📬 Monday Mailbag! 📬
Thank you to everyone who sent questions in, let's dive straight into the mailbag.
🗽 Good morning Jets fans. The football gods have been kind with these post-season matchups. We were treated to two more close contests last night. I do feel for Jaquiski Tartt this morning, he can’t be feeling too good.
Anyway, we’re here to talk all things Jets, so let’s get into the mailbag.
🏈 This is going to be an interesting one to monitor, starting this week. Even in drafts where there aren’t any top-tier QB’s, you always have a couple that gets drafted sooner than they should by teams looking to catch lightning in a bottle. I think by the time this process has played out, that #10 pick will be valuable in terms of a pick QB needy teams want.
If we just look at the picks after ours, Washington needs a QB so teams will want to jump them. Although if Denver goes into the draft as they are, they’ll be the favorites to select QB1 at #9 overall. With Big Ben retiring I can see the Steelers wanting to jump up from #20 and they may be the obvious choice for a trade down partner.
The Panthers need a QB and they could take one at #6, the Falcons could look to draft the heir apparent to Ryan, but Pittsburgh makes the most sense for me. If Carolina and Denver pick a QB in the top 10, that would make trading down extremely difficult. However, if Ole Miss’s Matt Corral or Pitts Kenny Pickett is there at #10 I’d be waiting by the phone for that Steelers call. Kenny Pickett is a New Jersey guy but having played at Pitt, I can see the appeal there for Mike Tomlin.
Some people won’t like moving down as far as #20 but I don’t have a problem with it. I truly believe the value in this draft is between picks 20-50. You’d start with a combination of picks, the #20 and #52 as a start, and then adding more on top of that. If the Jets can pick up another pick in the top 60 then the infusion of talent would be worth moving down.
🏈 Good questions Jared, let’s break them down:
Do you draft 2 TE this year with the class being so deep?
This for me depends on free agency and what you do there. If you can somehow manage to get a Dalton Schultz then drafting two would probably be a bit overkill (even though I did just that on Twitter the other day).
This is an extremely deep tight end class though, so you don’t have to overpay in free agency because you know you can get talent at the position in the draft. If we did decide to hit the TE position in the draft instead of free agency I’d be comfortable taking two in the draft. McBride and Ruckert seem to be the favorites at the moment, but guys like Cole Turner, Charlie Kolar, and Jake Ferguson can’t be discounted if the Jets want to take one early and one later.
How high do you draft WR, or do you just sign FA?
Similar to the answer above, it depends on what we can do in free agency in relation to the wide receiver pick. I don’t think we’re in a place where we can expect someone like Devante Adams to come here, and I just can’t see someone like Chris Godwin coming either. Would Kirk want to come out of Arizona and Murray? Same with Williams and Herbert? Michael Gallup is an interesting one as Dallas will need to decide who they want to keep, they have a fair few free agents and they won’t be able to keep everyone.
In terms of how high I’d take a wide receiver, I think #10 makes sense. My preference is actually to trade back with that pick, so if we can trade back a handful of picks and still get a wide receiver then that to me is the ideal scenario.
Who is your favorite draft prospect at wide receiver not being talked about?
I absolutely agree with you on George Pickens, had he not suffered that injury I think he’s being spoken about like the other top tier receivers in this draft class, I would argue that we saw enough from his freshman campaign that he may have been WR1 in this draft class. The fact he even came back and made some big plays for the National Champions down the stretch speaks to his desire and talent level.
🏈 I’m going to go with Romeo Doubs out of Nevada though. He’s coming off a season where he put up 80 catches for 1109 yards and 11 touchdowns, that’s his 2nd season in a row where he’s put up 1,000+ yards. He has everything you’d want from an NFL wide receiver, acceleration and burst, a low drop rate, an ability to come down with contested catches and no hesitation catching balls in traffic and across the middle.
Doubs is on the Jets Senior Bowl roster this week, so I’ll be keeping an eye on him.
🏈That’s an interesting question now that Sean Payton has left town. The Saints gave up three draft picks to move up to get Marcus Davenport back in 2018, so they’re going to want to recoup some nice assets for him. He is coming off his best season as well with 9 sacks and is owed $9.5 million in 2022, the last year of his deal. So any team trading for him will want to ensure they can sign him post 2022. I think the Carolina 2nd rounder is as rich as I’d go and even then I’m a little wary. 2020 was a down season for Davenport as he recorded just 1.5 sacks over 11 games (1 start).
The comfort level with Danielle Hunter is higher because he’s done it for longer. He does have a huge contract hit in 2022 as his cap number is up at $26.1 million which is mainly comprised of a roster bonus of $18 million. That would be a lot of money tied up in one position when you consider Carl Lawson’s contract as well. I saw a trade proposal doing the rounds for him the other day and here were the details:
Minnesota Vikings trade: Danielle Hunter, 2022 first-round pick (12th)
New York Jets trade: 2022 first-round pick (10th), 2022 second-round pick (via Carolina) (38th), 2022 fourth-round pick, 2023 sixth-round pick
I mean that would be an interesting conversation because you get to keep both your first-round picks and get a premier pass-rusher to pair with Carl Lawson in 2022 and 2023.
🏈 That’s a really interesting question and one that would require a lot of research to make any definitive judgments, but let’s just take a look at some of the contracts handed out last year. It could be argued that the three that worked out the best were all on the defensive side of the ball.
Trey Hendrickson has had an even better year in Cincy than he had in New Orleans last year and finds himself in the Super Bowl. Matthew Judon was signed to a 4 year $32 million deal and he’s had a career year in New England with 12.5 sacks. Yannick Ngakoue also had a great bounce-back year with the Raiders.
It seems to me that if you’re going to spend free agency $$$’s I’d spend them in the trenches. All three of the guys above operate there and I’d argue the best offensive signings from last year were on the offensive line, look at Joe Thuney in Kansas and Corey Linsley in LA.
On the flip side you have receivers like Curtis Samuel and Kenny Golladay who weren’t able to help their teams for one reason or another, and defensive backs like William Jackson III in Washington and Shaquill Griffin in Jacksonville who just haven’t lived up to expectations so far…all be it, it’s only one year.