Interesting to see you name them then and in what round they went and who you wouldn't have selected because you choose an OL choice. Should be easy enough, you have a couple of free goes, what with the Hack and probable Lee misses, you have all that hindsight to help as well
The other thing is that he did try to trade up for Laremy Tunsil, and that would have been a high 1st round pick. We also don't know if there were other OL that he liked and was interested in drafting, but other teams took them before he could. He also tried to sign the top two OGs in FA in 2015, but neither wanted to play on the East coast and/or for the Jets. If he had been able to secure Tunsil without giving up the ranch and had been able to sign one of those OGs instead of Carpenter, the OL would have been a lot better. Value is important as is ability of the player. IMO you don't take an OL just for the sake of taking an OL when there is a much better player at any spot in the draft. Yes, sooner or later one has to address the OL in a significant fashion, and I believe that he will next offseason. He finally has a FQB in place and he needs to make sure that he's protected. There was no real rush to upgrade the OL when all we had were JAGs playing QB, and when the OL draft classes haven't been very good. In the 2017 draft, I really liked Ryan Ramczyk but his value was such that he wasn't in the right place for the Jets to get him. There's no way I'm passing up Jamal Adams for Ramczyk. I might have considered trading up to the end of the 1st and taking him, but if that move was made, then Jets wouldn't have been able to trade up this year with the Colts without giving up next year's 1st round pick. I'm also not sure that Ramczyk is worth 2-3 draft picks. I probably would have taken Forrest Lamp in the 2nd if he had fallen to the Jets pick, but he didn't. Again, trading up for him, would have cost an additional pick or picks and wouldn't have been good value. Then again, there were other players that were taken soon after the Jets took Maye that I may have taken (TE Adam Shaheen, CB Sidney Jones and OLB Tyus Bowser) instead of Lamp. I liked Dion Dawkins, but like Ramczyk he would't have been a good value at the top of the round. In the 3rd round, I definitely would have taken Alvin Kamara, RB. My second choice would have been Anthony Garcia. In the 2016 draft, I liked Ronnie Stanley, but he was out of reach and would have tried to trade up for Tunsil, but like Mac, wouldn't have grossly overpaid to move up. I liked German Ifedi a little, but the value wasn't right where the Jets picked. I might have traded down, but probably wouldn't have as I didn't like him that much. I didn't like either Jack Conklin or Taylor Decker that much or Ryan Kelly or Joshua Garnett (the other 2 first round OL). I really liked OT Jason Spriggs, and I probably would have tried my best to trade up for him. The only other OL I liked in that draft was Le'Raven Clark and he went lower in the 2nd round. If I had failed to trade up for Spriggs, I probably would have tried to trade down for Clark in the 3rd round. It's interesting to note that Spriggs went just a few spots ahead of the Jets' pick in round 2, OG Nick Martin went just ahead of the Jets' pick in the 2nd round (Hack), and Le'Raven Clark went just ahead of the Jets' pick in the 3rd (Jordan Jenkins). If either had fallen to the Jets' pick, we don't know that Mac wouldn't have taken him. There were no other OL I like or knew anything about in that draft. Who was the great talent in the 2015 draft? I liked Andrus Peat, Cedric Ogbuehi, Laken Tomlinson, D.J. Humphries and Donovan Smith, but the Jets would have needed to trade down in the 1st or up in the 2nd to get any of them, and as far as I know, none of them are exactly studs in the NFL. With the way things fell in the drafts, if I had been GM, the only OL I probably would have drafted over the last 4 seasons would have been either Jason Spriggs or Le'Raven Clark. I might have drafted the Collins kid that went to the Cowboys, but with the murder investigation hanging over his head, perhaps not. Who would you have picked? How would you have upgraded the OL?
This is the heart of his drafting strategy and style. Macc, with all the needs the team had, wasn't going to reach for a position of need when the BPA would fill a need anyway.
You wouldn't throw our cornerbacks in there as well? Claiborne, Johnson, Skrine, and Nickerson put the entire secondary in the top 10 this year IMO. Minus a #1 receiver (big piece I know), we don't need any more receivers and I'd say we have adequate talent at this position. Ditto with runningbacks. I think we are 1 more year away from contending for the playoffs, but I think we need to see growth from our core players like Darnold, Anderson, Lee, Adams, Maye, and Williams to warrant spending big money on free agents.
