You're too short to ride this rollercoaster... 🎢
Covering a whole host of Jets topics today.
🗽 Good morning Jets fans and welcome to Friday’s TJW. It’s Super Bowl weekend baby! It’s nice to have a game where I don’t really mind who wins, I think I’ll be a Bengals fan at the weekend because I like how they constructed their roster, but I expect Matt Stafford and the Rams to come out with the victory.
🏈 To finish the week I thought I’d just cover a few bits and pieces of news that have circling around the Jets universe over the last couple of days. Starting with some puzzling comments by Joe Namath.
“He (Wilson) certainly has the physical ability to buy time, to throw strikes. Most guys can improve on their accuracy and should in this day and age practicing it year-round. I like him, but I don’t know how long he’s going to last. You’d like for a guy to be 6-6, 6-7 back there in the picket. School’s still out on how Zach’s going to do”
I’m a Jets fan, so of course I’m a Namath fan. The man may have sold his soul to the devil for that Super Bowl win and for that I’m eternally grateful, but this comment is confusing. First of all I agree that school (jury?) is still out on Zach, as it usually is with QB’s coming off their rookie season…unless your name is Justin Herbert. Yes his accuracy should improve, but wanting a guy to be 6’6 or 6’7?
First of all lets touch on the obvious point, Joe Namath was 6’2 which is the same height as Zach Wilson, he was also around 15’bs lighter. Now the argument can be made that it was a different time and players were built differently. When Joe Namath came into the league San Diego Chargers QB John Hadl was leading the league in passing, and he was just 6’1, the majority of QB’s around this period were between 6’0 and 6’2. So Namath was reasonably tall in comparison to his peers.
It did make me think though, how many NFL QB’s stand at 6’6 or over? Of the 37 QB’s who took meaningful snaps for their team last year, only Justin Herbert and Trevor Lawrence were over 6’6, where as 14 quarterbacks were 6’2 or under. Maybe it’s the Justin Herbert recency bias, but I don’t think you need to be 6’6.
We can worry about Zach for a number of reasons but his height and weight aren’t at the top of that list. I also don't think he's slight enough to be concerned about his durability either. Get him an offensive line and keep him clean and his durability won't be a concern.
Lance Zierlein’s 2022 NFL Mock Draft
🏈 Some people love mock drafts and some people hate them. I like them as a conversation starter, but try not to get too worked up about them because believe it or not, the “experts” are usually as wrong as your mate Dave down the pub.
NFL.com’s Lance Zierlein released his post Senior Bowl mock. I know a lot of people won’t like it but here’s who he had the Jets taking:
Now there are two things I would say say straight off the bat. One, I absolutely love both of these players, I think both will have good NFL careers. Two, I would be absolutely amazed, stunned, astounded, bewildered and quite frankly shocked if the Jets spend both first round picks on defensive backs.
I know a lot of people would be upset with Kyle Hamilton and if you label him as just a safety I can see why. I wrote this piece a while back on Hamilton and why he’s more than just your typical safety, and certainly shouldn’t be counted out based on the Jets drafting Adams.
Joe Douglas and Robert Saleh share the same philosophy and that’s to build through the trenches, and we’ve seen a reluctance to plough resources into the cornerback position. Could I see us taking one of them? Absolutely. I think we’re more likely to use a top pick on a safety than cornerback, looking at the system and the depth chart we currently possess, but both in the top 10?
If one of those picks doesn’t land in the trenches then it’ll be a surprise, in fact, I’d say right now I’m backing both picks to land in the trenches with an offensive lineman (Neal, Ekwonu, Cross) and defensive edge (Thibodeaux if he falls, Karlaftis maybe, Ojabo maybe, Jermaine Johnson hopefully).
Berrios seeking $9 mill/year
🏈 A report surfaced that Jets free agent wide receiver Braxton Berrios was looking for $9 mill per year on the open market. Now there is one important thing to note here, this isn’t coming from Berrios’s camp and it’s based on one agent who “speculated” that Berrios “might” be looking for $9 million per year.
There is a whole host of uncertainty in that paragraph. Now the question is should the Jets entertain Berrios at $9 million? Personally I wouldn’t go that far and I don’t think anyone else will go that high either.
Berrios deserves to get a bump in what he’s earning, but $9 million is a bump too far. Michael Nania over at Jets X-Factor made a great case for not paying Braxton that kind of money based on his production not deserving that kind of money.
I'm all in favour of players getting as much as they possibly can, Berrios should ask for the stars and his agents job is not to keep him in New York, it's to get him as high an offer as possible. He can then take that offer back to the Jets to see if they want to match it (he doesn't have to, but if a player enjoys where he plays, it usually does).
I really like Berrios, and I’m keen to keep him around for the sake of Zach Wilson, but the Jets can’t get in the habit of overpaying. I’d be willing to go to $7 million over three years for Berrios considering what he brings to the team in terms of reliability and special teams, but if you overpaid everyone by $2 million you’d waste over $100 million in cap space. Jets can’t do that.
🏈 Jets running back Michael Carter joined the team at Good Morning Football to talk all things his rookie season. You can watch the entire conversation HERE.
Here are a couple of quotes that I picked out of the interview:
On what stood out to him about Zach Wilson: “He’s a good guy first of all, just a kid from Utah. I think what you see is what you get with him. First of all he’s a freak athlete… and he’s a good basketball player, like he can really hoop”
On advice to running backs coming in who aren’t 1st round picks: “You know I wasn’t a first round pick, I felt like maybe I should have been. But it doesn’t matter where you get picked…you’re in camp and OTA’s and everyone is treated the same. You’ve just got to take one day at a time, you’re not going to start a job in one day. When you do win it, you got to keep it and that’s just as hard, if not harder. It’s about keeping your spot and elevating your game every day”
2022 Hall of Fame Class Announced
🏈 From the official HOF website:
The newest members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame are tackle TONY BOSELLI, wide receiver CLIFF BRANCH, safety LeROY BUTLER, official ART McNALLY, linebacker SAM MILLS, defensive end/defensive tackle RICHARD SEYMOUR, coach DICK VERMEIL and defensive tackle/defensive end BRYANT YOUNG.
There are no Jets connections in here, but the 2023 class will be the first year that former Jets CB Darrelle Revis will be eligible.