Over the Cap reports WR Allen Lazard is returning to the Jets with a restructured contract, taking a pay cut for the 2025 season.
Jets coach Aaron Glenn, who faced Lazard in Green Bay, when he was Detroit Lions defensive coordinator, knows the receiver is a good player.
“Listen, anytime you have a player of that magnitude, he’s a really good blocker,” Glenn said recently at the NFL Owner’s Meeting. “I [coached] against him a number of times when he was in Green Bay, so I know what he brings to the table.”
Good for Glenn, going by the film and not the haters.
The Jets will be looking to run the ball a lot this year, and 6’5, 227-pound Lazard is one of the better run-blocking receivers in the league.
He’s also an underrated receiver, a big red-zone target. One of the Jets’ better offensive plays of the 2024 season was in London against Minnesota, late in the first half, third-and-10 from the 10-yard line. Aaron Rodgers stepped up to create time and rifled a pass to the middle of the end zone into heavy traffic for a TD to Lazard.
How about that TD on a free play after a flag was thrown against San Francisco? On third-and-8, defensive end Leonard Floyd jumped, and Rodgers got the snap off, and hit Lazard down the right seam for a 36-yard TD.
The echo chamber destroyed Lazard for his first season in 2023, but it wasn’t exactly a receivers’ paradise that season with the team’s QB issues.
You saw what Lazard could do with a good QB (Rodgers) starting out the 2024 season with 24 catches in the first four games.
Did he have some drops along the way, yes, but who doesn’t? He, like every player, has some things to clean up.
But he’s a good player, and Glenn/Darren Mougey know it. That is why they wanted to bring him back.
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