I still don't get why we passed on Reuben Randle for Stephen Hill. When we traded up, I yelled out in my house "Nice we'll take Randle" and then we got Hill. (I liked Randle more than Alshon for anyone wondering though in hindsight, I would not mind hm too) Imagine if the roles were reversed and NYG took Hill who they had interest of late round 2.
yeah seriously there were 2 capable WRs we could of taken out of 3 and of course we traded up for the butt one
The fact the defensive players abandon receivers because the qb can't cycle off a primary is the bigger issue. Smith is making all of his receivers vanish.
And the worst part is ... Those are the comparison stats for the last THREE games!!! Our QB has caught more passes than our #2 wideout over a three game stretch.
The funnier thing is that the QB is the reason our #2 receiver isn't producing at all. The guy has 300 yards total in the last three games. None of our receivers are producing. Hell, they could run 9 routes all game for all I care. Just throw one up for the guy to run under. That's basically what teams are doing to us...
One of the problems with Hill is that he waits for the ball to hit him in the chest. He doesn't go up to get the ball or come back for the ball. He waits for it to come to him. Combine that with the fact that he can't get any separation at all and he has bad hands. Passing to him at this point is futile. A jump ball would be a complete waste. Think about the complete lack of talent the Jets have at the WR position, and this guy has been demoted. He is a bust.
Said it months ago, check post history if you want: Stephen Hill is only a good athlete in the most robotic sense possible. He can run fast in a straight line and has a high vertical jump from a stationary, standing launch point. He's not fluid, he's not coordinated, he has terrible hand eye coordination which leads to hands of stone, and now there are reports that he's a big pussy to boot. I mean my god just look at the guy run and jump, he looks like a newborn deer who is still figuring out how his legs work. Limbs flying every which way. Yikes. Needless to say I'm not holding my breath for him to develop into an NFL wideout.
That's the thing, I'm not saying throw jump balls to him. I'm just saying lets do what we did at the beginning of the season. Let him run under balls. That's it. His route running is just not good enough on short routes to be productive. His best games have been when the offense is going down field. If we start treating Smith like we treated Sanchez, he will end up in the same spot as Sanchez. We have to go down the field and we can't do that with David Nelson and Greg Salas. Say what you want about Hill, but the guy can run. The guys who are now getting more snaps were just as productive... they weren't.
I dont really blame regular football fans for liking Hill predraft, but any NFL team that had every single one of his college games at their disposal should be fucking ashamed of themselves for drafting him so high. Honestly, aside from a few game highlights, I hadnt seen much of him. But after watching one game as a Jet, its damn easy to see that he will never be a good receiver in the NFL. It kills me thinking about the fact that Alshon or Randle could be on the Jets. And its not like Alshon or Randle didnt have the college tape. Jeffery was widely regarded as the top WR leading up to that season, but he had some "weight" issues... Fuck that, Id take a 240 fat Alshon Jeffery over Stephen Hill any day.
The Jets gambled a lot on the picks they made from 2007 to 2012. Sometimes they hit the jackpot and sometimes they crapped out. The problem with the strategy is that most of the gambles didn't just involve taking players too high, most of them involved trading up and giving away picks to do that. That's where things fell apart. If you think you have an eye for talent and are seeing things other people didn't then go ahead and make the pick. Don't trade up to do that though. That's like handing the house (the NFL) money.
Hill has been a waste. Why did we pick him in the 2nd? I can't imagine he was on someone else's radar.
I think two things are pretty clear. One is that the Jets fell in love with Stephen Hill while they were scouting him. Something about the player caught their eye and they just couldn't look away after that. The second is that while the Jets level of want for Hill was completely disproportionate to his actual value there were a bunch of NFL teams that would have taken a flyer on Hill by the 4th round. He wasn't a good prospect but he had measurables that were going to get him selected before the 5th round. Going into the combine he was definitely getting drafted by the 5th round or so and his stock rose from that point on. BTW, a related discussion would be "are project players worth drafting at this point?" With the new CBA and the rookie contract structure you can make arguments both ways on whether it is worthwhile spending a draft pick, particularly a high pick, to get nothing out of a player for two plus years.
Hill may've been "milk carton" missing last Sunday, but fwiw was wide open on the right side of the endzone for a sure TD on Corey Graham's 2nd INT - a total misread on Geno Smith's part.
