Second Year Production

Edition #396

Good morning! ☕

I’m currently working on a broad piece covering one second-year player for each team primed for a 2023 breakout (I’ll link that once it’s complete and published). But I thought I’d take it a step further for today’s post and power rank the Jet’s 2nd-year players in terms of projected impact.

✈️ The Jets will host former Bills punter Matt Araiza for a workout according to Adam Schefter. The 6th round selection of the Bills in the 2022 draft was released after a lawsuit was filed accusing him and two former San Diego State teammates of being involved in an alleged gang rape of a 17-year-old girl. Araiza has continuously persisted in his innocence and the San Diego district attorney decided late last year to not press criminal charges. This to me is a little due diligence as Thomas Morestead was recently re-signed with $1.1 million in guarantees.

✍️ The Jets have signed former Division II Kutztown Bears receiver Jerome Kapp after a successful tryout. The 6’3 210lb wide receiver finished the 2022 season with 47 catches for 916 yards and 9 touchdowns. Nathaniel Hackett certainly has a type, he loves him a big-bodied wide receiver.

🧐 NFL.com listed the most underappreciated player on each team and for the Jets, they chose D.J Reed. I’d say that’s absolutely true of the national media but the fanbase loves and appreciates Reed’s game. “We shouldn't let a stellar draft class (which included eventual Offensive Rookie of the Year Garrett Wilson and Defensive Rookie of the Year Sauce Gardner) overshadow the exceptional free agent crop from a ridiculously strong 2022 offseason by general manager Joe Douglas. The Reed signing was one of the most underrated moves of all of free agency last year. NGS shows he was targeted on 14.3 percent of coverage snaps in 2022, the seventh-lowest rate at the position among those with 300-plus coverage snaps. (Respect.) Further, he allowed just 5.3 yards per target, which was the fifth-lowest of that group. (Earned respect.)”

🤣 The Patriots have been docked two OTA practices for violating the off-season rules which should come as a surprise to absolutely nobody considering their history of breaking the rules. The exact nature of the violation has not been revealed but the Cowboys and Bears were docked OTA’s last year for breaking the contact policy, and if I were a betting man I’d say it’s likely the same here. Live contact is not permitted at OTAs, but teams are allowed to run 7-on-7, 9-on-7, and 11-on-11 drills.

📻📡 Aaron Rodgers was on with Adam Schein for a long 27-minute interview and you can listen to that in full here. Here is a little snippet

Adam Schein:  “You've made the point…that you think eight to 10 teams realistically can win a Super Bowl. … I've been saying since the trade just to give you some names off the top of my head, not in any order - Jets, Bills, Chiefs, Bengals, Niners, Philadelphia Eagles. To me, the six best teams when I take a look at teams that can win the Super Bowl this year. Do you agree with that? And how would you define success your first year with the Jets?”

Aaron Rodgers:  “Well, I mean, I think there's been a lot of conversation around success, as we watched the NBA playoffs and some interesting answers have been shared, one by Giannis of the Bucks that I'm associated with. And I did appreciate his answer. You know, I was traded here with the idea that there's a team in place that can win a championship and, you know, being an older player, that's what you wanna do, you wanna add to your legacy and championships obviously really add to your legacy. So I've always said, I think there's eight to 10, I think the six you mentioned are all in the conversation. I think there's probably some other ones that deserve some love as well. You know, the AFC, you have the six you mentioned, four of those are AFC teams, obviously very strong. Have the reigning Super Bowl champs in our conference now and one of the best players in the league in Patty [Mahomes]. And then obviously the Bengals had a great run the previous year, they’ve got a great football team. In our division I think there's four really good teams. We get to see kind of where we stack up in the first game of the year against my buddy Josh [Allen] and the Buffalo Bills, which will be a fun way to start the season.”

Sauce Gardner

Is Sauce Gardner already the best cornerback in the league? You could certainly make that argument based on the defensive rookie of the year's first year, but to be the best you need one thing that you can’t achieve in year one, consistency. Good players can have a good year but great players do it year after year, and we all think that Sauce is a great player. Sauce allowed just 45.9% of passes into his coverage to be completed while allowing just a single touchdown on a busted coverage. The hope is that Sauce can improve on the two interceptions he registered in 2022, but if he maintains his stat line with his 14 passes defended, that would still be an outstanding season.