The Jets’ offensive line was in flux all year, but it looked like they had maybe come across a positive plug-in when guard Alijah Vera-Tucker was able to move out to tackle and play well in the absence of the team’s top four projected bookends.
Then, AVT tore his triceps in Week 7, and that plan went by the wayside again – but Vera-Tucker has been rehabbing hard, and as he told the media on “Baggie Day” at the Jets’ facility, he’ll be ready wherever Gang Green needs to deploy him in 2023.
“The training staff here has a program for me, so that’ll be the majority of the offseason, just getting back right and doing what I can do to get healthy,” AVT said. “We haven’t had any discussions, and I haven’t really thought about it too much; maybe later on, but right now it’s about getting on the field.”
Vera-Tucker and rookie running back Breece Hall both went down in the same game, and the hardest part for the lineman was knowing that the team was 5-2 and he couldn’t help their push to the finish.
“It was really tough for me going through it, because the team was on such an incline the first half before guys started going down,” he said. “It’d be tough for anyone, but just being in the locker room has helped, and me and Breece have been going crazy in rehab, working our tails off.”
Vera-Tucker is in a good mental state, though, and doesn’t want to dwell on the past, but rather look ahead to the future.
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“You always think in what ifs, but at the end of the day, we went down Week 7 and that is what it is,” he said. “We have a good team, a lot of guys who want to compete and know what it takes now to get where we want to be. We’re all looking forward to next year because we know this team can do it.”
As far as his own rehab goes, Vera-Tucker isn’t back to lifting weights yet but is close, and he says he’ll be 100 percent ready to go for training camp but will likely do more indoor work during OTAs because “it about not pushing it too hard because I don’t want problems going into next season.”
And he wants to be part of next season, because as he alluded to, he knows the Jets’ future is bright.
“I really like this group. We had rookies come in and perform really well across the board, and some second-year guys as well,” Vera-Tucker said. “The team knows where we want to be and we know we have the guys to contend, it’s about coming back and finishing and getting the job done.”
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