Top free agents for next season

Im still mad we paid Holmes that much, could have gotten Edwards for half the price and could have saved 25 million.

 

I think we need to be thinking about signing seasoned players at the safety position. Only very good safety I see in the Draft is Mark Barron and no guarantee we can get him. So in other words, we need someone like: Michael Griffin, LaRon Landry or Branch (prob not). If we could get both Griffin AND Landry our secondary would unstoppable.

 

I agree that signing a safety should our top priority this FA (maybe aside from a RT) especially since this FA has a lot of talent at the safety position... but signing Griffin and Landry is close to impossible.

Plus, Signing one of them and then a RT would be best for the whole team.

 

Its all hindsight. I mean at the time, it was the smarter move, at least in the opinions of the majority, being that Edwards wanted the same amount as Holmes (which neither deserved) and Holmes was a “gamechanger” and all that... but I do wish we somehow came out with both though.

Whats done is done, we just gotta hope the offense can still be salvaged.

We can probably sign Edwards dirt cheap and draft a WR in the middle rounds and I would say our WR is pretty nice considering we are still a “ground and pound” team.

 

Cliff Avril - How Much? OLB?

Tyvone Branch - 5yr 20mil? I am just guessing, and can't find any assumptions online.

Kendall Langford - 3yrs 2.5mil? I would love to sign him for rotation, but would not pay him too much.

Calais Campbell - 5yrs 30Mil? He will be franchised, or signed long term so its a moot point. My dream player in Free agency though.

Carl Nicks - 7yrs 50/55mil is probably be too steep.

I would be interested in if I am close on these contracts, but Avril could be exciting in green and white. I could be a little bias, I wanted the top 4 players in their respective drafts.

 

I would definitely love to see the Jets go after Kendall Langford. If they can set up Wilkerson-Pouha/Ellis-Langford as the 3 starting DL, that would be pretty strong against both run and pass. Then, with Dunbar coaching the DL, the defense as a whole will perform that much better. Jets brass can concentrate on drafting OLBs and safeties in the draft in that case. If either Griffin or Branch tags along, (which I doubt, by the way) then Jets can draft OLBs in 1st 2 rounds and get Barron with 3rd or 4th. (He is injured - can't be too high on anybody's board by now.)

 

Laurent Robinson wouldn't be too expensive and specializes in downfield separation. Besides Braylon or drafting WR this could be a possibility

 

Our offense is the weakness of our team don't you think we should address that in free agency and the draft not just focus on D.

 

What the hell are you talking about? Both offense AND defense have huge gaping holes all over. The lack of overall speed on defense is way too glaring to do anything before addressing that. Only a blind man can miss such a weakness. Ok?

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Tannenbaum has been fucking things up rather royally as of late. The lack of depth along the offensive line is much too salient to miss - Jets were extremely lucky past two seasons when it comes to injury along the offensive line. So... what does Tannenbaum do? He reaches for a project on OL - would have been Ok, if that pick was drafted about GOOD FUCKING THREE YEARS AGO. Jets were running on 4 and half men up front, instead of full five - which made their weakness look much worse than they actually are. Also, they struck gold in Slauson - this cannot be emphasized enough. So... instead of spending a low round pick on OL regularly, Jets front office spent a grand total of TWO picks, especially when the line was aging (Faneca was let go; Woody was let go; Moore's time is coming up soon.)

The talent along the defensive front seven is so much worse than any other department on the Jets roster, which is why it should get the primary look this year. With a passing league that is NFL, if you cannot apply sufficient pressure with 4 or 5 men rushes, you won't survive this season. Jets front SEVEN does not apply any pressure, much less with 4 or 5.

 

I certainly agree with your points on the OL, and that despite its statistical ranking the D needs a speed upgrade. But I think you end up being too hard on the DL by lumping it in with the front seven's responsibility to rush the passer.

In a 3-4 D it is not the direct responsibility of the linemen to be tackling the Qb.

This past season, Thomas's injury had the indirect effect of forcing the Jets to use Pace more to seal the edge in the run D. Pace of course came to the Jets with the hope he would be a great pass rusher. But first he was unavailable, then had nagging injuries, and this past season had to change his role when Thomas went out. Maybin was effective in spots rushing the passer, but the CS didn't want to leave him on the field too much because he does not have a well rounded game. I like Westerman, but not so much as a starter.

Now I do agree with you it is very important that the Jets upgrade their front seven, despite the holes that also need filling on the O. But I think if Pouha can be brought back, the focus then shifts to OLB, and an infusion of speed and youth there should do wonders for the front seven.

Pace will be back, in any event. One more piece, ROLB, and this front seven will be much improved, imo.

