysfunction of this organization, and may hamper them in free agency, because a guy went out and played injured for the team and will have to take the blame for playing poorly despite being injured. Be careful what you wish for.

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