Mike Macc - just as bad

I'm most worried about how he'll draft next year. His overall record is not good, and it'll be a critical year for Darnold. Just hitting on a round 1 pick is not sufficient. He has structured FA contracts to not cripple the cap long term. Johnson can be cut after 3 years.

 

I don't trust Macc with $100m to spend. His judgement just isn't what it should be as a former scout. Idzik had 12 picks and fckd up 11 of them. Macc has $100m and I wonder how much ROI we'll get back. Hopefully more than what we're getting from TJ.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm disappointed in Trumaine's play too. But it's not like he's gonna be here for the next 5+ years. My point is that Macc has been great at structuring FA contracts to avoid cap hell. I too have doubts that he can properly spend $100 million. My bigger concern is his rounds 3-5 draft picks next year, if that makes sense.

 

It absolutely makes sense as his history so far in those rounds is sketchy at best.

 

Gm on the hot seat while a new coach comes in? It’s as bad a scenario as Rex and idzic. You have to have these guys working on the same time line even if they aren’t in the same chain of command.

 

Who says the GM is on the hot seat?
I don't believe he is after the offseason he just had, especially at the QB position.

But I also don't think the GM and HC have to be on the same timeline.
It is entirely possible for one to do well at his job while the other does not.

An organization like the Steelers, I can't remember them ever replacing a GM and HC at the same time. That's how they maintain an organizational vision independent of the people working the jobs. That's also how they avoid chasing their own tail going in new directions every 3-4 years like bad organizations do.

 

This would be his first HC hire, Bowles was hired before Mac.

 

If Macc hires his own HC and the young players develop, play smart disciplined football and they make the playoffs, it'll be a good indicator that Bowles was the main problem. The problem is what if the team shows little to no improvement next year? Then you'll likely have to clean house next year to avoid Rex/Idzik 2.0 in 2020.

As for the Steelers, their ownership has forgotten more about football than ours will ever know. They've earned the chance to be run like that. We haven't.

 

Just because you draft a QB doesn't automatically exclude you from the cant be fired list (Ryan Grigson). He got Darnold, then made a good signing in Williamson.

 

Mac and 100 Mil?

I would sooner trust Bingo the Chimp with the checkbook than MM

 

shouldn't he be? there's no reason to believe he is safe past next year. that is definitely going to be considered when a coaching candidate is weighing his options. it adds a sense of instability that has to factor in to the candidates decision. that why I think if he doesn't go now he is safe for another 3 years.

 

I think a lot of Jets fans forget he mercilessly cut veterans, after a 5-11 season. The same veterans that went 10-6 and near missed on a playoff birth. This is not a sentimental man, and he isn't loyal for loyalty's sake. He isn't afraid to redress mistakes of his own doing such as cutting Revis after signing him to a mega-deal. From what I have seen he makes the cuts that are necessary when he has someone ready to step up, in place.

Mac is also the reason we have a team of average talent with $100 million in cap space. That $100 mil didn't come out of thin air, it was designed. I know average talent doesn't sound great, but average with $100 mil ready to be spent puts us in a great position.

 

There isn't a single non-Jets fan who thinks we have average talent.

 

I don't trust these clowns at all. They have done absolutely nothing to deserve any Jet fans trust.

 

The Revis mega deal and the Trumaine Johnson mega deal are good reasons why we should be worried about this guy with $100 million to spend.

It's bad enough that his drafting has been atrocious. His record in free agency hasn't been much better even when he's been allowed to spend big in free agency he has shown that he doesn't know how to spend it right. Revis was a bust and Johnson looks like a bust. Forte was done and never that good to begin with. McCown $10 million backup QB what a performance against the 2-7 Bills eh? Up next New England.

For the team to be in this shape heading into what would be his fifth offseason here is inexcusable.

Clean house. Don't half @ss this, Johnsons.

 

I think the $10 million backup deal for McCown was to throw a lot of money at him now so that when he retires he stays here to be QB coach. He isn't the best QB, but in terms of mentality he is one of the best to have around to encourage and teach a young QB.