 

I think there are some pretty big questions with the sub package defense. When teams want to spread them out, who can be relied upon to provide pressure? Do you feel comfortable asking Bart Scott to cover the middle of the field, or man up against a RB or TE?

 

Well they took Bart Scott out off the field on most 3rd downs actually. I don't remember who they would sub in or the packages, but Scott would be off the field whenever the field was spread.

 

I think we need to keep some things in perspective.

The Jets are not going to be active in giving out big contracts to attract free agents this year.

In the last two years we signed several core players to large multi year deals and guaranteed contracts of older players to shave a couple million of the cap last year.

You want to go nuts in 2013 or 2014 be my guest but this year our hands are tied.

Is Mario Williams (or Peyton Manning) a special player? yes
Is he worth the money he is going to get? probably yes
Is there any way the Jets should sign him? no, we made our bed last year and this was part of the deal we made

Once we got rid of Sean Ellis and Damian Woody the Jets ceased to be a win now team. Sure, Calvin Pace and Bart Scott are getting older but Revis, Mangold, Harris etc. aren't going anywhere. We would really be better off filling our largest holes in an orderly manner (mostly through the draft) over the next 2-3 years in preparation for our next big run at the SB instead of going into cap hell to win it all next year.

Instead of chasing the current names in free agnecy we should wait to see where the free agents go and see who gets cut to make room. Those cheaper players that become expendable are the bargains that will help our team without costing us a ridiculous contract and our future cap space.

Instead of committing our first round pick to a pass rusher or right tackle because we need that position to win now, let's take the best player available and use next year's # 1 to fill the hole that is left instead of passing up a worldbeater to reach for a perceived need. We have lots of holes to fill and we can't use #1 picks and $10 mil per year contracts to fix all of our problems.

 

@James Hasty

All excellent points but I'm not sure that the current management structure is capable of a sustained build. With the exception of 2000 and 2006 the Jets have been in constant trade-up mode most years. They don't really have a BPA philosophy in house and that traces all the way back to Bradway's first season in 2001 when the first move he made in the draft was to trade up for Santonio Moss.

I really think it is going to take a major collapse followed by a complete organizational house-cleaning to get the Jets to the place they need to go.

I can see 7 to 11 win seasons out as far as the eye can see, leaning towards 9 or so, until the gambler comes to ruin and they collapse again into a 4-12 mess.

 

Good post, but no one said anything about reaching. When a draft is loaded with excellent players at a position or positions, one doesn't have to "reach" to take one. This draft is amazingly strong and deep at both OLB and WR. The Jets should double dip at both positions. They don't have to over draft anyone. They can trade down if need be to make sure they don't over draft a player. There are generally good WRs in every draft, but there probably won't be another one like this any time soon with so many good, tall, fast WR prospects. Last year was the first year in I don't know how long that there were a number of really good OLB prospects. This year is even better. God only knows how long it will be before the Jets will have the opportunity to address their gaping holes at OLB. With Thomas gone and Pace set to be gone next year, they need to find and develop both starters this year. Pace can help mentor them this year. The bottom line is that if the Jets don't come out of this draft with two very good OLB prospects, then Tanny and the entire scouting dept. should be fired if not fired upon.

 

The Jets should forget about Manning and sign Forte and Mike Wallace from Pitt.. They could probably sign both of them for the price they would have to pay Manning.. Either that or Benson\Wallace

 

Oh no. I know what I am talking about. You should have been reading my posts a bit more carefully.

Of course the linemen in 3-4 are not necessarily asked to go after the QB except when they are in Bum Phillips 3-4 system; you can rest assured. Ryan does not run that.

So what are the DL asked to do then? They are asked to 1. absorb the blockers by taking on double teams and 2. via the virtue of #1, they MUST create pass rushing lane. This is where the problem kicks in. Jets DL does not create any sort of lane for the rushers to charge in free. Now add in the fact that Jets LBs are pitifully slow, and then there we have it. This mega clusterfuck Jets call BLITZ.

So the problem in the front seven are two fold:

1. DLs are not doing their job right.
2. LBs are slower than snails.

More specifically, Harris is the only LB that can do decent job in pass coverage. Pace failed. (If you forgot already, the likes of fucking Benjamin Watson burned him on a regular basis for crying out loud.) So did Scott.

And Jets cannot take Scott out and have speedier ILB because Pouha does not protect the ILBs like any NT in 3-4 should do - Scott has to blow up the blocking OL.

As you see, the whole mess is so intertwined that you just cannot separate any of these elements and fix it. If you want to fix it, you have to do it by the whole department, not by piece meal treatment.

Pace and Scott are going out - I suspect they will be cut by the end of 2012 season. Jets need to bring in a lot of LBs this off season.