From everything I can find he’s had some real good moments in camp. Blanket coverage mentioned a few times. Only two bad moments j can find are getting burned by Arian Smith (that’ll happen) and getting Moss’d by Brandon Smith on a perfect ball. Also found a tweet from the first preseason game that NextGen had him recording the highest in game speed of all rookie CBs which is significant because speed was his number 1 weakness and probably what dropped him to the third round. I admittedly didn’t love the pick for the exact reasons you said. We needed DL and WR badly and passed on both. If Smith pans out obviously that’s a moot point and we traded for Harrison Philips so we got great value there. I always liked the player, hated the strategy that led us to him until recently.
I don't think he played in preseason at all, he got hurt that week and just came back recently. I think speed is still a weakness, that's something you can't just improve, but need to see more as he was hurt for big part of camp. If Membou, Taylor, Thomas, A Smith, and Moore will be good/solid, it will be a terrific draft even if both 5th rounders fail. Too early to judge though, but not impossible outcome.
Whoops, it was tweeted during preseason about his college in-game speed compared to other rookie CBs.
IF that happens, then yes I would say that’s a pretty good draft. However, I have little hope for either Smith (who has dropped balls in preseason) and Thomas (you just can’t be a top corner in this league if you can’t run). I think both of those picks were questionable at best when we had other needs. We should have went with the best available WR in round 3, or maybe DT if the available player there was much better than the best available WR, and could have kept Converse as the developmental CB. Who knows…we’ll see how it plays out, but I did not really love Mouge’s draft strategy after the first two picks. But yeah, those first two guys, if they can play, definitely addressed huge needs for us.
While Arian Smith did have a few drops, overwhelmingly the reports suggest he improved in that area and had an impressive training camp. I am also looking at Kyle Williams, who went ahead of our pick, but was the guy many wanted to trade up for, and when entering apple to apple AI analysis (enter player name followed by training camp in google AI mode), Smith appeared to have done better in camp. AI just aggregates all reports, obviously we have not seen these practices aside from preseason. Definitely I feel there is some hope Arian at this point. I definitely feel like a round 3 pick should have been DL, which was the strength of that draft. Now, Mooge did mitigate that some by getting Briggs, but still, he is a late pick with some promise, in the early 3d we could have gotten a staple there. Not sold on AZ and also we lost JBC who had a great camp as a result, but things may work out still. Now DE looks like a bigger need than DT. We have undersized McD and JJ coming off Achilles, with Clemons as #3 plus complete scrubs (Clemons is one of them too). That is very weak.
Regardless of how we regard our QB situation it seems that our rookie offensive tackle is struggling to adapt to the NFL. Aside from Garrett our WRs and TEs are all wild cards. They are either inexperienced, have injury histories, or have not lit things up and showed us anything special yet. If our defense can stay healthy they look like they could be really good on paper. Where do you guys see our biggest holes at this point?
