After the injury the money wasn't an issue for this year. Yeah, he still might have left after this year and we don't get the 5th round pick, I'd take that swap to have Leon on this team. You never have enough RBs, I think, plus everything else he brings. I mean it's over now, hopefully McKnight or whomever can fill the role and we don't need a 3rd RB, but Leon was already here, it's not like we were talking about breaking the bank to resign him. I just don't get people disparaging him just because he's gone, like I said I'd be saying the same things about Brad Smith if he were traded away for a low pick after everything he's proven on the field.
Leon was a kick returner, was the trigger man for our wildcat, and was a pass catching option out of the back feild. Most of that ahs been replaced by Brad Smith, not joe McKnight. Smith replaced both the kick returns and the wildcat trigger man. He's not as dynamic a return man, but is much better and more versitle in the wildcat. He can run for big plays and throw for big plays. Leon was never a QB and is npot a threat to thorw down feild out of the formation. Smith has the added bonus of playing on other special team squards in both punt and kickoff coverage. At times he's used in 4 wideout sets. For that one roster spot on the gameday 45 Smith brings much more to the team than Leon would. Leon has averaged 2.5 a carry this year. Outside of kick returns he brings almost nothing to the Seahawks, a team badly in need of playmakers. He would rarely see the feild on this Jets offense. Leon's first in the NFL at 40.4 yards a ko return, Smith is 4th at 29.8. People bemoaning the trade of little Leon need to have thier head checked because they do not have the best interest of the Jets as a whole first in their minds, or are severly lacking in understanding of how important the versatility of Smith is to our roster.
I love this thread. The team is showing 0 signs of missing Leon and Conner is lighting guys up every game. That pick "we could have easily acquired anyway" is worth any small contribution Leon might have had this year. We drafted a beast of a full back who will be here for another 10 years by giving up a kick returner we would have had for one more year. If Joe McKnight never does anything else in the NFL the Jets made out on this trade. I'm gonna go enjoy the 3-1 team that we have and laugh at anyone who continues to argue that the team misses Leon.
But there was no way to know how Leon would respond to the leg surgery. Our doctors didn't think that he'd fully recover, and we saw an opportunity to get at least a draft pick for him. We felt we could afford to trade him since we were already pretty solid at RB, and we ended up getting the best FB in the draft who can actually IMPROVE our running game even further. Having said that I still can't fathom how anyone can call what the Jets did a bad move. I can understand why junc is against it, he likes beating stupid arguments to death.
I agree with you. Seems we have so many guys that feel a need to bash McKnight, Slauson, Wilson and brag about Leon and Faneca. We are 3 and 1 without those two dynamic players. Lets see: In the yards from scrimmage: Leon is averaging 2.5 yards a carry and McKnight is at 3.0. I hate stats but found that amazing! I wish Leon and Faneca well except when they play the Jets. By the way Faneca has only allowed ONE sack prior to yesterdays game. BUT he has allowed 12 pressures. Slauson has allowed two sacks and ONE pressure all season. We had two one hundred yard rushers yesterday. What did Arizona do in rushing offense with the great Faneca?
julius jones was inactive this week so leon was seattles #2 back ... his numbers? one carry, one yard
The talent level of the team has increased quite a bit since Leon and Brad got here. At one point they were probably our two most dangerous weapons. Now Smith has been reduced to his proper role as wildcat quarterback and special teams ace. Leon's role on the team has been taken over by a number of players. Brad Smith on kick returns, LT on third down, LT as a pass catching option, Braylon Edwards and soon to be Santonio Holmes as the home run threats. Leon is a good talent that the Jets couldn't keep around because of the numbers game. The team had plenty of guys to do what Leon had done for us and all of those guys had the added bonus of not having a shattered leg.
I think it's worked out better than I expected because LT has been so good in the running game, making Greene almost a second option and virtually no need for a third....yet. We knew the ST's would be ok with Westhoff in charge, they were good before Leon, too. And as much as I was for keeping Leon, even I didn't think he'd be playing by Week 1, let alone taking kicks back to the house by Week 3 or whatever it was. So it's really worked out better than expected for everyone involved to this point. The issue to me is Leon, who we figured would take time to recover, vs McKnight, who we figured will take time to get it together. Luckily we've needed neither one so far because of LT, but as we get later into the year and someone gets dinged, I'd rather be relying on Leon in a big game than McKnight, considering we're mostly a veteran, win-now team. To me that's the crux of the argument, not average yards or whatever.
