Do you have a good reason to think that data is no longer accurate or do you just not like the data because it contrasts with your opinion?
Of course - but my stance also involves the fact that the vast majority of GM's (almost all) are no better at picking players than any other GM. With that in mind, the literal only way to outperform in the draft for sure is by making more picks. It's not a coincidence that the best teams trade down more often than up. We have no reason to think JD is an elite drafter yet. The evidence we do have, two drafts, says that he's been about average so far. This whole equation changes if we look back in 4 years and JD has made it apparent he's an elite drafter. The odds are he isn't though, just because of the fact that the vast majority of GM's arent.
While I appreciate what you are saying the problem with the bolded is that we aren't looking at a historical statistical analysis situation. We are looking at specific draft. One where JD has determined that there is a significant drop off between #14 and #23 based on his team's analysis and the team's needs. A blue chip prospect at a position of need (with the potential to add extra picks later still) versus a significantly lesser prospect plus two mid to long shots. He chose to take the blue chip prospect and messed around with the later picks to get additional contributors. In another draft the situation might be different, remember the drop off of blue chip talent in the Gholston draft? So, while you can say that over a long enough period there's no real drop off from 14 to 23. You can't say that about a single draft year because they are all different.
Regarding the bold - AVT didn't stop Zach from getting lit up because we had such a glaring weakness at RG in GVR. GVR alone was responsible for almost all of the abuse Zach took earlier in the season. That abuse led to issues immediately such as not planting his feet before throwing and scrambling to run sooner than he should've. My stance is that the line would've gained more by eliminating GVR than by adding AVT, especially since my stance also involves still getting a replacement at LG, just maybe a very slightly worse one than AVT. This stance has been vindicated by just how bad GVR was, he literally was responsible for half of our total pressures allowed at one point. A slightly worse guy at LG and a better guy than GVR at RG would've meant a better line overall than just adding AVT at LG.
You might want to read my whole post: that's the EXACT point I was making. You are basically preaching to the quire Again, I get it generally speaking, but in this specific instance we likely have Jenkins instead of AVT and 3d round guards don't look great either. So we probably have GVR starting anyway, Jenkins injured, no AVT either. So, to me this worked out well, especially having Echols and Pinnock picked with Minny's lesser picks. Whether it is luck or JD had a really good feel of Guards in the draft, it worked out. I do want to give JD benefit of the doubt, because he usually does not trade up, but trades down, but this time he made a bold move and it really worked out.
I won’t completely agree that you can criticize a trade the day that it’s made but you can definitely make an argument for it. My problem is people completely writing it off as being anything other than a failure because of the “value” or the people looking back on it in hindsight still saying it was the wrong move because it might have gone poorly. That’s just asinine to me.
The reality is we gave up one extra draft pick for AVT not two as we got a 4th rounder back for one of the 3rd rounders. With the 23rd pick we likly would have taken Moore who the FO rated as their 16th best player and with the 66th the FO said we would have taken Michael Carter. Using the picks we essentially gave up for AVT picks 34 and 86 it is unlikely we even get 1 OL starter and extremely unlikely we would get 2. In hindsight we could have got Creed at 34 but no one has a crystal ball. The FO saw one blue chip can't miss player and traded two picks for him. It has worked out extremely well especially considering we still got Moore and Carter. It seems silly to me to complain about what appears to be a hugely successful trade and a steal for the Jets.
This is really a good point and it speaks to Revisions point about getting lucky with AVT. Sure Jenkins got hurt. Maybe he will pan out - or maybe he will bust. These are risks in the NFL. What if it was AVT that suffered a serious injury? What if his career was in question. Using 3 high picks on just him when we have so many holes was a big risk. So far we have been lucky to avoid it. But if it happened people would calling that trade the biggest screw up ever. So was it really smart from a team building standpoint? Even the value were actually getting in return doesn't make it that smart of a move considering the investment. More like an avoided catastrophe that has worked. Side point but when did our other option become a tackle? Were we rumored to take Jenkins?
There is some truth in this logic. But what it means is this risky trade prevented JD from greatly misjudging the draft board.
Did JD greatly misjudge or did other teams? It seems he valued Moore and Carter correctly and other teams did not. One of the interesting things about the 2021 draft was because of Covid many teams had a lot less information on players than they normally would have. No combine, no private workouts, no interaction with the players which created a situation where better prepared teams had an advantage in scouting and collecting information from college contacts. It also created a situation where there was a likely a lot more flux in value between different teams as not only was there less information on players but many teams were likely playing it safe and nit taking risks on players because of lack of information.
