He went three picks before our 3rd. That's where you trade up to get a linemen and it still makes sense for a rebuilding team.
You do realize this is absolutely endless amounts of hindsight? You cannot draft based on specific players you think might be there later. You have to look at grading clusters. If you as a scouting department have 2-3 starting graded IOL, you can’t assume one will be there. Say the Jets don’t trade up, and then take Moore at 23. In a weak IOL class what if Humphrey goes 27? Then you didn’t upgrade the OL at all for the rookie QB. Not to mention it’s an enormous assumption that Humphrey plays as well in front of a rookie QB as an MVP QB as well.
You have to draft with a list of players that might be there later. Trading up is cheating the process pure and simple and the cheating is mostly on value that you might otherwise obtain. If you're going to move around in the draft in small ways to make bets on your scouts, well lots of teams do that. It's when you make the big leaps that you mostly set yourself back. When you're a talent-poor team like the Jets the trade ups are just begging for big setbacks down the road and that is the most likely prognosis for the AVT trade up. It is definitely the case for the Darnold trade up.
I'm not so much advocating for need so much as I'm sceptical of just how clean draft boards are, and how much objectivity you can realistically have there, given all of the qualitative attributes you have to evaluate. I guess an example for next year might be you get to pick #6, , and Stingley is there as technically the best player on the board, and the next player on the board you like is evaluated as a mid rounder, but you realise you wish someone else had taken that injury risk. A bit like when you toss a coin, and how you feel about the choice it decides reveals the good choice. Barring a trade down or trade up, is it worth considering everyone who is likely to go between that pick and your next one then? I'm probably not getting my thought process across cleanly for lack of sleep, but basically I think draft boards are pretty sketchy to begin with given the miss rates, but better GMs seem to have some intuition going for them on top of the evaluation process.
I disagree that it's that cut and dried. I agree that it's more important with a rookie QB to ensure that he has a solid OL to protect him, but it's important to protect the QB, period. The style of offense (Is it one that takes a lot of deep shots and has slow-developing plays or does it look to get the ball out quickly?) and the QB's abilities must be taken into consideration. Does the QB process quickly through his reads and make good decisions? Does he have good pocket presence? Is he mobile and can avoid the rush to buy time? With Brady, it's less important because he gets the ball out quickly. With Rodgers and to some extent Russell Wilson, it's less important because they have great poise, pocket presence and can move around to buy time. Still, even with those two, they have taken a pounding at times and been banged up or injured. Wilson has never missed a game, but Rodgers has missed 18 games in his career (7 in 2013 and 9 in 2017). You don't ever want your FQB taking a pounding. GB has done a great job with finding and developing OL and WRs, but still Rodgers has missed all those games. Perhaps if they had traded up for an OL here or there, they may have won another SB or two. With a less mobile QB who takes longer to go through his progressions and/or an offense that has slower-developing plays or takes a lot of deep shots not doing whatever is necessary to ensure that your QB is protected and has time, is asking to get your starting QB killed. This is coming from a guy who normally eschews trading up at all, except for a QB, LT, Edge, or a stud WR or CB, and one who normally doesn't believe in drafting OGs in the 1st round. The only other time I think a team should trade up is if they are already a playoff team but have been unable to fill some position over the previous two seasons, and they think that by trading up for the player they want at that position will put them over the top. Trading up for AVT was absolutely the right thing to do. I wasn't even that high on AVT initially, and was disappointed that the Jets had to give up those two 3rd round picks, but immediately saw the value, and appreciated the fact that JD was serious about fixing the OL and protecting Zach.
Hard to argue is was a bad move without playing the "what if" game. No one knows how the draft would have went if we didn't trade back. It's all speculation. All we can do is grade what actually happened and so far he looks like he will be a very good player. I don't want to "over value" him and only time will tell. So far so good through.
There are too many factors for me to really dive into whether or not this was "good" Are we comparing who Minnesota took versus who we took? Are we assuming that the Jets would have taken great players with those two thirds? Could AVT have been there at 23? There are a lot of variables when comparing trades like this. What I will say, I think the Jets got two potentially great players in AVT and Michael Carter in the 2021 draft. These guys could be serious building blocks for the future.
