The trade that was supposed to bring competition at right tackle has instead made Wayne Hunter more entrenched as starter.
General manager Mike Tannenbaum announced last week’s trade with Carolina for Jeff Otah was void after the player failed his physical for the second time in a week.
“Jeff gave us a really good week,” Tannenbaum said. “He did everything we asked for the past week and the terms of the trade weren’t met.”
The deal was made to push Hunter, who struggled last year during his first season as a starter and per the terms of the deal, Otah had one week to pass his physical. He spent the first four days of training camp working on conditioning and did not participate in team drills.
Last week, the much-maligned Hunter told Metro that he anticipated the Jets would bring in competition to battle him at right tackle and he was surprised it didn’t happen sooner in the offseason. Despite bringing Otah in for a training camp battle, Tannenbaum said that it wasn’t an indictment on Hunter.
Yet his statements on the right tackle position were far from an endorsement of Hunter.
“Yeah, he’s done well. We have other guys that are on the team that are competing,” Tannenbaum said of Hunter. “Austin Howard I think, has had a couple of good days. We’re always going to look to improve the team. If we’re having this conversation a month from now, there’ll be players on the team that aren’t here regardless of whether maybe being on the streets or with another team.”
Follow Jets beat writer Kristian Dyer on Twitter @KristianRDyer for live updates from Cortland.
