Saints at the top of Davante Adams’ wish list [Raiders trade Adams to Jets for conditional 3rd ; Jets paying Adams’ entire remaining salary]
Starting caliber centers are not sitting on teams practice squads.
The Saints just had one sitting on their own practice squad. Lemieux had never started at Center in his life but did so last week for the Saints.
His starting experience is on terrible Broncos and Jets teams and he was never on a team that was better than 7 wins in his 7 years as a pro.
Hard to judge an offensive lineman just based off team overall record. Consider the QBs that started while McGovern was playing with the Broncos and Jets.
2017 DEN - Trevor Siemian (10), Brock Osweller (4), Paxton Lynch (2)
2018 DEN - Case Keenum, (16)
2019 DEN - Joe Flacco (8), Drew Lock (5), Brandon Allen (3)
2020 NYJ - Sam Darnold (12), Joe Flacco (4) Note: Both Darnold and Flacco sucked in 2020. The Jets went 2-14.
2021 NYJ - Zach Wilson (13), Mike White (3), Joe Flacco (1)
2022 NYJ - Zach Wilson (9) Mike White (4), Joe Flacco (1)
2023 NYJ - Zach Wilson (11), Trevor Siemian (3), Tim Boyle (2), Aaron Rodgers (5 Plays)
And he wasn't good enough to be on any teams roster before we got desperate. We are scraping the barrel.
In the 102 games McGovern has appeared in he started 91 of those games. 10 of his non starts were in his rookie season. He has started 86 out of the last 87 games he has appeared in, including all 7 games in 2023, before missing the remaining part of the season on injured reserve with a knee injury.
I believe he was a free agent entering the 2024 season coming off of a season ending injury in 2023, in which he suffered a dislocated left kneecap and damaged his MCL on October 29th, 2023. He was still damaged goods entering 2024. Highly unlikely any team would sign him and expect him to make their roster, much less expect him to compete for the starting job at Center. He resigned with the Jets to their practice squad in 2024, to a team quite familiar with him.
Hopefully he is fully recovered from his 2023 knee injury and now in game condition to play. If so, he could be more than a bottom of the barrel scraping. Keep in mind that ATL and now CAR have both lost their starting Centers for the rest of the season. Starting caliber Centers are going to be in even higher demand for the remainder of the 2024 season.