Defensive end Carl Lawson would be with the New York Jets “as long as he can walk,” coach Robert Saleh said during the offseason. But the former Auburn standout’s reduced playing time in 2023 and history of pass-rush production have tagged him as a candidate to be on the move with the NFL trade deadline approaching at 3 p.m. CDT Tuesday.

Lawson started every game and played 663 defensive snaps for the Jets last season. In 2023, he has played in four of New York’s six games and been on the field for 73 snaps.

Lawson doesn’t want to rock the boat, but he does want to play.

“I’ve always wanted to help the Jets win,” Lawson said on Thursday. “I’ve always wanted to be the best version of myself for the team. But at the end of the day, I do want to be a football player, I do want to produce and I do want to help, because I’m a football player, not a cheerleader, so that’s kind of where my head is at with that.”

Lawson appeared a likely salary-cap casualty in the offseason as he approached the final season of a three-year, $45 million contract. With none of his remaining money guaranteed, Lawson could have been cut and taken $15 million off New York’s 2023 obligations.

Saleh spoke out against that in April.

“You know, pass-rushers, they don’t grow on trees,” Saleh said, “and Carl has a commodity in this league that’s gold, so he will be here as long as he can walk and play and rush the passer and affect it the way he does. He’ll be here.”

Still, it took a contract adjustment for the Jets to keep Lawson. In May, Lawson signed a renegotiated one-year deal for $9.08 million that reduced his 2023 salary-cap number from $15.333 million to $3.013 million.

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Now it appears Lawson’s career in New York is at another crossroads.

“A lot of stuff is out there, and you kind of do what you want with it,” Lawson said about the trade deadline. “If stuff happens, it happens.”

One of the reasons for Lawson’s downturn in playing time in 2023 is the continued emergence of Bryce Huff as a situational pass-rusher. A Mobile high school standout at St. Paul’s Episcopal, Huff produced 3.5 sacks and 10 quarterback hits during 191 defensive snaps in the 2022 season.

The Jets put a second-round tender on Huff in the offseason to keep him from leaving as a restricted free agent. He’s played 147 defensive snaps and produced 2.5 sacks and eight quarterback hits in 2023.

With 2022 first-round draft pick Jermaine Johnson moving into the starting spot that he held last season, Lawson has seemed like the odd man out among New York’s pass-rushers, and he doesn’t have a sack or a quarterback hit this season.

“I definitely feel like I can contribute a lot more,” Lawson said. “I can do a lot of things I did last year. I was very productive. I think I was top 10 on third-down pressures last year. I put up seven sacks off a double Achilles last year, and I feel like I could definitely contribute more. And I’m that type of player and I know what I can do.

“Any football player wants to contribute more. Any football player wants to have all the snaps. But currently that’s not the case, and I’m going to continue to work and get better each and every single day.”

After joining the Bengals from Auburn as a fourth-round choice in the 2017 NFL Draft, Lawson led the NFL’s first-year players with 8.5 sacks and made the Professional Football Writers of America’s All-Rookie team. Over the next two seasons, Lawson missed 13 games with injuries and totaled six sacks.

In his fourth season, Lawson recorded 5.5 sacks and ranked second in the NFL with 32 quarterback hits in 2020. That landed Lawson a three-year, $45 contract with the Jets as an unrestricted free agent.

But before he played a game for New York, Lawson suffered a torn Achilles tendon during a joint training-camp practice with the Green Bay Packers on Aug. 19, and the injury sidelined him for the 2021 NFL season.

In 2022, Lawson returned to record seven sacks and 24 quarterback hits.

“I want to play,” Lawson said. “I want to produce. I want to go out there and ball out and be a football player. That’s the most important thing to me.”

The Jets play the New York Giants at noon CDT Sunday at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The Jets (3-3) will be the visiting team on the field that they share with the Giants (2-5).

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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.