To me, our biggest holes are WR and DE/Edge, but I would say our biggest issue is still QB, as I am not a huge Fields fan and I just don’t think he’s going to be anything better than what he’s been for 3 years, which is not good enough, as evidenced by two teams already moving on from him. Good kid. Not a good QB. However, since there is no fix for that this year and we’ll have to find the next QB in next year’s draft, not gonna keep harping on it. to me, the rest of the roster is mostly thin so I worry about depth, but that’s true for many teams I think. I see the position groups like this: OL - I’m expecting a solid OL what with 3 first rounders and a second rounder on the line…though I admit I would have loved to see Membou do better than he’s done in the preseason games I saw…that Eagles game was rough for him and I would have expected better going up against 2nd and 3rd stringers. But still, he’s a rookie who hasn’t played a single real game yet, so I won’t overreact. But I feel like this should be a good unit for us. RB - best unit on the team…we have solid guys top to bottom here…we have talent and we have depth WR/TE - worst unit on the team and our biggest hole by far. We have one great WR in GW and the rest of these guys are all pretty much scrubs…at best Lazard and Reynolds are WR3 types but for us they will have to be WR2. At TE, we are relying on a rookie, and while promising, he still has to prove it. But this is barely an NFL level group and I’m pretty disappointed we didn’t do more to improve here… I would have preferred to go WR in round 3 instead of taking a flier on a guy with bad hands, but it is what it is. This group is going to struggle. DL - I feel ok about our DTs now with the last two trades, but I am actually pretty concerned about our edge guys…I like McD ok he’s a good pass rusher but needs to improve against the run, and I like JJ but I don’t expect him to come back to form really this year coming off an Achilles…that’s too tough an injury for a position that depends on explosion, and then Clemons should be a rotational guy but he’s had to play too many snaps for us, and his attitude gets him too many penalties. If McD can improve against the run, and JJ can come back, then I’d feel pretty good here, but as it is, I don’t yet…they will have to prove it. Second biggest hole on the team LB - I like this group as I think Quincy and Sherwood are a pretty good pair, and since most of the time we’ll be in some kind of nickel, I think that’s who we’ll be seeing on the field most of the time. These guys aren’t pass rushers really, but they should be good enough in coverage and run stopping DB - I feel ok here as Sauce I think will bounce back…I still think we downgraded from CB1b in Reed to CB2 in Stephens, but for now I’ll have to trust AG’s expertise here, so I’m open…I like Carter as CB3 and I think our safeties should be ok…not seeing pro bowl types there really but they should be ok. So overall, receivers and edge rushers to me are our biggest holes. And as they are impactful positions, I think it will be hard to win many games with those weaknesses…will be hard to stop the better QBs if you can’t rattle them consistently, and will be hard to come back and score many points if you can’t throw the ball consistently…our run game will be nice, but having to grind out 10-12 play drives and settle for field goals too often won’t win you many games.
Jermaine Johnson was injured for most of last year. A healthy Johnson across from McDonald could be interesting. It is all speculation until these guys show up and make some noise in an actual game. If all we see on offense is eight men in the box with a passing game that scares no one the season is lost anyway.
Yeah and the crazy thing is he was set up for success, he had the 11th pick and the 3rd overall pick in back to back drafts and wasted it on busts. Non of his later picks panned out, anyone still defending him is a bufoon. He wasted so much resources on offensive line and still failed to build one.
Agreed that he failed to build a good OL in his time here, but you also have to acknowledge that we are expecting to see our OL do well this year, and 4 of the 5 guys are JD’s guys, so assuming our OL plays well this year, he gets some of the credit there. It will also be interesting to see how the same players perform with a new OL coach now, compared to Carter last couple of seasons who was not a great OL coach. Still, when Tannenbaum took over as our GM, he rebuilt our OL in ONE year into a top five line by drafting Brick and Mangold and signing Faneca and Woody. One year. JD couldn’t do it in 5…so yeah…he deserves some credit for this OL assuming it lives up to our expectations, but it should have happened way sooner. But yeah, overall agreed…it’s not like JD didn’t have plenty of time to build something…he had 5 years and we were bad teams each year.
In 6 years here he failed to sniff the playoffs if that doesn't put a statement that he is a terrible gm I do not know what does. He was given high draft picks every year and a opportunity to mortgage the future the past 2 years for future hall of famers and we have nothing to show for it, the writing is on the wall he is one of the worst gm's in Jets history if not the worst, and there is plenty to pick from. We will be suffering for years to come by the stupid moves he made. How he handled the Hassan Redick situation should have him running for worst gm in Jets history for sure.
Yah he failed No argument from me…the record stands for itself and he had great opportunities…he chose the wrong coach. he chose the wrong QB. All of it. I agree Now…I personally think Idzik was worse, but doesn’t really matter…it’s choosing the least shitty smelling turd…Idzik, Mac, JD…they ALL sucked. And yeah, if Mougey doesn’t break our trend of hiring rookie GMs who turn out to suck, we will continue our suffering for sure…
Idzik was awful, but can’t deny JDs results were way worse and for way longer. No one had worse results. Season after season he’d let it go to waste rather than take any obvious action needed. Strategically he was a trainwreck.