Spot on. As far as Disckerson, read injury history: "He had ACL surgery on his right knee in 2016 after tearing it in practice; right ankle surgery in 2017 after an early-season in-game injury; left ankle surgery in 2018 after an early-season in-game injury; then stayed healthy for 2019 and most of 2020 before he tore his left ACL in the SEC title game Dec. 19." Both ankles broken, both ACLs torn, including before the draft. No way we could have drafted this guy, especially with Becton already being injury prone first year. Teven Jenkins was rumored more and he ends up out for the season with career threatening injury. We dodged a major bullet trading for AVT. We have a really good guard without any injury history. Nothing to complain about given the alternatives. Also, for the record, we did not give up two 3d round picks. We gave up one 3d round pick, and swapped another 3d for 4th, then traded down that fourth further to end up with Pinnock and Echols. So basically, having that 23d overall and two 3d rounders brought us AVT, Pinnock, and Echols. That's pretty darn good.
AVT's performance is irrelevant to the conversation of whether it was a good move or not. The numbers say that in general, when you do the trade for AVT that we did, you have a lower expected value than you do by keeping the picks. This is doubly true for a roster with as many holes as we have. AVT becoming a stud just means that we got lucky with a better than average outcome on a trade that was negative expected value. If a GM's process involves repeatedly doing slightly suboptimal things it's eventually going to catch up with him over a larger sample size. An analogy would be the 4th and 2 decision vs. the bucs. It was the right move to go for it. It didn't work out for us but that doesn't change the fact that it was the right move because it gave us a higher % chance to win the game. We might get lucky and have the AVT trade work out for us but that doesn't mean it was the smartest move. We got unlucky and the 4th and 2 didn't work out for us but it was still the right move because it usually would've. Before anyone labels me an AVT hater, I've been really pleased with his play. That doesn't change the fact that it was the wrong decision by JD to trade up for him though.
This just comes off as stubbornness when it's put this way, and it's not just you that shares the sentiment. It's football, not a math or economics test. Did you get a high end player at a position you needed? Yes. Did you give up any high end players at positions you needed? No. You gave up a chance at MAYBE getting one. Trade three maybes for one absolutely every, single, time.
It's early, but the 2021 draft is looking like a jackpot. Six players that I know of are playing very well as starters.
JD's top 4 draft picks (Zack Wilson, Vera-Tucker, Elijah Moore, and Michael Carter 1) could ALL be regarded as top 10 at their position by the end of their Sophomore season (Zack may take an extra season to fully blossom). This would make JD's second draft epic and amongst the best ever by a GM. I'll take it.
What if this is the only trade up for the foreseeable future? There could be trade down in this year's draft that replenishes some of the capital given up to move up last year. Tanny traded up year after year, which was not optimal, but doing it once shouldn't hurt.
Can you explain the numbers you are talking about in your second paragraph? Is there a model showing it was the wrong move? Honest question.
First round trade ups are worth it when your a good team. Trade ups are a big spend to get the final missing piece that allows a team take the next step. There are usually a bad move when your a bad team, or a rebuilding team. Its a really amateur rebuilding mistake.
Not what I said though. I said this specific trade up was -EV. Not that all trade ups are -EV. It's not that trade ups are inherently bad (though they usually are because teams are bad at quantifying value and fall in love with single prospects), it's just that this trade up was -EV. Some trade downs are -EV too. The % chance that a prospect taken in a given round becomes a starter has been quantified. I don't have the numbers in front of me right now but they've been calculated by lots of different analytics sites. The numbers say that the difference in performance between a guy taken 14th overall or one taken 23rd overall is usually negligible. They also say that 3rd rounders have a pretty good shot at becoming starters for a team (especially true for a roster as bad as the Jets is/was). Given that we gave up two third rounders for AVT, there's a pretty good shot we basically gave up at least one starter in favor of getting a slightly better guy in the first round than we would've had we stayed at 23. By trading away the picks we also eliminated the off chance that both 3rd round picks would've become starters. That's an unlikely outcome but we eliminated the chance entirely by trading them away. The fact that we're even talking about maybe taking an OL early in the next draft speaks to what a mistake this was. There's a pretty good shot we'd have enough OL depth to not even need to consider it had we kept those third rounders and taken two OL with them last draft. Combine that with the fact that the draft is a total crapshoot for all but the most elite GM's and it says JD did the wrong thing unless he's an elite drafting GM, which we don't have reason to think he is at the moment (though he's decent - one bad draft and one good one).
Can you give a couple examples of a trade up from a team missing it’s last piece? KC for Mahomes is the only one I can think of but am very eager to see other successful examples.
