FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — Most days at New York Jets practice, Allen Lazard can be spotted playing with a soccer ball during warmups and in between some drills. Throughout his career, he’s done it on game day, too. When some Jets fans saw that on X last week, Lazard playing with a soccer ball, many reacted with anger — not knowing this is something Lazard has done since his days with the Green Bay Packers, where he did it to clear his mind and focus on the task at hand.

The issue isn’t what Lazard is doing with the soccer ball.

It’s what he’s not doing with a football. That is: catching it.

Lazard has the worst drop rate (20 percent) of 96 wide receivers with at least 25 targets this season, according to Pro Football Focus, and other metrics don’t paint his performance in an amazing light either. Lazard has undoubtedly been a massive disappointment for a struggling Jets offense this season in desperate need of production at wide receiver outside of star Garrett Wilson, who leads the Jets with 64 catches, 695 yards and three touchdowns — despite not getting much help.

In recent weeks, wide receivers coach Zach Azzanni said he’s challenged the players in his room to emerge as the No. 2 receiver opposite Wilson.

“I’ve been doing that and nobody’s taken the bait just yet,” Azzanni said. “Hopefully someone steps up and is that guy and Garrett doesn’t need to press and be the only guy. He needs to do his job and we all need to follow suit and see if we can find someone to take that slack a little bit.”

That statement doesn’t reflect kindly on the $44 million elephant in the room: Lazard has not lived up to the contract he signed this offseason, the richest of any free-agent wide receiver. In fact, at this rate, Lazard could go down as one of the worst free-agent signings in franchise history, on par with the likes of cornerback Trumaine Johnson.

He was a healthy scratch for last week’s game against the Miami Dolphins in favor of two undrafted rookies (Jason Brownlee, Xavier Gipson), a special teams player (Irv Charles) and Randall Cobb, who had been a healthy scratch for weeks before that. It was coach Robert Saleh’s decision to bench Lazard, calling it a “challenge” after the game for Lazard to “recapture the edge and who he is and the person that we have a lot of faith in. He’s a good football player. I do believe that.”

“He hasn’t been playing up to his standard,” Saleh said.

Azzanni echoed a similar sentiment.

“I hope he responds positively. I’m sure he didn’t like that,” Azzanni said. “Sometimes when guys aren’t playing well that happens. We’ll see how he responds. I expect him to respond great. He’s a good player. We’ll see how he responds.”

Lazard wasn’t as willing to talk about his struggles, saying he was “caught off guard” by the decision to get benched last week. He’s expected to be active this week, per Saleh, though it’s unclear how much he’ll play.

“It is what it is. You gotta continue working to get better and improving,” Lazard said.

Asked specifically about his struggles, Lazard said: “I think everyone would agree that we haven’t reached our expectations or our goals as individuals and collectively as a group and there’s always room for improvement.”

Despite his contract, it would be hard to argue with Saleh’s decision to bench Lazard based on his overall production this season — which ranks near the bottom of the league in most areas among starting wideouts.

PFF has him graded 90th of 100 wide receivers with at least 25 targets. There are 69 receivers with at least 40 targets, and Lazard ranks 65th in yards (290) and 66th in yards per route run (0.84). He only has 20 catches. Lazard is a bigger receiver (6-foot-4) yet he’s only caught 25 percent of his targets in traffic, per PFF, which ranks 60th. He had at least one drop in four straight games from Week 5 to Week 9, and he’s had a few costly penalties this season too — including an illegal shift penalty in Week 9 against the Los Angeles Chargers that helped turned a 16-yard gain into a three-and-out, and a false start in the red zone in Week 5 against the Denver Broncos that helped force the Jets into a field goal. He has the worst catch percentage (48.8 percent) of all 69 wide receivers to run at least 300 routes.

“It could be numerous things,” Lazard said. “Individually, collectively, it’s a team sport. I would like to think football is the most team sport there is. There’s so much that has to happen for individuals to be successful and for the group to be successful. There’s a lot of things that me as an individual can improve on and collectively as a group we can improve on as well.”

Clearly, Lazard and quarterback Zach Wilson were never on the same page. But it’s not as if Lazard is doing a great job of getting open — and he’s dropped passes at a greater rate than anyone who plays as much as him, too. According to ESPN’s tracking metrics, Lazard ranks 117th of 120 wide receivers and tight ends with at least 28 targets in open score, which quantifies how often a receiver gets open. Garrett Wilson ranks fourth.

Lazard signed with the Jets with an eye toward reuniting with Aaron Rodgers after a successful partnership in Green Bay, though the Jets were interested in signing Lazard as far back as the NFL combine in February before it was clear that Rodgers would be a Jet. Internally, the team viewed Lazard as a better version of Corey Davis — who has since retired — but instead he’s been much worse through 12 weeks.

Lazard may or may not get a chance to play with Rodgers this season, but maybe playing with another former Packers teammate will help get him on track: Tim Boyle, the current starter, spent a lot of time with Lazard early in their Green Bay careers, both joining the team as undrafted rookies in 2018.

“Tim is a big reason why I’m here today,” Lazard said. “I have deep, strong relationship with Tim and a lot of love for him. That’s why I was hurt even more not being able to be out there last week, knowing he’s been waiting for his opportunity. Not being able to be out there and help him hurt me a little bit.”

Boyle believes he can help Lazard get back to playing the way he did in Green Bay, too.

“Allen’s a competitor and I know he’s feeling it,” Boyle said. “I have all the trust in the world for Allen. He’s going to go out and do what he can for us and himself. Obviously he wants to compete against other teams, but he wants to compete with himself. He wants to get touchdowns and get yards after the catch and it’s my job to give him the opportunity to do that.”

But will Lazard get the opportunity to bounce back? The Jets seem pretty intent on giving young players like Brownlee and Gipson more playing time, experience that should help them as the Jets try to rebuild one of the league’s worst offenses with an eye toward next season. Brownlee in particular seems to have taken over Lazard’s role in the offense, or he at least did last week and to a degree in Week 11 against the Buffalo Bills.

Brownlee hasn’t done much with his extra snaps yet — two catches for 20 yards on 58 routes run the last two weeks — but Azzanni said he’s working through growing pains as a “raw” undrafted rookie getting his first real NFL action. He made waves in training camp with an Odell Beckham Jr.-esque one-handed catch but wasn’t particularly productive in the preseason either.

“He’s super raw and he’s getting better and proving his technique and fundamentals,” Azzanni said. “He’s a great kid, super conscientious, he takes coaching, he’s got a lot of ability, he’s a talented kid. The arrow is up, he’s only going to keep getting better.”

Azzanni acknowledged that “there’s gonna be some mistakes with rookies. But we want to see a style of play, we want to see a certain edge, we want to see the way we do things.” So what does it say about Lazard that the Jets would rather go through their lumps with an undrafted rookie rather than the veteran they handed a four-year, $44 million deal this offseason?

In Saleh’s comments after the Dolphins game, he pointed out that Lazard was still part of their plans and that he would “be here for the next year and a half.” A slip of the tongue, maybe. But the harsh reality: Lazard won’t have a long future in New York if his performance doesn’t improve, Rodgers or not.

“I approach every week the same,” Lazard said. “I don’t look at any opponent or guys I go against or what happened last week to deter me from how I approach the week. Once the game happens and the plays get called that’s when I gotta go make the play.”

(Top photo: Bryan Bennett / Getty Images)

“The Football 100,” the definitive ranking of the NFL’s best 100 players of all time, is on sale now. Order it here.