Revis was a bust but as soon as that became apparent he was cut. He made a bad bet, there isn't a GM in the league who hasn't, at least this guy didn't throw good money after bad, by keeping Revis as some GM's would have. I think we've all seen in business people pursuing projects too long after they have become failures simply due to that project being their idea. With this guy I don't worry about that mentality.

There are other issues, such as his lack of attention to the o-line but I think that though it is well-below average, the issues on the o-line are exacerbated by coaching.

I think we have a good GM, his drafts have been way better than those during the Rex years. We have a bad coach, and that makes the average picks/moves by this GM appear much worse than they are.

 

Note: I had to shorten the quote above to get below 10000 characters

A month overdue, but here's a look at what the spreadsheet I made says about other GMs in comparison to Mac. I tallied up the picks they used to draft players, and the expected number of players from Role PlayerWhat I found gave me a little bit of confidence in the results I was getting. For reference on how I rated players,

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13_DTSmKxvzoiy8aMD7Y-ozt8AODsGEMt78WRQWBAheU/edit?usp=sharing

Let's start with our favourite punching bag,

John Idzik, NY Jets (2013-2014):

Player Calibre	Expected Return	Actual Return
Top Tier	0.92	0
Solid or better	2.63	0
Starter or better	4.61	3
Long term or better	5.28	3
Role player or better	8.49	6

As you can tell, he was well below expectations, and a terrible GM, as we all know. I don't think there was even a single round where he excelled at drafting in.

---

Ozzie Newsome, Baltimore Ravens (2005-2014):

Player Calibre	Expected Return	Actual Return
Top Tier	3.42	5
Solid or better	10.02	14
Starter or better	18.99	21
Long term or better	21.86	24
Role player or better	36.21	39

Average to above average drafter, which explains why the Ravens are typically in the hunt, but not perennial winners. Funnily enough, projecting Mac's numbers out to the same number of picks over this period has him likely to have similar success at this stage, provided Darnold and another player, say Adams, pan out as top tier calibre players.

He was really good at finding role players in Round 6, but didn't hit on a single Round 7 pick.

---

David Gettleman, Carolina Panthers (2013-2014):

Player Calibre	Expected Return	Actual Return
Top Tier	0.64	0
Solid or better	1.85	2
Starter or better	3.18	5
Long term or better	3.60	5
Role player or better	5.47	9

Another average to above average drafter it seems, but with great ability to build depth for a team. Didn't really find any top tier talent while drafting for them it seems (even perusing his 2015-2016 drafts quickly), but set reasonable foundations. Probably why the Panthers are good, but not the juggernauts people thought they'd become after their Superbowl visit.

---

John Schneider, Seattle Seahawks (2010-2014):

Player Calibre	Expected Return	Actual Return
Top Tier	1.60	5
Solid or better	4.79	9
Starter or better	9.27	13
Long term or better	10.79	14
Role player or better	19.06	22

Master of top tier talent over this period. The whole reason they ended up with Wilson and the Legion of Boom, and were perennial playoff contenders for a while. A quick look at his later drafting makes me wonder if he caught lightning in a bottle, and the draft gods are balancing things out again.

Digging a little deeper, he was good at drafting in Round 1, but his Round 2 and Round 5 picks are what really set the team up.

---

John Dorsey, Kansas City Chiefs (2013-2014):

Player Calibre	Expected Return	Actual Return
Top Tier	0.61	1
Solid or better	1.69	5
Starter or better	3.02	6
Long term or better	3.51	8
Role player or better	5.91	8

Good drafter, at least for these two years. Not John Schneider level, but up definitely set the Chiefs up to be good long term. Then again, he also managed to pull in Marcus Peters and Tyreek Hill in 2015 and 2016 respectively, so these numbers will probably look even better when those years come into play. They're probably still reaping the rewards from his drafting right now.

The key to these numbers is that he managed to pick up 2 solid starters in Round 6, where the expected return in that round was a meager 0.1!

---

Ted Thompson, Green Bay Packers (2005-2014):

Player Calibre	Expected Return	Actual Return
Top Tier	3.85	6
Solid or better	11.37	17
Starter or better	21.21	27
Long term or better	24.44	30
Role player or better	40.84	48

I'd classify him as an above average to good drafter over his time with the Packers. Explains why they're constantly in the running as Superbowl contenders. Signature pick of course is Aaron Rodgers, and the team goes where he goes.

