The 2024 Jets Safeties

Edition #618

Good morning!

We’re officially one week away from the 2024 NFL Draft. I was going to dedicate this newsletter to a ton of mock drafts 😉, but you can’t swing a Rangers president’s trophy banner around without hitting one of them. I can almost guarantee that over the next week there will be three names continuously mocked to the Jets. Brock Bowers, who could invigorate our offence. Troy Fautanu who I love and Taliese Fuaga who I like a lot.

My general feeling mirrors what Nicole said below (Awesome Jets fan you should definitely follow on Twitter/X and tailgate food expert at Metlife).

NFL had a hypothetical trade involving the Jets and Titans today. How would you feel about the below?

According to Adam Schefter of ESPN, the Jets met with offensive tackle JC Latham on Tuesday night and Wednesday.

Who want’s some videos of Aaron Rodgers tossing the old pig skin to Garrett and Breece? Of course you do, why else are you reading this…

Daniel Jeremiah held a conference call with reporters yesterday and it lasted over 2 hours! Incredible effort by Jeremiah whose love for the draft just seeps through whenever he’s talking about it. He did have an interesting comment about a potential draft-day trade the Jets could make: "If (Odunze) gets to eight, I could make a strong argument that the Jets could make an easy, painless flip, where Atlanta goes back to 10," Jeremiah said. "(The Jets) could leapfrog (Bears) and take Odunze, and it wouldn't cost them much."

Bill Belichick was on the Pat McAfee show and he was asked about that trade with the Steelers last year: ‘We only traded back a couple of spots, we were pretty confident that the Steelers were looking for a tackle & we were pretty confident that the Jets weren’t going to take a corner because they had taken [Sauce] Gardner the year before. We kinda thought that both teams were looking for the same thing.’ Belichick said they were interested in taking Oregon CB Christian Gonzalez. Bill admitted that they didn’t know Pittsburgh ‘were going to take the guy the Jets wanted [Georgia OL Broderick Jones]. I would say we weren’t heartbroken that had happened.’

One consistent theme is starting to emerge with mock drafts that go beyond the first round, and that’s the Jets taking a safety.

The Jets actually have four safeties already signed to the 2024 roster in Tony Adams, Chuck Clark, Ashtyn Davis and forgotten man Jarrick Bernard-Converse.

In 2021 the Jets had Marcus Maye and Ashtyn Davis, and then a whole host of others who were asked to fill in.

In 2022 the Jets went out and signed Jordan Whitehead to a very modest 2-year deal worth $14.5 million and paired him with low-cost rental Lamarcus Joyner.

In 2023 they traded a low value pick for Chuck Clark and then paired UDFA Tony Adams with Jordan Whitehead.

After letting Marcus Maye walk, signing low-cost options and starting a UDFA at a key role in 2023, it’s hard to argue that the current Jets coaching/management group place a premium on safety play.

The Jets did spent a 3rd round pick on Ashtyn Davis in Joe Douglas’s first draft, and he’s turned into a key depth piece and vital special teamer, but since Jeff Ulbrich and Robert Saleh arrived, it’s been pretty quiet.

So how are the Jets going to line up in 2024? Will we see the Jets spend a premium pick on a safety as many are suggesting? I would argue that the value of our 3rd-round pick is higher based on us not having a 2nd-round pick, at least as it stands.