I don't know if it's been ignoring offensive playmakers in the first few rounds as much as picking the wrong guys. Sanchez - wrong, Hill - wrong, Greene - wrong. Hell, I'll even throw in Vlad. I know guards aren't considered playmakers, but the guy was taken with a premium pick and at least so far has left a lot to be desired.
Holmes,Hill,Kerley, and Edwards are not scary bad. The problem in the receiving corps is Keller, you need another guy like Cumberland, so you aren't tipping you hand. Powell is serviceable at RB, and OLB is fixable considering how good you are at the 1st and 3rd levels. This team, currently constructed is close. The problem has been the offensive coaching staff.
I posted this in another thread but I'll post it here too. These are all the offensive skill players the Jets have even drafted in the 1st or 2nd round since that '01 draft: 2006: Kellen Clemens 2:49 2008: Dustin Keller 1:30 2009: Mark Sanchez 1:5 2012: Stephen Hill 2:43 That's 4 in 11 years. Please don't bring linemen into a conversation about play makers as you yourself noted they aren't play makers.
Could very well happen before the draft. Idzik, or whoever gets it, will already have people he's worked with or knows from his past lives. And those people will already be actively studying the college ranks. He isn't going to bring in people that have been in a vacuum for the last two years. In fact, he might want to bring in his own people for his first Jets draft because he doesn't know if he can trust the current Jets staff.
Good post. However..is it a need for new scouts or just stronger emphasis on addressing offensive skill? You also have to factor in the variables of who was available at what spot.
You could make the case that when you're trading for guys like Holmes, Edwards & Thomas Jones with midround picks it wouldn't have made sense to draft skill guys in those same drafts.
I considered this point, too, and I think it's valid. But it seems like the better teams in the league continue drafting at skill positions because the cap and/or players' age force teams to phase out talent. It may be that the Jets do not have this type of succession planning in their organization or, if they do, they are terrible at training successors.
I think this all is about the Jets needing to get w/ the times. They are still operating under that Parcells-esque notion that offensive skill is merely window dressing & there are far more important roster facets w/ building a football team. They much prefer drafting defense/linemen early & I get the sense they are afraid to take the time to develop offensive skill. 15 years ago..this line of thinking held more validity. But the game has changed. You have to win your match-ups on the outside. You have to have players w/ explosion. You must have that great equalizer week to week. So I ask again...is it the scouting dept not identifying the right offensive talent..or an overall philosophy that devalues skill & lacks the patience to properly develop?
I have to really disagree with your statement, there is more then one way to win in the NFL. It really irrates me when people say this is the blue print for the NFL today and this is the only way you can win. With a little game planning to the talent you have on your roster, you can win any type of way. Hell I think teams could win if they ran an option type offense, we saw with Tim Tebow and Colin Kaprinick(sp). In my humble opinion I think your point is baseless.
I'm not sure how much the scouting department is to blame as the overall long range plan of the team. Skill position players traditionally take longer to develop. Old stereotypes were a receiver would really start to figure it out after 3 years, rookie QB's don't win, etc. With the way the Jets have been on the cusp of the playoffs the organization hasn't really committed to picking guys early and letting them develop. Except for now Hill, and everyone is killing them for his lack of success his rookie year. So now you've got the scouting department maybe highlighting guys like Russell Wilson that would be good mid-round value picks at skill positions, but they don't fit the plan of how the Jets will win.
That was kind of where I was going with that, but on the same token, it's not like we've been drafting a bunch of HOF'rs at any position. We've drafted one sure fire HOF player in the last ... how many years?
In other words we need a GM with a plan and a vision for how to build the team? Lets be realists here the NFL is about talent and mostly offensive talent. Why because the rules have changed so much that you can now run a Pistol offense in the NFL. Defensive will adjust but this is an offensive of league and you need to score 30 points to win games. The rules are just not set-up for the defense to consistently stop an offense. BB knows this he did not just become a bad defense of coach he knows that you win by scoring points and has surrounded Brady with best dink and dunk offense in the league. The pistol will work until defenses adjust until then ride it to the Superbowl. The life span of a good QB though will go down dramatically
The offense is definitely not going to be anything special when you spend so few high picks there. 2002 - DE with Abraham and Ellis already in house because they moved to a 4-3. 2003 - DT with Jason Ferguson already in house because they moved to a 4-3. 2004 - MLB 2007 - CB because they thought they had a great CB. 2008 - DE/OLB because they moved to a 3-4. 2010 - CB because Rex has a CB fetish. 2011 - DE/DT because the linemen were getting old. 2012 - DE/DT for Rex's 46. That's why the offense looks so bad. They've spent 8 of the last 12 1st round picks on the other side of the ball.
The sunshiny side is that we've seen multiple teams quickly improve on offense with the addition of a QB. Who that QB for the Jets would be is still up in the air, but look at Seattle & San Fran as teams that spend a majority of their picks on defensive players and lineman and then found the right guy to lead the team and had success.
Every head coach in the Woody Johnson era has been on the defensive side of the ball. That tells us something about Parcells, who basically bequeathed us Tannenbaum as well as recommending Bradway on his way out the door. It tells us something about Woody also. His HC hires have not been all over the map. He has wanted to make the Jets a defensively oriented team. That's not a bad thing, looking at the Steelers, Ravens and Bears as examples of successful teams. It's probably time though to concede that defense is unlikely to be the thing that distinguishes the Jets and vaults them above the pack. They're going to need to build a really good offense to win that Super Bowl. The defense will have to hold up it's end without getting the lion's share of the picks.
