A former member of the New York Jets is joining a bitter rival.
ESPN NFL Insider Jeremy Fowler revealed on X that offensive lineman Greg Van Roten is signing a one-year deal with the New England Patriots.
“Giants’ starting guard the last two seasons joins the defending AFC champions,” Fowler wrote.
GVR’s History With the Jets
Roten, 36, entered the league as an undrafted free agent in 2012. The Patriots are the ninth different NFL team that he has suited up for. He also spent two seasons in the Canadian Football League with the Toronto Argonauts.
This is set to be his 15th season playing professional football. Across his NFL tenure, Roten has appeared in 144 games and has made 105 starts.
He spent two of those years as the Jets’ starting right guard in the 2020 and 2021 seasons. During that stretch, he appeared in 30 games and started in 23 of them.
Here is how he performed during the 2020 season according to Pro Football Focus:
- 63.0 overall grade (ranking 43rd among 83 qualifying guards)
- 54.4 run block grade (ranking 63rd among 83 qualifying guards)
- 71.5 pass block grade (ranking 17th among 83 qualifying guards)
In other words, he was below average in every metric outside of run blocking.
Here is how he performed during the 2021 season according to PFF:
- 68.1 overall grade (ranking 34th among 84 qualifying guards)
- 75.0 run block grade (ranking 15th among 84 qualifying guards)
- 53.7 pass block grade (ranking 60th among 84 qualifying guards)
In other words, he was below average in every metric outside of pass blocking.
Speaking of pass blocking, one of the reasons Roten is remembered so unkindly amongst Jets fans is because of a viral moment in September of 2021.
The Jets lost to the Denver Broncos 26-0 in Week 3 of the 2021 season. Then-rookie quarterback Zach Wilson struggled, getting sacked five times and accounting for 41 negative yards lost on sacks.
After the game, Roten went up to the podium and promptly threw his quarterback under the bus.
“He’s got to learn, this is the NFL, you’ve got to get the ball out. You can’t hold on to it trying to make a play and throw it deep down the field. And we’ve got to protect him better, it starts with us up front. So we got to get on the same page, I thought we were better today with our communication for the most part,” Roten told the media on September 26, 2021.
Fans and media analysts alike roasted Roten after the game for doing that.
Coach Reminisces About the Good Old Days
On Monday, August 17, head coach Aaron Glenn had an opportunity to reminisce about the old days when the Jets practiced at Hofstra.
“I have a good one for you. The Hofstra dorms, me, Webster Slaughter, and Wayne Chrebet playing dominoes until one o’clock in the morning for the most part because there was nothing else for us to do (laughs). Those are some times now. Just the dorms they had, and I did everything that I could to try to make it seem like it was my own apartment to where you’d take the doubles beds and put the beds together to make a king size bed, you bring a TV in, a color TV at that, and you try to make it as comfortable as you can,” Glenn said.
“I thought Hofstra did a hell of a job with how they handled the fields and how they handled everything. Those are memories there now, those are memories, but one o’clock in the morning playing dominoes, that was the deal,” Glenn told the media.
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