I dont have the figures to hand, but it is staggering how big a drop off there is after the 1st round (which is a mixture of a drop in talent and the teams being much more investedin 1st round picks and so being willing to stick with them. Funnily enough I was watching NFL network earlier and they gave out an interesting stat. (going from my imperfect memory) since (I think) 2006 there have been 23 QBs taken in the first round, of those 23 there are 15 starters in the NFL. In rounds 2 to 7 combined there were well over 80 QBs taken - of those 80 QBs there are a total of 7 starters (2 from rd 2, 2 from rd 3 and 3 from rd 7 (none from 4, 5 or 6). If you look at the Jets in the 2011 season out of 22 starters there were: - 11 first round picks, (Burress, Holmes, Keller, Ferguson, Mangold, Sanchez, Pace, Thomas, Cromartie, Wilkerson and Revis) - 1 second round pick (Harris) - 4 third round picks (Hunter, Smith, Greene and Pouha) - 0 fourth round picks - 1 fifth round pick (Conner) - 1 sixth round pick (Slauson) - 0 seventh round picks - 4 Undrafted free agents (Leonhard, Scott, Moore and Devito)
First round picks are really expensive to sign to that 2nd contract. Cap problems come with having a high percentage of 1st rounders. That's why using your middle round picks is really important. Instead the Jets tend to slap them onto their own 1st or 2nd or 3rd round to move up. That's not getting value with your 1st rounder, it's making your 1st rounder really expensive to keep over the years since you have to pay more for them at the start and then you don't have the potential of cheaper talent that can be resigned early at favorable terms from the mid rounds. Adding a 4th and a 6th to a 1st in a trade turns that 1st into a glittery expensive asset that will cost more to maintain than it would otherwise. Darrelle Revis has been the tail wagging the dog twice already and he's going to come back for another wag on us soon. With the Jets investment in him how can they afford not to let him wag them? Where was the RT we needed last year? He was likely on the field in the presence of Revis or Dustin Keller or Shonn Greene or even Mark Sanchez. He might well have been Antonio Cromartie. He could even plausibly have been Santonio Holmes. You keep trading your non-1sts away as added value and eventually you run into the brickwall that is UDFA's playing keep roles that they are likely unsuited for. Colin Baxter thanks the Jets management team for giving him his 15 minutes of fame at the expense of the Jets playoff chances.
The Jets have as many starters not taken in the first round as the Ravens do, and the Ravens are usually held up as being the epitome of good drafters.
Well, here we're running into the qualitative difference between the Ravens draft room, which is maybe the best in the NFL, and the Jets, which is mediocre. The Ravens 1st rounders include Ray Lewis, Terrell Suggs, Haloti Ngata and Ed Reed on the defensive side of the ball. All taken by the Ravens. The Jets 1st rounders on that side include Darrelle Revis, Bryan Thomas, Mo Wilkerson and Kyle Wilson. See the difference there? Yeah the Jets came calling for Cromartie at a slightly reduced price when he failed to tackle his way out of a paper bag in the playoffs for the Chargers. The reason they got the reduced price is that Cromartie isn't a great talent like Revis or the 4 Ravens above. You can't compare the Ravens and the Jets when it comes to the draft because the Ravens actually produce All-Pro players on a fairly regular basis. The Jets got Darrelle Revis, once, and have been hanging on the coat-tails of that move for 5 years now.
I am not arguing about the quality of their 1st rounders against the Jets (though who have the Ravens taken in the 1st round in the last 5 years?) what I was saying was that their starters are just as expensive as the Jets are and they are just as reliant on those high priced 1st rounders as the Jets.
Yeah but when you're winning 12 games a year you don't have to supplement the way the Jets do. The Jets and Ravens have an equal number of 1st rounders but the Ravens won 12 games last year and the Jets won 8. Joe Flacco, BTW, is not the second coming of Peyton no matter what he thinks. Who did the Jets put next to Harris in this late window? A very expensive free agent in Bart Scott. Who sat next to Ray Lewis? A cheap UDFA they developed in Jameel McClain. Who was the Ravens great CB last season? A 3rd rounder they picked up in 2009 and developed into a star.
How many of those are our 1st round picks? How many of the 2nd rounders are ours, and same with 3rd rounders? This is kinda my point. If we don't hit on that 1st rounder, and compound that with giving up our 2nd, or 3rd to move up. Trading back will give us more picks to be right with, thus improving the continuity of the team. Don't get me wrong, in any given year if we pick in the 1st round, great. Trading up we are investing more than 1 pick to be right versus taking 1 pick and choosing 2-3 times to get it right.
To be clear, I am not advocating giving up 2nd or 3rd round picks to move up a few spots in the 1st round to get a particular player. I think it is retarded and there is no-one other than a potential franchise QB that (to my mind) it would ever make sense for a team such as the Jets to make such a move. I dont feel the same way about giving up 5th, 6th, 7th round picks to move up in rounds 2 or 3 or 4 to get someone, I am very comfortable with that philosophy. Your point was: The only point I was trying to make in responding to your query was that there are a lot more 1st round picks that seem to make it than any other round (again, this is clearly for a variety of reasons) and that it would seem from looking at the rosters that actually taking more players in rounds 2 or 3 isnt necessarily likely to result in us having more productive players down the line (especially if we use those second rounders on players like Clemens, Miller and Ducasse!) Again - I am just making an observation here as its something I noticed when looking at various rosters just how many 1st round picks there seem to be starting on every team - I kept wondering how the hell there could be so many that every team seemed to be stacked with them.
Excellent points including your earlier assessment of 1st round availability. Your posts are always insightful and spot on. I do want to add however that if Hightower is there at 16 and DeCastro is gone we should take him in a minute. He will be an immidiate contributor both as an ILB and OLB and the perfect complement for Harris for years to come.
One of the popular sentiments in the forums appears to be trading down & then trading up --> Lower first round & higher second rounder. Considering how many picks Tanny/Rex are gonna draft & try to fit on the team & their practice squads, I don't see the Jets trading down & acquiring more picks for this season't draft.
This. One of the guys on our radar at 16 will be there in the 20s. BPA works for us, given our plethora of needs.