The first bolded item assumes 3rd and 4th round picks have identical value, which they don't. Regarding the 2nd bolded item - that's not correct. There's about a 40% chance of an OL taken in the third round becoming a starter. By taking two of them there's a high likelihood at least one becomes a starter and it's somewhat likely that both do. Anyway, I've had enough debating about OL for the next 5 decades so I think I will rest my case at this point.
the issue with that thought is using the result to say whether the decision was correct. you can't do that. I'll give you a perfect example. your playing poker, someone pushes an all in, you know you have the advantage. you call and flip cards. after the cards are shown you have a 99% chance to win with only the river left. based on the odds it was 100% the correct decision. now if the "bad beat" happens and they pull the 1 card they needed to win out of pure luck, you can't go back and say you made the wrong call. the top poker players know this and know a bad beat is just a bad beat and you don't change your play based on that. as a GM drafting it goes the same way. so regardless of how any of it turned out, at the end of the day he gave up 2 3rds to move up from 23 to 14 to take what was in his book a top 10 player and the last blue chip prospect left in the draft and it happened to be a huge position of need (mind you at the time our starting OGs were GVR and lewis and lewis promptly retired so it would have been GVR and feeny) so ignoring hindsight the decision by JD based on the information he had available was correct. quality over quantity sometimes.
Here's the thing Norm. We gave up picks 66, and 86 to trade up. Suggesting what we really gave up was picks 34 and 86 doesn't improve its outlook. Feels like we dodged a bullet.
Jenkins played both tackle and guard in College, and I heard ramblings he was a possible option at the time for the Jets as G in the second round. AVT was highly rated and no injury history. Dickerson had significant injury history and had torn ACL at the time and Jenkins had some with back, but not injured at the time. Hence I think he would have been the pick. Then Jenkins hurts the back again after being drafted needing surgery. AVT was really the only clean prospect at G, and we got him. So, we actually did avoid a catastrophe BECAUSE we traded up for a better prospect with no injury history.
Sorry for the confusion I used the 34th rather than 23rd to depict what we actually gave up as we likely would have taken Moore with the 23rd pick. And since we would have taken Carter at 66 rather than in round 4 all the trade actually cost us was 34th and 86th picks in exchange for AVT. Hard to imagine we still take Moore at 23 and Carter at 66 and end up with better players at 34 and 86 than we got with AVT at 14.
Yeah, if the goal is to fix everything in one offseason/draft, but thankfully, it isn't. If the Jets didn't have holes all over theri roster, then perhaps JD could have fixed the whole OL quicker, but we did have holes all over the roster.
I don't think that's accurate. If 3rd rounders have a 30% chance of becoming a long-term starter, then the odds aren't good at all for either or both. That's less than a 1 in 3 chance. If Clarke hadn't gotten injured, we may have had a replacement for GVR earlier.
First, while the majority of GMs are not measurably better than any others, the consistently winning GMs ARE better. But while having more picks as you claim gives these mostly equal GMs better odds in theory, what ACTUALLY happens? What actually happens is that giving more picks to poor to mediocre GMs doesn't help them because one of the reasons that they're poor is that they don't judge talent well. To put it another way: If you give a guy with bad hand eye coordination twice as many darts as someone with good H-E coordination, he's still going to lose. As for the few GMs who are better than average - but not consistent winners - these are mostly newer (< 3years experience) and don't have enough of a track record to be able to say whether they're poor to mediocre or consistent winners, so giving them more picks MAY or MAY NOT help. In any case you can't make a blanket conclusion that "the literal only way to outperform in the draft for sure is by making more picks". Second, the only reliable way to outperform in the draft is to be really good at talent and personnel evaluation, and to create a scouting/personnel department that has that ability too. Of course that's easier said than done - if everyone could do it, most teams would be winners. That's why the most consistently winning GMs win. Third, all the statistics and averages are nothing more than ways for us fans to try and figure out what our teams might be able to do, but actual GMS don't have to rely on averages and percentages, they rely on detailed analysis of players they might consider, taking into account not just the players stats, but weighing how they might fit in the particular scheme, environment, what their personality is like, and whole raft of other player-specific data that transcend numbers. It's with this understanding that you need to look at what JD did. He wasn't thinking "Well the odds of hitting on an IOL at 23 are x% less than at 14" or any of the other averages you mentioned. He's looking at the specific needs of the Jets, and the specific characteristics of the potential players that could be available, and weighing which players would have the best chance of success with the Jets right now. Sure, maybe next year the predicted draft class for OL would be much bigger with deeper quality and he might be able to find a really good OL in the 3rd round, but he judged that this year the depth of quality wasn't that great, and he needed a sure thing to continue revamping perhaps the biggest hole (after QB) on the team for years. In light of all this, it was a no-brainer for Douglas to use the surplus draft capital he had to move up and secure the G with the highest potential. But it was entertaining reading through all the statistics and averages.
That's the bottom line. Theories and stats are averaged out over time and they act like all drafts are the same or at least that more often than not you'll be better off. One ALWAYS should take each draft on its own merits, not try to lump them all together. Following any dictum or strategy in the draft mindlessly will get you nowhere. One has to think for oneself, and as I stated earlier, the draft is as much aritifice as it is science. One has to allow for the gut factor and what one's needs are. We couldn't wait a year or two for 3rd round picks to maybe work out. We needed to upgrade the OL immediately and add a starter. GVR is irrelevant. AVT helped solidify the left side fo the OL and Zach's blind side. Unless we have major injuries again, I can't see GVR ever starting again for us.
