Thanks Kurt. So if Ingram is gone (been saying Jax might take him at 7), who do you think is the best play at 16? Barron? Floyd?
You got to like a guy nicknamed the "Hammer". If he is there in the 2nd and thats if we don't go OLB in the first. The one player no one is talking about is Hightower. He could possibly fill two position OLB and replace Scott next year next to Harris. The other guy who is rising is Chandler from Syracuse. What I hope doesn't happen is drafting Floyd or Coples.
The board could really fall alot of different ways.It's extremely hard to predict.The jets need explosion above all else. You make a list of all the explosive guys in this draft & hope one worthy of the spot is there at 16. What if all the explosive talent is gone? You can still get a good football player with this draft class they just might not have the dynamic component the jets desperately need.In which case, maybe you move down a few spots & take the best player available.
As an example on this: Dont'a Hightower is a very high impact player for a 3-4 but he's in the middle and he isn't going to be a big pass rusher in all likelihood. If the choice is between getting a productive OLB who is not going to be a big star on the 16 or trading down a few slots and getting a high impact ILB the Jets should probably do the latter. Dont'a Hightower is a 6'2" 265 lb ILB. That's huge for the position and he could well be a trend-setter moving forward with people looking for a big guy in the middle. It'd be nice to get the guy who set the trend instead of trying to find another one like him in the draft over the next few years.
Right now if one of Trent Richardson/Michael Floyd/Melvin Ingram/David DeCastro is available I'm fine with any of them If not then Dont'a Hightower/Mark Barron/Nick Perry/Chandler Jones/Shea McClellin one of those would suffice I guess
We have a much better chance of trading down if Coples or Floyd are available at 16. If Coples I think we have a couple potential partners with the Bears and Titans to jump ahead of Cinci. I think Floyd would give us even more options and would target Cleveland. Either way if trading down or not I would target Hightower in the 1st and Curry in the 2nd.
Hightower and Curry would be a great draft early on. Then get a WR a G and maybe a S later on and the Jets would have repaired a lot of the holes on the depth chart. I still think the personnel department is not up to the task of filling 5 holes in one draft even with 10 picks. They just don't click on picks late. One of the reasons that Parcells kept the Jets on track during his time with them despite generally iffy drafting is that he found Jason Ferguson in the 7th round in 1997. That pick gave him the Jet's NT for 6 seasons and a guy who played the nose well for a decade in the NFL. He found Ryan Young in the 7th in 1999 and Young looked good enough that the Jets were able to get out of the cap-bind that the go-for-broke left them in. In 11 years of drafting since Parcells left town the Jets haven't found a single starting caliber player in the 7th round. The personnel department is doing something fundamentally wrong if none of the 7th rounders have play in them.
I think Derrick Ward and Stuckey have been their best 7th rounders in recent memory. I guess they can be considered fringe starters or at least contributers. That being said, it's really hard to find starters in the 7th. Sure it happens, but not very often. Guys like Houshmanzadeh and Keisel and Banta-Cain are rare. For me, finding a starter from rounds 3-5 are the key. Theses are the players that can make or break a team's draft.
Scotty McKnight = Larry Fitzgerald 2.0 ... But yeah, I agree. If we can find starters in the 3rd-5th round range, the scouting department is doing a solid job. Finding a starter in the 7th round is extremely rare, and at that point its a crap shoot. Finding that diamond in the rough is not really on the scouting department either because they never envisioned that player turning into a starter, otherwise he wouldve been picked earlier.
