Jets agree with cornerback Isaiah Oliver on a one year contract

The veteran has experience playing for Jeff Ulbrich.

The Jets are signing veteran cornerback Isaiah Oliver to a one year contract per Mike Garofalo.

Oliver was a second round Draft pick out of Colorado by the Falcons in 2018. He spent his first five seasons in Atlanta prior to moving to the 49ers a year ago. The Niners cut him over one season. Over the last few years he has primarily lined up in the slot.

Here is what Niners Nation had to say about his one year stint in San Francisco after his release by the team a few weeks back.

The San Francisco 49ers announced they released cornerback Isaiah Oliver on Friday afternoon. Oliver, who had one year remaining on his contract, struggled to adjust to the Niners style of play. Plus, in coverage, he wasn’t as fleet of foot as the team had hoped.

He finished the season with a 78.6 percent completion percentage allowed, per Sports Info Solutions. He lost his starting job after the bye week, and, not coincidentally, the passing defense took off after.

The team took a gamble on a player a year removed from an ACL injury. In theory, Oliver’s athleticism was supposed to return in 2023. But it was evident he was never going to be the same player that initially led him to become a second-round pick in 2018.

That doesn’t sound too promising. How did he play in Atlanta? Here is what The Falcoholic said about him two years ago.

The Falcons moved Oliver into starting nickel corner role in Week 5 of the 2020 season – Dan Quinn’s final game. Raheem Morris kept Oliver in the slot, despite his bigger-than-normal size for that role. Fairly quickly, it resulted in an uptick in his production as a tackler. Oliver went from missing 14.8 percent of his tackles in the first four games to 10.2 percent after moving inside. His length and closing speed suit him well near the line of scrimmage, and he is a very intelligent player who can handle scheme versatility.

That is where this gets interesting for Atlanta because Oliver’s future seemingly depended on his performance in Dean Pees’s system this season. Oliver once again manned the slot, where he held his own in coverage and moonlighted as a blitzer. In Week 3 against the New York Giants, Oliver played the best game of his career, according to Pro Football Focus, which gave him an elite 90.2 grade. Oliver forced and recovered a fumble in that game while also breaking up two passes and registering a hit on the quarterback.

This is notable because Dan Quinn’s final game coincided with Jeff Ulbrich becoming Falcons defensive coordinator. Ulbrich is now Jets defensive coordinator.

It would seem that his ability to bounce back from that ACL injury one more year removed from it might dictate his value to the Jets. He figures to be Michael Carter II’s backup in the slot. Given his size and skillset, and the Jets defensive coaches’ propensity to play guys from the secondary in hybrid linebacker roles, one might wonder whether he could carve out some playing time against teams that utilize multiple tight ends.

Or more likely this all is overthinking things, and Oliver will be a relatively inconsequential depth signing.