The Mock Draft Edition

Edition #563

Good morning ☕

So the 49ers survived a scare from Jordan Love and the Packers, Baltimore showed why they are the #1 seed in the AFC by easily despatching the impressive Houston Texans. The Lions’ Cinderella story continued as they beat former Jets Head Coach Todd Bowles and the Tampa Bay Bucs before the Buffalo Bills fell once again to the Kansas City Chiefs. That’s three straight losses in the playoffs for the Bills against the Chiefs.

As mentioned last week, newsletters will be a little shorter through January and into February due to the shortage of news, but I’ll be spending the extra time watching college tapes of prospects and talking to college coaches, who are always extremely helpful to TJW and I can’t thank them enough for their support, taking the time to talk to little old me and the independent TJW.

There were plenty of reports over the weekend that the Jets plan to make the NY Sack Exchange throwback jerseys the permanent away jersey for 2024 and beyond. I’m a huge fan of those jerseys so that’s OK with me. The 5-year limit is up with the home jerseys as well, so we’ll be seeing some new green ones at some point this off-season.

Rich Cimini reports that Aaron Whitecotton’s contract is set to expire at the end of January. Whitecotton’s star is rising considering the play of the Jets defensive line and according to the report, Whitecotton is good friends with Marquand Manuel, who interviewed with the Jaguars for their vacant defensive coordinator position. The suggestion here is that Whitecotton may head to Jacksonville with Manuel if the Jets safety coach is offered the position. So that would be a double whammy for the Jets.

Cleveland.com's Mary Kay Cabot has reported that the Jets plan to interview and make an offer to running backs coach Duce Staley. A Super Bowl champion as both coach and player, Staley spent 2023 with the Panthers as their running backs coach and assistant head coach. Carolina was only marginally better than the Jets averaging 104.1 yards per game, which was 20th in the league. The Jets averaged 96.9 rushing yards per game, which was 22nd. It’ll be interesting what role they carve out for Duce, I think it would be harsh to strip Taylor Embree of his RB coach role considering the issues we had up front, and the fact that Breece really came into his own once fully recovered from injury.

Mock drafts are everywhere at the minute, one of the most respected draft analysts and close friend of Joe Douglas, Daniel Jeremiah, released his first mock and it was surprising. Some people read way too much into the friendship angle, the Jets will still be in the evaluation angle, so DJ’s pick doesn’t mean he has some inside intel.

The Jets taking an offensive tackle should come as no surprise, but Taliese Fuaga being taken before Olumuyiwa Fashanu of Penn State is certainly unexpected. In this mock, Fashanu goes #14 overall to the Las Vegas Raiders, DJ defended that pick by saying “Teams are split on Fashanu. After a dominant 2022 season, he took a step back in 2023. But the talent is still immense.”

I like all three of those offensive tackles, although I do have Fashanu above Fuaga at the moment, both have the talent to be 10+ year starters in the league. For those interested, Joe Alt went #7 to Tennessee.

CBS Sports, on the other hand, had the Jets taking Fash at #10. In this particular scenario, they had Rome Odunze available. It all depends on free agency, but passing on Odunze may be difficult. Get yourself a good tackle in free agency, it opens things up a little.

Pro Football Network had the Jets going in another direction. I suggested on X the other day that Brian Thomas Jr was in play with the #10 pick overall and a lot of people had an issue with it, saying it was too rich.

Let me just say that Brian Thomas Jr is a 6’4, 200+ pounds receiver who gets good separation and finished the 2023 season with over 1,100 yards and 17 touchdowns, averaging over 17 yards per catch in the SEC, while having over 50%+ success rate on contested catches. If you’re happy to take him at #16/#17, you should be happy to take him at #10. To move down to get a 2nd round pick, you’re going to have to move into the mid-20s, and he’s not going to be there. If Odunze, Nabers, Fashanu and Alt are gone…this is the direction I’m going. Hopefully, in this scenario, we’ve already bagged an offensive lineman in free agency.

The Sporting News went in a completely different direction with Brock Bowers being the man. I wrote about that possibility last week and all the reasons I wouldn’t hate it if it happened. But in this scenario they had Olumuyiwa Fashanu going #14 to the Saints, Taliese Fuaga going #25 to the Packers and Brian Thomas Jr. going #28 to the Bills.

As mentioned, the projections are all over the place at the moment. But with the Senior Bowl on the horizon, we’ll start getting some more clarity, all the way up to draft day.

I didn’t want to leave today without offering up my own mock draft. For ease, I didn’t execute any trades at all, instead, I stuck with the Jets picks they’re projected to have.

You already know how much I like Brian Thomas Jr and I’ve already spoken about Christian Jones at Texas as well, I’ve watched him develop over the last few years and think at #186 he offers tremendous value to solidify the depth at right tackle for the foreseeable future. Blake Fisher had one bad game this year against Louisville, if you take that game away he allowed 1 sack and 10 pressures all season. Technically he’s very gifted and is an instant plug-and-play at RT.

Tyler Davis is a dominant run defender inside, earning a 90.8 grade from PFF last year. He also had one missed tackle all season, he’s big and reliable. He’s not the most effective pass-rusher, but let Quinnen handle that. The Jets need a young run-stuffer and he’s that in a nutshell.

Brenden Rice is coming off a 12-touchdown season where he had just 2 drops, he’s another big receiver who lines up outside.

Only 2% of Joe Milton’s throws were deemed turnover-worthy last season and his 20 TD to 5 INT rate is good. He can also bring value as a runner with 7 touchdowns, but he needs to work on ball control, and 8 career fumbles including 5 last season. He’s still only 23 and has more than enough time to sit and develop behind someone like Rodgers.

Evan Williams is one of my favourite guys in the draft. He’s got great length, and good speed and is one of the best run-defending safeties in football. He had 35 plays this year which constituted an offensive failure and PFF had him at 8 pressures including 5 sacks, his speed off the edge is a good tool to have.