I just heard something very interesting and revealing in Connor Hughes' podcast. He said that the story last year that Christopher Johnson had restricted Douglas in FA spending was false. He said that he spoke with both sides of the issue and both said that that story was false. They (Douglas and Gase) said that when they looked at who was available in FA last year they didn't see any Tier 1 FAs on whom were worth spending the money. For instance they thought Jack Conklin was a B FA, but that he would get A money. They thought Robby Anderson was a B FA, but would get A money. That's why they didn't re-sign him. They thought that Graham Glasgow was a B FA who would get A money. They did think Thuney and Scherff were A FAs and would have tried to sign them but both wound up being tagged. They were also concerned with what might happen with the salary cap and if the NFL season would even happen, so they weren't going to hand out a boatload of money in FA.They decided that this year's FA class had a chance to be "significantly more robust" so they saved their money for this year. So, all those who were trashing Douglas for not shelling out money for FAs last year were wrong. Douglas was smart and played it right. For those who think that Douglas won't spend big money in FA or trade for Watson, it sounds like you are definitely wrong. Hughes said that while Douglas said he plans to build through the draft and is not going to take a different approach than last year, last year Joe was willing to go out and spend big money signing a FA that they thought was worth it, they just didn't think that anyone was worth it. By extension, that means if they think that anyone is worth it this year (including Thuney and Scherff, and perhaps Watson), they will go out and try to get them. He said that he doesn't think that Joe Douglas will give 1st tier money to 2nd tier players or go bat shit crazy in FA, and that he will have "walk away" numbers that he won't go over for players, but he will be more active. He said that Douglas said something like, "When value and opportunity meet we have the opportunity to go and attack." Hughes then said that this year value and opportunity will definitely meet, so he expects that the Jets will be active in FA. They went through positions of need and FAs likely to be available and ranked them. At WR, Hughes said he thought the Jets will sign them in this order 1. Samuel 2. Robinson 3. Golladay 4. Smith-Schuster 5. Chris Godwin He thinks Golladay will almost definitely be tagged by the Lions. OL: 1. Thuney 2. Linsley 3. Scherff He thinks Scherff will stay in Washington. He doesn't think Thuney will be tagged. He said the Patriots tagged Thuney last year to keep him away from the Jets and Dolphins who were the top two pursuers of Thuney. Edge Rushers: 1. Lawson 2. Dupree 3. Ngakoue 4. Barrett He doesn't think the Bucs will let Barrett go, but if they do, they think he will be #1. He doesn't think Ngakoue is a Joe Douglas-type player, that he doesn't hate to lose, that he just chases the $. He thinks Ngakoue is a B player who will get A money. CB: 1. Richard Sherman 2. Kauan Williams He will be stunned if the Jets don't sign Sherman. He said this FA class has a lot of good slot and nickel corners and #2 types, but no #1 types. He thinks the Jets should sign Sherman, re-sign Poole, then draft a rookie. Hughes also said that he will be shocked if Maye is not back with the Jets this season. He said that they are going to want to show that they take care of their own and that they're not going to let an "actual respected team leader" walk out the door. Is that a dig at Jamal Adams? He said that when things were going so bad with Trumaine Johnson with the Jets, that he spoke with the agent for another CB and that agent said that everyone knew that Johnson only cared about two things: money and women. He said that when he got both, he didn't care about football any more. He was constantly late to and skipped meetIngs, and Bowles wanted to hold onto him. f what that agent said was true, then Mac either didn't do his due diligence, or was an even bigger moron than we thought!
That depends how you look at it. The Jets were (2-14). If they wanted to win more games, they should have spent more money. The team was set up to fail in many ways in 2020, including not signing veteran free agents who could have helped the team. If Douglas' plan was to sacrifice the 2020 season, set himself up with draft picks, cap space, a new QB, and a new Head Coach, then YES, Douglas was very smart and played it right.
