Round 1, 9th overall pick
- Chance Warmack, OG from Alabama; instead the Titans picked him with the 10th overall pick.
I think that Chance Warmack and Jonathan Cooper were rare prospects at Guard that happened to line up with a huge area of need. I was surprised Warmack fell to us at 9 and was very disappointed that we didn’t draft him. I would have been happy with any of the top 5 CB’s in this year’s draft and we could have landed one of them in the second round. We could have added a future pro-bowler to Mangold and Richardson and really gone a long way to solidifying our Offensive Line.
Round 1, 13th overall pick
- Jarvis Jones, OLB from Georgia; instead the Steelers picked him with the 17th overall pick.
Outside Linebacker has been a big area of need that we’ve been neglecting for the last several drafts. I’m still not over passing on Melvin Ingram last year. In this year’s draft, I thought there were three OLB’s worth taking in the first round. With Jordan and Mingo off the board, I thought we should have drafted Jarvis Jones. He was the anti-Gholston. There were a lot of reasons for concern with him except when watching him play. He was a highly productive and dominant player against excellent competition. I’d welcome him to my team any day.
Round 2, 39th overall pick
- Johnthan Banks, CB from Mississippi State; instead the Bucs picked him with the 43rd overall pick.
While I would have much preferred my draft to the one that the Jets actually had, I sincerely hope that I am wrong. I did not agree with drafting Geno Smith in the second round despite his perceived value at that spot. I actually would have much preferred taking Nassib in the 4th round if we had to take a QB. While QB is certainly a huge area of need, I would have preferred to give Tebow and Garrard a chance this year and draft a QB next year if needed. We just have too many holes to fill this year and the likelihood that any of the QB’s in this year’s draft class would have an immediate positive impact is, in my opinion, doubtful.
Round 3, 72th overall pick
- Keenan Allen, WR from California; instead the Chargers picked him with the 76th overall pick.
Having Keenan Allen fall to us in the third round was a big surprise and I think that we should have jumped at the opportunity to add such value at that spot.
Round 4, 106th overall pick
- Trade pick to the Saints for Chris Ivory, RB. Well done Jets!
I love what the Jets did with their 4th round pick. I think that Ivory was the Saints’ best running back on their roster but because he was an undrafted free agent and the Saints had traded up in the first round to draft Mark Ingram, have a $14M contract with Sproles, and have an established producer in Pierre Thomas, Ivory never had a fair shot at the starting job. I think he will excel when given the opportunity to be the number one RB and is better than any RB we could have selected in the 4th round or that we had on our roster.
Round 5, 141st overall pick
- Josh Evans, FS from Florida; instead the Jaguars picked him with the 169th overall pick.
Round 6, 178th overall pick
- Michael Williams, TE from Alabama; instead the Lions picked him with the 211th overall pick.
Round 7, 215th overall pick
Safety and Tight End are areas of need that obviously didn’t get addressed in the draft. If we had more cap space, I wouldn’t try and address every need via the draft but, as we all know, the current state of Jets’ cap makes it tough to do anything.
- Chase Thomas, OLB from Stanford; instead went undrafted but signed with the Saints.
With the final pick, I think teams need to look for value more-so than in any other round. I couldn’t believe that Chase Thomas was available. I would have expected him to go no later than in the 4th round and was one of the players I’ve been tracking. I would have been pleased if the Jets drafted him in the 5th or 6th rounds but when he was still on the board in the 7th round, and the Jets passed on him again, I just shook my head. For him to fall that far, I think there must have been some negative info floating around the league that was not made public. NFL.com actually had him rated higher than the Cowboy’s first round draft pick!
Anyway, the last time the Jets spent their first round pick the way I wanted them to was in 2008 when we drafted Vernon Gholston so I’m not going to get too upset. One thing the draft teaches us is that none of us really know anything anyway (except maybe Ozzie Newsome). I think the Jets draft choices give them the most opportunity for an immediate turnaround but they also carry with them the most risk. If Geno Smith can come in and play like Russell Wilson did last year, if Dee Milner can start right away and at a high level and if Sheldon Richardson proves to be the dominant force our scouts believe he is capable of, we could be in for a very nice season. However, when you have really high draft picks like the Jets had this year, I believe it is even more important to not miss. The safest picks statistically when picking 1-16 (according to The Harvard College Sports Analysis Collective) are at Linebacker and at Offensive Line. In this draft we had huge areas of need in those positions and had excellent draft prospects available to us in those positions. I think it would have made a ton of sense to draft Warmack and Jones but, that said, I wish our newest Jets the best and hopefully Geno proves to be a better seer than his new head coach… and yes, somebody did say Playoffs!
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