Winters Is Going: New York Jets’ Release Of Veteran Paves Way For Van Roten To Start

The New York Jets cut their longest-tenured player Sunday, and opened salary-cap room in the process. 

Veteran right guard Brian Winters, a holdover from the Rex Ryan/John Idzik era, was released by New York. The move will save the Jets $7,281,250 in cap space. 

Winters, 29, a third-round draft pick from Kent State in 2013, played in 89 games for the Jets, starting 79 of them. But he had been plagued by injuries in recent years, playing through a torn abdominal muscle in 2017 and then suffering an injury to his left shoulder last August. Still, he started the first nine games before finally being placed on injured reserve in November. 

It appeared the Jets might give Winters a chance to retain his job in a potential competition with free-agent signee Greg Van Roten, formerly of Carolina, but it’s likely they only were waiting for Winters to pass his physical so that the Jets would not have to pay him an injury settlement. 

The 6-3, 305-pound Van Roten grew up on nearby Long Island, the team’s former training-camp home, as an avowed Jets’ fan. He started 27 games for the Panthers over the past two seasons, all of them at left guard. Barring any surprises, he projects as the opening-day starter at right guard.  

In 2019, Van Roten allowed only one sack in 704 snaps and was named Carolina’s most improved player on offense by analytics company Pro Football Focus. PFF graded Van Roten at 65.5, 15th at his position in the NFL, and up from 59.4 in 2018. 

Van Roten missed the last five games of the 2019 season because of a toe injury. In the off-season, he signed a three-year deal with the Jets for $3.25 million guaranteed, per overthecap.com. All but $250,000 of that guaranteed money is due this year. 

The release of Winters and the decision by star linebacker C.J. Mosley to opt out of the 2020 NFL season because of concerns about coronavirus will leave New York with more than $14 million in extra cap space than the approximately $21 million-plus the Jets had prior to Saturday.  

It remains to be seen if general Joe Douglas will use any of that cap windfall immediately to improve the roster, or if he might play it safe financially for now, especially with the viability of the 2020 season still in doubt because of COVID-19. Another factor to consider is that is that the 2021 salary cap could be significantly lower, thus teams may wish to save cap room for next year.