I have plenty of bad to say about Joe Douglas, but he's the first GM that gave us a candid look at the toxic meddling behavior of the owner so he gets some points for that.
Yeah to me, JD’s issue wasn’t so much strategy or philosophy on how to build a team…I think he targeted the right positions in the draft, I think he was able to make some good free agency moves, he found some quality undrafted like Huff, etc. To me, his issue wasn’t more tactical than strategic…that is, he just whiffed on too many picks, worst of all the QB in Zach. He also didn’t hire a good HC…and from a certain point of view, that was a bit of a strategic decision as well to go with a defensive guy instead of an offensive guy. But regardless, Saleh was not the right coach…you don’t bring in a young rookie DC when you know you will need to develop a QB. (Hey! Wait a minute…didn’t we do just that yet again with AG???? Just sayin’) But philosophically, I like how he approached team building…drafting OL and DL early and often enough, targeting WR and CB also important positions. Unlike the morons before him who wasted first round picks on safeties, or like Mac who drafted a DT in Q when he already had a highly drafted DT in Williams…now that worked out because Q turned out to be better than Williams, but still, just from the way the positions were prioritized or not, JD was better than both Mac and Idzik before him. But in the end, philosophy or strategy or team building … whatever we want to call it … it all comes down to picking great players, and in that, JD failed way more than he succeeded. But yes, he did leave us with 4 of our starting OL (which we all seem to have faith in it being a good group this year), and he did leave us a great WR and a great CB. And he also signed Quincy when he was kind of a forgotten or unheralded guy, and he’s turned out to be another leader on D and a damn good player as well. He found Huff and should have found a way to keep him or get something for him, but then fucked all that up with the Reddick fiasco. Ah well…he didn’t succeed here by any means, but of our last few GMs, I hate JD less than I absolutely abhor Mac and Idzik. I think they were both WAY worse…they couldn’t pick good players either, but they had no strategy or philosophy worth a damn in how to build a team.
Agreed it doesn’t mean anything other than the depth JD left was terrible, leaving a lot of developmental slot openings. Just thought it was interesting that at least 8 UDFAs stuck on the PS, as I can’t recall that happening before. Either those guys legit outplayed the competition, or Moug really sticks by the guys he hand picked. By again, options were limited so it’s just an observation as of now. Need another offseason before any patterns detected.
I listened to Mooge's presser, and towards the end Dick Chimney asked Robbie Paton a question regarding the performance of draft choices. He is a director of player personnel and a son of Denver GM, George Paton, for whom Mooge worked for before coming here. Mooge brought him here. Listen starting at 10:10. First he could not remember whom we picked in the 2nd round asked Mooge who did we take in the second round. Then he said Moore was in the 5th round, and Mooge corrected it was 4th. Now listen, maybe I am nitpicking here, but we are just fans, and I don't think many here would both not remember 2nd round pick and also thought Moore was in the 5th and not 4th. He is supposed to be Mooge's right hand. Also Mooge then started to feed him player's names, and once he said it, Robbie seemed to know what he was talking about. I suppose it is not the main part of his job to know when they were picked, but know about the players's performance, which he did answer, but it was a little shocking he made two mistakes as far as when the players were drafted and then Mooge was helping him with the names. I don't think I have seen anything like this before. Again I hope he does his main job well, but this was not confidence inspiring at all. I am reading too much into it? 10:10
Good post! Douglas was a terrible GM for all the reasons you cite, but his #1 goof was spending #2 pick overall on Zach Wilson. I still can't believe he invested that pick in a guy who had ONLY ONE good season in college playing a creampuff schedule. WTF--shouldn't a GM consider that it was only one good college season against the Naval Academy, Coastal Carolina, etc.? SOJAZ, Ouchy and I lobbied hard on this message board NOT to take Wilson in that draft-- Not taking a victory lap, but if casual fans like us can see the guy stinks, why can't/didn't Douglas see the obvious? Dumb shit!