Interestingly, he's been pretty average in Round 1 of the draft, but has found a lot more talent in Round 2 than expected, and even more so in Round 4. He was also good at finding role players in Round 7, and may have drafted with that intent with those picks.

---

Compared to these GMs, Mac's numbers are currently projecting to be anywhere from below average to above average depending on your views on Sam Darnold, Leonard Williams, and Jamal Adams at this stage. At least 2 of the 3 have to being top tier talent at this stage for people to look back at his drafting as any good. And because QB is so important, 1 of those 3 has to be Sam Darnold.

He's definitely done a way better job than Idzik. I'd say he's not the problem with this team necessarily, but may not be the solution.

 

In addition to all of this, I also looked into the 3rd round of the draft when there were talks of trying to grab Dante Fowler with either 1 or 2 third round picks. I was curious about the argument going on about what we could actually expect to get with those pick. Incidentally, it also gave me a bit of insight into why Mac thinks he can build an Offensive Line with later picks, and tempered my disappointment in Hansen/Stewart busting.

Here are the hit rate percentages at each position. Note that Solid HR% is actually Solid or better Hit Rate %, and so on, but I didn't want to bloat the headers.

Position	Top Tier HR%	Solid HR%	Starter HR%	Long term HR%	Role Player HR%
QB	7.7	7.7	15.4	15.4	38.5
FB	0	0	0	0	100
RB	12	12	20	20	32
WR	5.7	9.4	18.9	22.6	39.6
TE	8.7	8.7	26.1	30.4	60.9
OT	4.2	20.8	33.3	41.7	58.3
OG	4	28	40	44	68
C	0	0	28.6	28.6	57.1
3-4 OLB/4-3 DE	9.1	18.2	27.3	31.8	40.9
DT/3-4 DE	0	7.0	18.6	27.9	44.2
LB	2.4	7.3	19.5	24.4	43.9
CB	0	4.1	12.2	14.3	34.7
S	4.5	4.5	27.3	36.4	59.1
K	No Data	No Data	No Data	No Data	No Data
P	0	0	100	100	100

Based on these numbers, outside of drafting kickers, the best we could really hope for is drafting 2 Guards and obtaining a 67% chance of gaining a startable player with those two picks. If we went for two potential pass rushers, you're looking at just over 55% chance of gaining a starter, and only a 36% chance they'll become a solid pass rusher. While they'd be cheap, I'd argue Dante Fowler would be worth it if you consider him to be a solid pass rusher overall.

In terms of WR, they have a pretty low chance of amounting to anything in this round, which implies those odds get even slimmer with each round that passes. I'll have to do the same analysis for the other rounds to find out, but it'll take some time to parse through everything.

On to Mac's draft Offensive Linemen later theory. It makes more sense when you see the odds for obtaining a starting Guard or Tackle in this round, which is higher than going for other positions. Your odds for getting someone who is better than just a starter, and actually solid, is the highest for these two positions. If this holds true for later rounds, it stands to reason why he might try to build an OL with these picks instead of wasting them on lower percentage positions. Again, I'll need to do further analysis to see what the numbers say, and also compare them to Round 1 OL picks to see whether it's still worth grabbing OL in that round comparatively.

 

Until I see numbers comparable to Thompson Dorsey or Schneider I will never endorse MM

Mediocrity and "approaching average" just sucks in my book

Nevertheless, good job at crunching the numbers C

 

Again, your stats and comparisons are interesting, but I think it's hard to compare drafts. Some drafts don't have much depth or that many really good players. Others have numerous HOFers in them. You don't even have 2015-2018 in your table, so I don't understand how you're comparing Mac's drafting with others. I think to get a truer, more accurate depiction of Mac's drafting, you have to look solely at the 4 years that he has been GM of the Jets where he went head-to-head with the other GMs for players drafted out of the same pool of talent. Statjeff can probably explain that better.

The other thing is that you show Dave Gettleman as a good GM for the Panthers. He wasn't. He totally overvalued their OL. He did find some good OL in middle or lower rounds, but overall their OL play has hurt the team and Cam Newton. He also did a lousy job with their WR corps.