Or on the flip side the Jets got rid of Sionne Puoha and had a competition for the starting NT spot between Ellis and Harrison. Or the fact that they let Mike DeVito walk and had a unproven rookie and Antonio Garay compete for the spot......
The Jets were lucky with injuries in the persons of Colon and Ivory, both of whom were question marks entering the season, but who for the most part held up well. Milliner also was coming back, but I do think the lingering effects hindered his progress early on. And a big meh to all those lower round picks.
That approach allowed some young guys to show what they had and prove themselves as NFL caliber players. This team is still rebuilding and rebuilding teams usually give unproven talent chances that they usually wouldn't get on a contender.
CUtting Cromartie and signing him back for the same number AZ is paying him probably would have been best. His injury was not career ending by any means. I could be wrong but i expect him to play well this year. Second best would have been being more active pursuing FA candidates at cb.
The Jets have more than enough cap space to have signed a contract with a vet Cb. And it's not the price but the lack of talent that underwhelms me about the so-called fight for the job.
Pouha was different. He was injured, and in a way that effectively ended his career since he could not come back from it, and in fact was not picked up by any other team after the Jets released him. De Vito was signed by Kansas City. Not sure what the point was abuot him. I think he had a good season last year.
I wasn't opposed to bringing back Cromartie. However I understood why they moved on from him. They wanted to get younger at the position and Cromartie was older and he had a bad hip. They did go after Vontae Davis but he chose to stay in Indy, they went after DRC but he chose the Giants. They signed low risk high reward guys like Dowling, Patrick and Patterson plus they drafted 2 guys. This method has been Idzik's approach since he got here. That approach got us a few solid starters/rotation players last year, and it'll get us more starters/rotation players this year.
This is an inaccurate description of the Jets current talent at CB. They have at least one very good slot CB in Dimitri Patterson and another guy who has been good at times in Kyle Wilson. They have two guys who have been slowed by injuries in Dowling and McDougle who could well be good outside if they can stay on the field. They have a very good project in Johnny Patrick who has played a lot over the last 3 years after being taken in the 3rd round. After that they have a bunch of late drafts and projects. The Jets roster at CB isn't full of late drafts and UDFA's. Half the guys on the depth chart were taken 3rd round or higher. All of those guys are rookie to early prime going into 2014. Odds are pretty good somebody steps up and takes the #2 CB slot and plays well there. Even if that doesn't happen, just look at the Seahawks CB's and ask yourself where they came from. It's not unheard of for a 5th or 6th round pick to establish themselves as a starting caliber NFL player.
If you want to be successful over time in the NFL you buy players 25 to 28 years, starting near the beginning of that range and you let other people buy 29+. That's what the Jets did last year with DeVito, who is a good player and could easily have been re-signed by the Jets under other circumstances. They let the Chiefs buy his late prime and his decline. Signing a tier 2 free agent at 25 or 26 is very different from signing that same player at 27+.
You missed the point. Your argument is that you're not comfortable with the CB position because we don't have any established players/big name players. Well last year after getting rid of our starting NT, they had a competition between 2 unproven guys in undrafted 2nd year man Damon Harrison and 3rd year injury prone Kenrick Ellis. Neither of those guys were proven NFL commodities around this time last year. Yet those were the guys that were competing for a starting spot. DeVito was a solid player for us yet we didn't have a proven guy ready to take his place. We had a competition between an old Antonio Garay (who later got cut), Douzable and unproven Sheldon Richardson. None of those guys at this time last year looked enticing as an option as our starting DE. Yet in both the case of Harrison and Richardson it worked out. So who's to say that one or two of the current CB's couldn't emerge as a legit NFL starting CB? Your one example about the oline competition not panning out is dishonest. Because the strategy worked in other positions on the team.
