NY Jets: Paving the way for Erin Henderson

With Super Bowl 50 in the books, the NY Jets have some valuable time to consider their offseason priority plan starting at inside linebacker.

It won’t be as easy in the 2016 offseason to make decisions, mainly because the Jets don’t have the overflowing amount of cap space they had last year. Which leads to some interesting decisions to be made.

It appears the Jets are ready to make one of their decisions earlier then expected.

#Jets and ILB Erin Henderson began talks toward a new contract Wednesday night at #SeniorBowl, per source. Story: https://t.co/ykVMcmVu8m

— dom cosentino (@domcosentino) January 28, 2016

Which is a pretty strong indicator that the Jets will move on from Demario Davis, once heralded as a ‘Ray Lewis type of leader’ by Rex Ryan. During Davis’ time with the Ryan regime he actually played very well, but we saw this season that Davis has a long way to go with his pass coverage.

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On multiple occasions we saw opposing teams isolate Davis on either a tight end or a running back and regardless of who he was covering, he blew the coverage and allowed big play, after big play.

As talented as Davis is, the coaching staff had to reduce his playing time as the season wore on.

Which plays into the fact that the Jets in training camp had probably one of the deepest inside linebacking groups in the entire NFL boasting: David Harris, Davis, Erin Henderson, Joe Mays and Jamari Lattimore. Only three survived, and Henderson did more then survive, he thrived.

Henderson was attempting to bounce back from a rocky tenure with the Minnesota Vikings and it wasn’t rocky on the field. His last season with the Vikings he posted north of 100 tackles, four sacks and two interceptions.

Henderson fought through adversity and perhaps this was his last chance in the NFL and he got by way of a prove it contract from the Jets. Henderson played in all 16 games for the Jets and actually graded out better than Davis according to Pro Football Focus.

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Perhaps the biggest reason is that Henderson will likely come on a more team friendly deal than Davis and in a cap strapped 2016 off-season, that makes all the difference. Lastly an interesting dynamic provided by theJetsBlog.com:

“Since Henderson was a minimum salaried vested veteran in 2015, the only contract the Jets can sign him to right now is another one-year, minimum salary deal. If the Jets want to sign him to a longer deal or pay him more than the minimum, they will have to wait until the first day of the 2016 league year in March.”