So you would put both on the 45 man roster? Leon is a decent kick returner who is not getting carries behind Greene and LT, and provides nothing else. Smith plays on most of the special teams squads, returns kicks and is one of the better ones in the league doing it, while providing a dynamic weapon in the wild cat. Keeping both means one less corner, linebacker, or TE for the kick coverage teams, less depth all around. Have we all really forgoten the 106 return from last year for Smith? Its not as if he is a slouch in the job. The front office did what they do best. The removed a player who was a noted malcontent when it came to his contract amd already had his replacement on the roster. The pick they added nabbed John Conner. We ADDED depth at full back where our only viable player was damn near 40 at one of the most violent positions in the NFL. For a power running team this was a win/win situation.
Our scouts obviously saw something in Joe McKnight, and figured he would be a great long term option especially learning from Ladanian for a year or two, and playing behind our great line. He's a project. If LT does get banged up sometime this season, McKnight will have to step up, and we'll know then and there how much potential the kid really has. So far I wouldn't trust Leon since he's done nothing for the Seahawks as far as their running game goes. Would he have faired better behind our offensive line? Possibly, but it's not looking good for him.
Absolutely, they are both dynamic, versatile players with different skill sets. And Smith is only returning kickoffs because Leon got hurt and is now gone. We lose him on a kickoff return it's going to put a big hole in our offense. Yeah, that means one less guy somewhere else, not a big deal. Regarding Conner, we could have gotten him without trading Leon, that just happened to be the pick we used. Rex saw him on a film while watching someone else, it's not like teams were lining up for the guy in the 5th round.
That's the thing. We shouldn't be relying on either one, and had Leon stayed, we wouldn't have been relying on him in a big game barring injury, in which case we'd be in trouble if either one had heavy carries. Personally, I wouldn't want to rely on him with how he's looked running the ball. The guy simply can't cut any more, and while he may regain some of his agility, he's not going to get it all back with that rod in his leg. Of course, what really made me in favor of trading Leon was when I realized we had zero chance of bringing him back after this season. I like Leon, but his contributions this year would have been absolutely minimal and we'd have lost him for nothing. Instead, we gained a couple of excellent potential contributors in the run game for the next few seasons. I would have been fine with it if McKnight hadn't come in until mid-season. Junc can dismiss him because he only had 4 carries. I choose to look at the fact that they trust him enough to be active as a good sign. I look at the fact that he's obviously contributing on ST (very nearly had a punt block) as an even better one. We lost a marginally better KR (and the argument that Leon automatically would have had KR TDs for us is absurd) than Brad Smith and a VERY questionably better RB that we didn't need for ONE season. We gained a dominant FB and got younger and healthier at RB. I wish Leon the best, I was excited to see his returns last week, but I'm glad we made the move we did.
I think it's more accurate to judge Leon on what he did here for our team over 3-1/2 years than four games in Seattle. I only point to his two KO returns because it indicates that the argument about his leg is a non-issue. Almost everyone sees the potential in McKnight, can't disagree with anything you said there. My point again is late in this year, with a division or a bye on the line and Greene or LT on the shelf for a week, I'd rather be putting Leon in there, a proven weapon, than a guy who is just as likely to put it on the ground as make a play. Two years from now hopefully you're right, maybe McKnight and Greene are an awesome 1-2 punch, who knows? Two years ago I never thought Leon would be on a different team, three years ago I never thought Vilma would be on a different team. That's why I think you worry about this year first.
So, by using your magic crystal ball you sure that Conner would have been around with our pick in the ...wait did we have another pick? Conner was our last taken that I remember. Playing the "what if" game is all nice, but its not reality. This team was not paying Leon and saw him as expendable, which he was. We added depth were needed and have easily repalced everything he brought to the table.
I'll ask you the same thing I asked junc (and which he never answered). What SPECIFICALLY would you have given up to get Conner and keep Leon? What, exactly, was worth having him for ONE season? And how do you know teams weren't lining up for the guy? And don't sell Smith short by suggesting he'd never return kicks without the injury. He was back with Leon in part as a lead blocker, and also because the team felt comfortable with him returning kicks as well. He hasn't been more than a slight step down from Leon. He's one of the best KOR in the game. Hell, he was BETTER than Leon in the same system last year? How do we know Smith wouldn't have returned those two KOs for TDs if he were in Seattle? Seems like just as rational of a hypothetical. The people pining for Leon are acting emotionally, not rationally. I should know, I was the same way at first. Rationally, we didn't lose much at all by trading him.
Then point to the way in which he's running the ball to indicate that his leg is very much an issue. Have you watched him play, or have you just seen the returns? He can't cut. He's not the Leon we knew running the ball.
A 5th round pick isn't that hard to get, you don't need to trade one of your best players for it. Who knows if Conner was on anyone's radar? It was a pick they let Rex make because he saw him while scouting someone else. We can debate this all day, nobody will win because we'll never know.
We didn't trade one of our best players. We traded an injured back who used to be one of our most explosive players rather than let him rehab for the year on our roster and then get out of town.
