I'll say. He already has matched his career total in TDs...through 4 games. If only Gates would slow down, Keller could catch him.
As great a receiver as Dustin is we knew he would be solid maybe not this good. What has impressed me the most is his improvement in run blocking. There was one play yesterday in particular I remember seeing him laying someone out.
this quote is from draft day, 2008. this is also the guy who started this thread, how stupid does he look now????????? and for the record, i was in favor in the keller pick.
not as stupid, I suppose, as someone who doesn't realize that this thread was bumped by said thread starter to point out how wrong.
I'm never going to think that trading up into the 1st round for a TE was a good move. Just like I'm never going to rag on the Jets for drafting Gholston on the 6 pick. Sometimes the right move doesn't work out and at other times the wrong was does. It's kind of an 80/20 thing. All the tradeups that we've made have brought a very solid corps of players in at the core of the team. We've been very lucky in that regard. The odds on some of these guys turning into just average players were very high. The odds on some of them getting injured were very high. None of that has happened and so the tradeups look great. But we've paid a hidden price for all the tradeups also, which is that we're really short of developmental players who might be rounding into fairly cheap stars at this point. Knock on wood the Jets are among the healthiest teams in the league this year and we don't pay the price for putting all our eggs in one basket over and over again since 2007. If you look at the key players on this team this is where they came from: Free Agency: Damien Woody, LaDainian Tomlinson, Bart Scott, Jim Leonhard. Trades: Braylon Edwards, Santonio Holmes, Antonio Cromartie, *Mark Sanchez. 2010 Draft: Kyle Wilson 2009 Draft: Mark Sanchez, Shonn Greene, Matt Slauson 2008 Draft: Dustin Keller, Dwight Lowery 2007 Draft: Darrelle Revis, David Harris 2006 Draft: Nick Mangold, D'Brickashaw Ferguson, Eric Smith, Brad Smith 2005 Draft: NOBODY 2004 Draft: Jerrico Cotchery 2003 Draft: NOBODY 2002 Draft: Brian Thomas 2001 Draft: NOBODY 2000 Draft: Shaun Ellis That's like a blueprint for disaster. It's like the draft barely existed for the Jets prior to 2005, mainly because we kept trading up for the likes of Santana Moss and Dewayne Robertson and even when we traded backwards it was to effectively make a kicker our high pick for the year. So this time around we've gotten really lucky. We had a deep, deep draft in 2006 and pulled 4 major contributors out of it including 2 of the core 5 in Mangold and Ferguson. We got the guy in Cleveland to trade us the pick we got Sanchez on and we've avoided catastrophic injuries to anybody we made a major investment in. Then on top of that we were able to engineer a few more trades that look ludicrous on the face of them. Cromartie for a 2nd round pick is a steal. Holmes for a 5th rounder is highway robbery. In all of this note that the 2007 and 2008 drafts are close to wipeouts for us. We got two players out of each draft. If Darrelle Revis or Dustin Keller gets hurt they will be wipeouts for us.
Its risky but its working. The bright side is that there are UDFAs and FAs that have done very very well in this system. I think Rex will always be able to find the DeVitos of the world and groom them. You forgot Sione Pouha on the 05 squad, and Drew Coleman on 06 now that he's actually seeing the field for an extended period of time. Pouha is overlooked on this team and is why the run D is doing so well. The only way this philosophy continues to be successful is if Tanny keeps finding high profile players that can be taken for little value even though they are a character risk. Its only successful if they grab a top flight FA every year even though they are a final 8 team, or whatever the new CBA dictates. UDFAs have to come in and become starters in their 3rd or 4th years. Its a low percentage philosophy in terms of continued success. But the wildcard is Tannenbaum - he just gets it done.
There needs to be a new thread rule on drafted players, you can not call them a bust until their third season...
You're right on Pouha, I looked at Kerry Rhodes and the page went blank on me. I woke up staring at 2006... And you're right on Tannenbaum also. He's the high-wire artist in this whole act and as long as the fates are good to the Jets on the field with injuries he seems to be managing the rest. George Allen managed to spit in the face of convention for close to a decade with his personnel strategies. Interestingly he had a similar effect on his players that Rex Ryan seems to have on the Jets and his ex-players. Everybody wanted to come play for George if they got the chance.
