People greatly overweight the number of OL that play well after 30. I remember during 2015 I was predicting that we had about one more season out of D'Brick and Mangold. People were doing the usual "Brad's too negative" routine but Ferguson actually retired after 2015 and Mangold was gone after 2016. The NFL is *really* rough on players after their 30th birthday. The numbers actually say sometime between 29 and 30 most players lose about half their value and then they are retired in a season or two at the outside. Really good players can cheat on that by a few years but for the most part the really big guys can't do more than that. I'm betting right now that Morgan Moses is retired by 2023.
I mean this is the NFL salary cap world, there's always a hole somewhere. It's very possible that without the trade up, we have those holes plus LG. The thought that we were gonna go OL with those 2 3rd round picks AND they would be NFL starters is a huge assumption. I will assume that one these future holes will be addressed in FA.
The investment on TGG is the problem, specifically the emotional investment. Sure, PFF can be inaccurate, but for any given player, it's as likely to underrate him as it is to overrate him. Whereas on a fan site, people tend to overrate their team's players, and TGG is no exception. My point is I don't think AVT is as good as TGG is giving him credit for.
The thing about keeping the picks is it's a higher ceiling AND higher floor move than trading them away. The floor outcome of keeping the picks is that you get a guy perhaps worse than AVT (but still decent) for the LG spot @ 23 and the 3rd rounders aren't really good but they push GVR to be better or maybe one of them is a bit better than GVR. The ceiling outcome of keeping the picks would've been tremendous though. The ceiling outcome is you get a guy about on par with AVT for the LG spot and get a guy significantly better than GVR at RG plus the other third rounder ends up being a starter somewhere (could back up Becton too). This outcome would've meant our OL was all set for the foreseeable future and we wouldn't even need to think about it in FA this year. The ceiling outcome is rather unlikely, sure, but you make it completely impossible by trading away the picks. The absolute ceiling of trading away the picks is that. AVT is good but you're still awful at RG and have question marks at tackle too. A lot of us here were saying GVR was going to be a problem during the offseason so for our own GM to not realize that is really inexcusable.
What guard were they taking at 23? Anyone at 23 would've been a massive reach. Dickerson? We went down his path with Milliner. Guy is sandwiched between 2 great players on a great line. Maybe he's not as good here. Maybe they draft Moore at 23 then one of the later guards at 34? Again, a reach. Everyone would be complaining about reaching then. Or Dickerson who was coming off a torn ACL? That would've went over great here. JD wanted AVT. Simple as that. He saw him a cut above the rest. He's probably correct on that too. You go and get guys like that when you have the ability. We still had more picks last year than most teams. I'll give you GVR. We all saw that. Personally I think JD put too much stock in Lewis playing this year. They're should've been warning signs there. Maybe he thought Clark was ready to take over that spot and then gets hurt. It took a while to replace him but there's not a lot of trades in the NFL. You need 2 to tango as they say. A lot of this thread to me just seems like bitching to bitch. With everything that's happened in the last decade, we're gonna complain that we traded 2 3rd rounders to get a guy of AVT's talent? Yeah the team needs depth, but it also needs high level players. It needs everything lol. We got a good-great NFL starter for the next decade at the expense of a couple what-ifs. It's like the mystery door in Family Guy. Ooh, what's behind it? Good chance it wasn't a good-great NFL starter for the next decade. We have a lot more to bitch about with this team IMO.
We bitch about not drafting good players and when we draft a good player we bitch that we could have got a worse player but cheaper? I am confused. We got a good player be happy. We also have a right guard that Is probably better than. A third round rookie guard. Problem solved!
If the floor was getting a starting LG and getting a competitive RG then I don’t think “floor” means what you think it means.
We’ve operated under the notion that you can find quality offensive lineman later in the draft for nearly a decade and we’ve seen the results. The last time this franchise had any sustained success, we took two offensive lineman in the first round. You can find quality players at all positions later in the draft. It’s like if the Seahawks operated under the assumption that they can patch the cornerback position in the later rounds for a decade because they found Richard Sherman in the fifth. This team needs good football players at all positions. Let’s keep adding them, wherever we get them.
The only real way to judge trade ups in the early rounds is: is the guy you traded up for good? Not what the possible value of the picks you gave up where or other whether other guys you might have had are equally as good (or better). It shows conviction (or desperation I guess) on the part of the GM to do it. He knows that getting it wrong will potentially hurt his team and standing in the organization badly. Is the guy JD picked good then? Well it's too early to say for certain but yes, I'd say he looks pretty good.
So far, it looks like his best move... still early but if you're gonna rebuild and amass picks, you better not miss.
The way to judge trade ups in the 1st round is: are you better as a team as a result of the trade up or does your roster turn into a mess in a few seasons? Santana Moss - One good season with the Jets and a couple of roster collapses in short order. D-Rob - average player with the same roster collapses around him. Revis - great player but the Jets disappointed 4 out of the 6 seasons he played for us and of course had roster collapses his rookie season and in 2011 and 2012. Dustin Keller - decent TE, roster collapsed in 2011 and 2012. Sanchez - played well a couple of years but the Jets roster collapsed in 2011 and 2012. Darnold - 4 quality picks in one player and roster has blown chunks since the trade-up. AVT - looks like a great player however like Revis we have a rookie year roster collapse on our hands and the future looks very questionable. Living large the Jets way.
My short-sightedness has 20 years of post-Parcells behind it. Feels like long-sightedness actually when I think about it.
I don't mind trade ups as long a they are the exception, rather than the norm. AVT looks like he'll be a fixture on the line long term, as long as the Jets are willing to pay him and he doesn't get injured, so I'm OK with this one. It's also OK if you have draft capital stored up. If the trade up had resulted in a 3-4 player draft this year or down the line, I'd call it iffy since that'd be too many eggs in one basket. I also don't think you can draft a guy too early if you don't have a pick between your current pick and the coveted player's rated position. Trading down is nice in theory, but carries risk and requires someone willing to trade up to begin with.
This is called drafting for need. In this case your need to take that player. Need over value is always bad.
Being this hard against an occasional trade up is like saying a donut per month amidst an otherwise healthy diet is a sure fire way to get diabetes. In 2 drafts Douglas has executed 1 trade up vs 4 trade downs. Your evidence is based on a tendency to over-rely on trade-ups from GM’s 3-4 front offices ago and more than 10 years ago. This seems like current political discourse. Pick a side and then be so firm on it that you vaguely point to a few events and don’t bother to delve into how you made the correlation, and just accuse someone with another opinion of “having an agenda” and I honestly have no idea what that even means on a football forum.
The true benefit of trading up for AVT will not ever be known. Honestly, I find this thread silly. He's turned out to be one of the best players Joe Douglas had drafted so far in his rebuilding effort of this team. But what will never be known is how many times he's quite possibly saved Zachs health. Who knows what Zachs season would look like without drafting him?
It was a good move / the right move. Could've been worse. Could've been Green Bay who selected Josh Myers C at 62 from Ohio State to watch KC take Creed Humphrey at 63 who is now the best center in the NFL.
Our roster is crummy and full of holes. The depth on our roster is laughable, to the point of not even being NFL caliber at several positions. In this situation you don't use 3 high picks on one player. Or you can do that and end up with the 3-9 team we got - working on our second consecutive tank.
Creed Humphrey was a guy I was looking at last year but he ended up going before our first 3 pick anyway. In retrospect I would give up Elijah Moore in the 2nd to have drafted him, and I really like Moore. Gotta say that on a re-draft right now I would probably not do the AVT trade although I don't think it was a big a mistake as some.