The question is who would I have taken in the 1st round of the NFL draft and the answer is Braylon Edwards. Sometimes a guy doesn't reach his potential in the NFL. Sometimes a guy has a great career that builds on his college career. You still have to evaluate them on their production and their potential at the time that you make the pick. Steve Smith was a 3rd round pick who had a great career. Braylon Edwards was a 1st round pick that disappointed. If you put Steve Smith circa 2000 and Braylon Edwards circa 2004 in the same draft pool Edwards would get taken ahead of Smith every time. It's very possible that Brandin Cooks and Odell Beckham Jr will have better careers than Marqise Lee. That's not going to happen if Lee achieves his full potential.
And th And that's why some franchises are in perpetual misery, while others like the Seahawks can come in and build an elite team in four years. You take the better player, projections be damned. Tell me, what were your thoughts on Stephen Hill? Sanchez? Kyle Wilson? Geno? I hated all of those picks bc I not only follow college but followed these kids as recruits. And I wouldn't take Lee or OBJr. over Cooks, although Id take Lee over OBJr.
I hated the Hill pick. The minute the Jets traded up (again) I was predisposed to hate the pick. The guy they took just made it easy.
Marqise Lee is in a class above those other 2. It's not even close. Lee is a legit top 10 overall talent, who will slip because of bogus injury concerns. Cooks and Beckham are 2nd or 3rd round types. That's how I see it. ....and speaking of Stephen Hill, who some are mentioning here, Cooks and Beckham are late risers, like Hill was. Players who rise in shorts, during offseason workouts.
Lee by far. Taking OBJ over him is completely illogical with the huge production gap. And while Cooks might be a "safer" producer I think you can easily justify a few extra drops for a classic outside WR that gets open all the time due to the completeness of his game even if he isn't the fastest. Plus you could argue that Cooks is the bigger injury risk being smaller and slighter playing outside in the NFL anyway, so the safeness angle might not even be that well founded. Personally I'd tend to pick OBJ before Cooks besides but the results of this poll are just so out of sync with what Idzik's thought process should be.
I wouldn't mind either one but I would go with Cooks. His combination of top speed and hands are a big plus for me.
Labeling Lee a "body catcher" is a bit unfair. It's not like he's Stephen Hill. While he does not catch every single pass with his hands, he has shown the ability to extend out and catch the ball with his hands when it calls for it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=-zIMcdCXGls#t=13
One thing I'll say is that it will be very interesting to see who was right on these WR's 5-10 years down the line.
at first I was thinking Lee...then I was thinking OBJ...now I'm thinking Cooks... who will the Jets draft? prob a completely different position
yeah i'm not saying it's a huge deal with him, he still has hands and can be taught to use them more. i'm just saying he's not an elite prospect or top 10 talent. if we got him at 18 i'd still be happy
I'm thinking you're probably right. I don't get too emotionally invested in the pre-draft hype on players because nobody, not even Idkiz, knows who the team will draft at #18 until they're on the clock. Someone will drop and will be BPA at 18 and chances are it won't be Lee, Cooks, nor OBJ.
Perhaps, but he has a much higher drop rate (over 12%) than any of the other elite WR prospects in the draft. He either has a focus problem, or a problem with his hands/catching technique. After Hill, I sure wouldn't take another WR who has to work on what is a WRs most important skill (catching the ball).
I keep going back and forth on Lee. I heard Lee himself on the radio the other day say he needs to work on looking the ball in and not focusing on running before he secures the ball. You could say he's not a natural hands catcher. For whatever reason, in addition to the drops, there are too many bobbles / "double-catches." But there's a lot to like as well. The way he plays, he just has the look of a legit NFL receiver. I love the acceleration and cutting ability when he goes for YAC. I don't think there's a comparison as far as how developed Lee is right now to where Hill was coming out. In Hill, I saw a gazelle who didn't even know how to run the most basic of routes, in addition to the bad / unnatural hands. Lee has made his share of plays catching the ball with his hands. But I share the concerns. Judge for yourselves.
People need to go look at the Jerry Rice highlight vids from the 80's. If you want to label somebody a body catcher you can string together some great catches right in a row of him catching the ball in a cradle. You can also take the catches where he extended and high-pointed and make him look very good. I'm not saying Marqise Lee is Jerry Rice btw, I'm just saying that one of the things that stood out to me in watching the Jerry Rice highlight reels is how many times he caught the ball against his chest on a slant or quick curl. That's one of the things that happens in a WCO. The timing is so tight that frequently the receiver looks or turns for the ball and it is right there in his breadbasket. I harp on how likely Lee is to be a superstar fairly frequently. As a true freshman he caught 73 balls for 1,143 yards and 11 TD's. As a sophomore he caught 118 for for 1,721 yards and 14 TD's. If you can't understand why that translates into an extraordinary chance at stardom for Lee I can't paint a better picture for you. He's the guy in this class most likely to rewrite the record books and that includes Sammy Watkins. He also has some durability concerns which translated into just an acceptable season last year. If the Jets take Beckham over Lee it's going to be like buying pork belly futures instead of Apple stock. Good luck with that.
I would be happy with either Beckham or Lee. Now sophomore Lee would have been top 5. He is the most complete WR in the draft. All the others are wither workout warriors or recent draft movers. The Jets probably have more insight into Beckham because of our new special teams coach.
Wow....Only thing I can see wrong here is the music. Would have preferred "March on to victory". This pick would absolve USC for that Sanchez guy.
This is bad though. Familiarity with a player often creates conflicted loyalties and puts blinders on instead of enlightening. Odell Beckham Jr caught 23 passes more in his 3 year career than Marqise Lee caught in 2012. He had 2 fewer TD's in his career than Lee had in 2012. The guy is just not a #1 WR and he's not a big playmaker and there's nothing the Jets can do to change that. They can throw the ball at him a lot more than he was thrown at in college and it won't change the fact that if he was actually deserving of that amount of attention he would have gotten it in college. I'm actually fairly worried that the Jets are going to somehow wind up taking him or Benjamin in the 1st round and totally missing on the great receivers that are available. Both of those picks would provide the Jets with an acceptable WR who is nothing special. Both would be totally in character with the bad selections on offense over the last 14 years that have left the Jets without a single dominant playmaker out of the 1st round (or any round) of the NFL draft since Terry Bradway came to town.
I see it as the Jets being so enamored with size and potential that they overlook things like work ethic and production in college. They did this when we drafted players like Stephen Hill and Johnny Lam Jones.
