I respect your opinion. But I have been hearing about this "upside" for years with the past regime about their late round projects like Jones. Did you watch him play RT last year? At LT he was far from consistent, I was much more pleased with Moore last year (and consider him our most consistent presence on the Oline). You are undervaluing the importance of the LT position. Ask anyone who has ever played QB if they would rather have a stud LT protecting their blindside or a really good TE, see what they say. I want more than a "solid" (which I don't think Jones will ever be) player at LT. I want a potential pro-bowl caliber player that will keep the QB off his back and keep them off the IR (see last year).
No my opinion is not the only credible one. But our "solid" guys did NOT get our quarterback killed when we were successfull. Look at the Jets lines in 1998 when we went to the AFC Championship. Look at the line in the recent playoff runs. How many 1st round picks were on those lines? None. The reason our line got our QB killed in 2005 is because everyone was hurt. We had Gragg in there, for God's sake. I think its narrow minded to suggest that if we draft D-Brick, then, like Pace and Ogden, we'll soon have Superbowl rings. Do you think that perhaps, maybe, by some crazy chance, that the Raven's defense had anything to do with their Superbowl victory?
the only reason i would not draft him so early is because high draft picks are widly overpaid if we are going to overpay a high draft pick it should be at a position like QB or RB
I also respect your opinion. Having a stud, pro bowl LT would be a great thing for any team in this league, but let's not be so fast to say D'Brick is a guaranteed lock superstar LT. There have been plenty of top 10 OL busts in recent drafts as stated by previous posters. D'Brick has also been singled out as being an average run blocker. He is not the ONLY solution for keeping our QB off of IR. Like I said before, let's take a potential superstar MVP type player with our valuable #4 pick, and work on the OL with our 2nd, 3rd, 4th round picks and through free agency.
Tell you what rings bells for me...... Marvin Powell 4th pick in '78 and Chris Ward 1st round in '79.