Almost all of the FA CB's on the market this year were 27+. You don't sign a guy that age to an expensive 5 year contract, which is what most of those guys got. If you do that then you get a year or two of their top performance and then they start declining and it has a big impact over the back end of the deal. Look at Antonio Cromartie, who you wanted the Jets to re-sign. They got 2 really good years out of him in 2011 and 2012 (after signing him as a free agent at 27+). Then they got a big decline year in 2013 (injury or no it was a decline). What the Jets did this year was to avoid signing a lesser player than Cromartie to a similar contract for the next 4 years. They avoided paying for another year of Cromartie's likely decline. Could Cro have a good year this year? Of course he could, and I hope he does. He was a good guy for the Jets and he played hard for us. I wouldn't sign him though. Let somebody else roll those dice.
On what basis do you refer to Dowling, Patrick and Patterson as high reward guys? As for last year, i don't think the overall talent level was noticeably higher than the year before. What players (other than Ivory) that were signed in FA were an upgrade over the year before? And don't forget the moves letting playesr like Slauson go.
I suppose I should not have used the word nobodies. But I stand by my view that as of today there is no obvious candidate for the #2 Cb position. Competition will yield a starter no doubt, but that could be by default, kind of like LG last year.
There is no disqualification from being a successful team by filling the odd hole here and there with a vet FA, even one past 28 if he can still play. Letting Cromartie go would have been completely acceptable if the Jets had a plan in place to upgrade the position. They did not have such a plan.
Dishonest? Really? Is it not true that they let Slauson go and he was the best of the three players for the job? Competition between Ducasse and Winters produced a winner, but the winner was not a quality player. Calling Richardson unproven when he was a first round draft pick is pretty silly. If your first round draft pick is replacing someone who was cut, and he doesn't win the job, you made a poor pick of him. Harrison was the best surprise of last year, but to be sure he has some issues. Still, does his example mean there's no reason to be concerned about #2 Cb?
There's never an obvious candidate in a true competition. If there's an obvious candidate then you don't have a competition you have instead a coronation in waiting. The reason I liked the Jets not trading up for a WR, aside from the fact that I just like not trading up in general, is that the competition at WR is wide open. If the Jets had traded up for Marqise Lee or one of the other #1 WR's still available in the early 2nd round they would have cut off the competition entirely and turned it into a coronation in waiting for whoever that guy was. Instead of that they drafted a #1 WR in the 4th round in Shaq Evans who will compete with everybody else on an even footing in training camp. If he comes through they got a bargain with the pick. However his presence there is going to make everybody else fight harder for the job. Whoever wins the #2 WR competition this year will win it because he was good enough to take the job. There won't be a default winner because one guy went in with a lap on the field and the only surprise will be if he fails.
When healthy they were solid players. So if they stay healthy you know you're gonna get solid/good play out of them. If they can't stay healthy you can cut them and keep it moving. You're not investing a ton of money in any of those guys. Willie Colon=Brandon Moore Antwan Barnes>>Aaron Maybin/Garrett McIntyre David Nelson>>Chaz Schillens
I don't know enough about Evans to say he's a #1 wideout. I hope you do. Again, competition is only as valuable as the competitors. The competition between Ducasse and Winters produced each as a starter, but neither were good starters. THey should have kept Slauson and forgotten about the competition.
Again, you're assuming that 30 year old Cro is better than the field of CB's the Jets have vying to take his place. This is only true if Cro can recapture his prime skills AND none of the guys the Jets have can turn on the switch as they enter their prime. It may feel counter-intuitive to you but my guess is that the Jets have the upper part of a 70/30 bargain in the proposition above. Because if Cro can't recapture his former playing level the contest is already over.
Shaq Evans led UCLA in catches, yards and TD's by a wide receiver the last two seasons. That makes him UCLA's #1 WR. That makes his role in the offense he came out of a #1 WR. That's his personal expectation level. Odds are he'll be a #2 or lower in the NFL but he's coming from a background that is going to have him thinking he's a #1 and trying to get to that level.
