This just reminds me that we should've made a move for Warford in the 3rd instead of drafting three successive inferior lineman. It's one thing not to move up in the first or early 2nd because of the cost but it isn't a big deal to give up one mid round pick to add a clear day one starter in a position of need. Our needs would be way more manageable for the next couple years if we added him.
This is the kind of thinking that's gotten the Jets where they are right now. There's no such thing as a sure thing in a league where players have less than a 3 year career on average. It's easy to say in hindsight that the Jets should have moved up for x or y and would be much better now if they had. The thing is, that's hindsight. Things like injuries in camp and early games are already behind us and cannot occur in hindsight. You have to use your picks. All of them. Giving up one or two a year leaves you thin and untalented across the board which is where the Jets are right now. No safeties worth much moving forward. The outside linebackers are a mess. The wide receivers are junk. Solidifying one guard spot isn't worth trying to solve multiple problems in the draft. Warford is better than anybody the Jets have playing guard right now. However no matter how good he is he will never be able to play both LG and RG at the same time for the Jets and between Winters, Aboushi and Campbell they at least have that possibility down the road. Put another way, would you rather have Warford at guard or Winters and a young Brandon Moore trying to make the transition from the DL? BTW, the money ball in the NFL is really easy to decipher. It's not about superstars except at QB. It's about assembling a group of cheap good players against the cap that make the superstar QB a winner.
You criticized me for bringing up expert opinions when I mentioned that the Dolphins were widely viewed as a 5 win or fewer team last year...so why do their opinions matter now?
I know what you're saying generally but picking 3 straight guards negates the logic in this situation imo. It's extremely unlikely we end up with 2 starting plus players from those 3 picks, both now and at the time of drafting. Looking at Warford's play my read and the general consensus was that it would be very surprising if he didn't turn out to be a good starting guard barring injury which of course can happen to any player including the ones we wound up drafting. This team needs a few more quality starters to shore up the roster so that you're only left with a couple of below average players starting rather than 6 or 7 and Warford would've been a big piece in that puzzle. Taking 3 straight picks like that reeks of fishing for one quality starter when we could've easily converted the second pick into a likely plus player and still taken the same gamble on another guard with the remaining third pick. If we do wind up with two starters from those three picks chances are it will be one average and one below average player which is no more useful than just one average player. Hindsight is 20/20 of course but I was really looking for us to make a move for Warford as he slid into the third when it happened so there was substance to the idea at the time.
If we really wanted to solidify the offensive line, we should of drafted for the trenches in the first round in getting Warmack instead of a cornerback. People hated my draft philosophy regarding this, but look at the talent available rater in the draft when the Jets drafted guards. Terrance Williams (WR - Cowboys) Keenan Allen (WR - Chargers) Damontre Moore (DE - Giants) Johnathan Franklin (RB - Packers) Andre Ellington (RB - Cardinals) Instead of taking 3 guards, they could of taken two [Warmack, Oday Aboushi] and grabbed one of those skill position players listed above with the 3rd rounder. Keenan Allen is becoming the #1 for the Chargers, Terrance Williams is knocking Miles Austin off the depth chart. Just no major skill position players drafted - we've been saying we need weapons for years now. I know Millner was the BPA, but I think you have to mix in some need as well as the prospect's durability when considering a player in the draft. Oh and since we needed a CB, we could of thrown a cheap 1 yr contract at Brent Grimes in the off-season.
The Jets have drafted exactly ONE wide receiver before the 4th round in the past eleven years. Think about that. The NFL has trended towards a passing league for the past decade. Eleven years = 1 WR before the fourth round. And that guy was an admitted "project".
We're more likely to have a quality guard playing in 3 years time with Winters, Aboushi and Campbell than with Warford. You can't ignore the injury possibility for Warford and if he goes down then his pick's value is negligible. Similarly any of the Jets picks could improve or fail over time. With Warford it's a binary thing: if he improves then everything is golden but if he fails to improve then at the cost of 3 picks he is a disaster. See Shonn Greene for the effects on that one. I know it's hard to see the math involved because none of the Jets picks look as good as Warford but the fact that they made 3 picks gives them more long-term value, flexibility and potential than trading the picks up to get Warford. Imagine that the Jets had taken 3 RB's with the picks they invested in Shonn Greene. What would the odds have been that they had a good RB today out of that sequence? How about the chances that they had two RB's?
I believe the reason the Jets went for 3 OG's late was that they had no OG's on the roster that they had confidence in as more than a stopgap solution. If you cluster resources around a problem you greatly increase the chances of fixing that problem. It appears as though the Jets did their best to build from the ball out early in the rebuild and to get the maximum bang for their buck at OG in the process. You don't want a first round guard. That leads to spending too much money at the position which cripples your ability to spend at other higher impact positions. Ideally what you want is a couple of mid to late round picks playing well at OG. That's where you get tremendous bang for your buck as the Jets did with Brandon Moore for a decade. Draft Randy Thomas and you wind up watching him leave town because paying an OG like an OT just doesn't work under the cap. Find a Brandon Moore and you wind up building one of the best offensive lines in the NFL because then you can afford to pay D'Brick and Mangold AND a RT or LG when you need one.
One word: clueless. You do realize that Bradford has 1400+ yards, 13 TD, 3 INT, and a QB rating of 90 LOL
