Jets Release Nick Mangold

After 11 seasons, it appears Nick Mangold‘s time with the Jets will come to an end. The team is expected to release its longtime center, per Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk (on Twitter). Mangold confirmed the move is coming on his own Twitter account, with the Jets doing so soon after.

Mangold played in a career-low eight games last season due to injury and will enter his age-33 season in 2017. The former first-round pick was set to account for $9.075MM of the Jets’ salary cap, and since no guaranteed money remains on his deal, the team can clear that entire amount from its payroll. This was to be the final season of Mangold’s seven-year Jets pact signed in 2011.

The Jets entered this week as one of the most cap-strapped teams in the league, but cuts of Breno Giacomini, Nick Folk and the forthcoming Mangold release will increase their projected cap space to more than $16MM.

Previously, a possible pay cut hovered on the horizon for Mangold, but the sides are going to instead part ways before free agency. He’s expected to have suitors, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com tweets. Wesley Johnson is expected to inherit the veteran’s job after making eight starts last season after Mangold’s injury, although the 26-year-old is a restricted free agent.

This continued major upheaval for Gang Green’s offensive front and marks the second consecutive offseason the team will see its longest-tenured player depart. D’Brickashaw Ferguson retired last April. His replacement, Ryan Clady, is now a free agent, joining Giacomini. Mangold’s cut will further deprive the team of experience up front but create space for the Jets to pursue younger additions to that group and elsewhere. Of the players that opened the 2016 season as starters for Gang Green up front, only guards Brian Winters and James Carpenter remain on the roster.

With the releases of Clady, Giacomini, Folk and Mangold, the Jets have now cleared $26.575MM off their 2017 cap, Darryl Slater of NJ.com tweets.

A two-time All-Pro and seven-time Pro Bowler, Mangold started all 164 games in which he played for the Jets. Mangold’s tweet appears to indicate he plans to keep playing, and he would be an attractive commodity for some teams, assuming he can recover sufficiently from the ankle injury that ended his season.

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