I disagree. When they weren't even sure they would have a season last year and didn't know what the cap would be like for this year, it would have made little or no sense to spend money in FA, especially when 2nd tier FAs were going to get 1st tier money. That would have been irresponsible financially and from a team-building perspective. I don't think it's accurate to say that his plan was to "sacrifice" the 2020 season, just that he wasn't going to waste money foolishly giving tier 1 money to tier 2 players. They were going to hope for the best in 2020, and be set up very well for 2021 with cap space. I'm sure that he still had hopes that Sam would develop in 2020 and that he would be our QB going forward. He also didn't know at that stage that he'd be forced to trade Adams. He also had no idea that the Jets would wind up being as bad as they were. With better coaching, the team should have been able to win 4-6 games last season. I think the lousy job that Gase did sealed his own fate, and brought about the change in HC & CS. You're conflating things that weren't even in play at the time. So I think the bolded statement is totally inaccurate and unfair to Douglas. Douglas is smart and did play it right
https://jetsxfactor.com/2021/03/08/four-overrated-free-agents-new-york-jets-might-want-to-avoid/ Four overrated free agents the New York Jets might want to avoid By Michael Nania - 03/08/2021 These 2021 NFL free agents may appear tantalizing on paper, but when you dig a bit deeper, their resumes aren’t all that impressive. Leonard Floyd, EDGE, Rams Adisappointment for the Bears after being taken with the ninth overall pick in the 2016 NFL draft, Floyd went to the Rams in 2020 and took advantage of the fresh start as he posted 10.5 sacks. Despite the leap in sacks, Floyd still shouldn’t be seen as a premier pass rusher. His pressure rate of 9.1% was below the positional average of 9.7%. He only ranked 27th at the position in pressures (45) despite getting the ninth-most attempts at rushing the quarterback (494). Younghoe Koo, K, Falcons Koo connected on 94.9% of his field goals in 2020, ranking fifth-best out of 33 qualifiers. For his career, Koo has split the uprights on 88.7% of his tries, the fourth-best career average out of 43 active qualifiers. The red flag with Koo is his performance in the outdoors. For his career, Koo has made 45-of-48 field goals (93.8%) when playing in an indoor stadium but only 18-of-23 field goals (78.3%) when playing in an outdoor stadium. This is a huge concern for any non-dome team (like the New York Jets) that is thinking about cashing out on Koo to upgrade their kicker spot. Kenyan Drake, RB, Cardinals In his first full season as a starter, Drake had a breakout year on paper with 955 rushing yards (13th), 63.7 rushing yards per game (16th), and 10 rushing touchdowns (10th), but he didn’t actually perform well on a per-play basis. Drake was not an efficient player in 2020, generating hype solely through his workload volume. Here are some of his rushing efficiency numbers and their percentile ranks among qualified running backs: Rush DVOA: -3.0% (42nd percentile) Yards per carry: 4.00 (33rd percentile) Yards after contact per carry: 2.49 (31st percentile) Pro Football Focus rushing grade: 65.3 (30th percentile) Drake also offered little in the passing game, averaging only 9.1 receiving yards per game and placing at the position’s 12th percentile with a paltry average of 0.55 yards per route run. In fairness to Drake, his 2020 struggles in these areas stand out as an outlier. Over his first four seasons, Drake averaged 4.77 yards per carry and 3.15 yards after contact per carry while earning a 74.2 PFF rushing grade, and he posted a positive rushing DVOA in three of four seasons. As a receiver, Drake averaged 1.18 yards per route run prior to 2020, a good mark that is slightly above the 2020 average for running backs (1.08). However, from 2016-19, Drake averaged only 7.4 carries per game, less than half of his 15.9 totes per contest in 2020. It seems that Drake may be best-suited as a committee member rather than a workhorse. Yannick Ngakoue, EDGE, Ravens Ngakoue is one of the most well-known pass rushers in football and has a knack for making the big play, but his overall effectiveness has greatly dwindled from his early-career peaks. In the most notable box score statistics, Ngakoue has posted great numbers throughout his career, suggesting perennially excellent play: 2020: 8.0 sacks, 4 forced fumbles 2019: 8.0 sacks, 4 forced fumbles 2018: 9.5 sacks, 0 forced fumbles 2017: 12.0 sacks, 6 forced fumbles 2016: 8.0 sacks, 4 forced fumbles However, in actuality, Ngakoue’s consistency as a producer of pressure has been on the decline over the past two years. Here are his season-by-season pressure numbers (percentile ranks for pressure rates are among EDGE with 200+ defensive snaps): After ranking top-11 in pressures and in the top-15% in pressure rate from 2017-18, Ngakoue has not even sniffed the elite ranks over the past two seasons. Ngakoue has also dwindled in the quarterback hit department: 2020: 11 quarterback hits (70th among all players) 2019: 15 quarterback hits (44th) 2018: 33 quarterback hits (3rd) 2017: 23 quarterback hits (15th) 2016: 14 quarterback hits (56th) Despite a two-year stretch of dominance from 2017-18, Ngakoue has been merely solid over the past two years – nowhere near a superstar. It’s also worth mentioning how much Ngakoue struggles against the run. In 2020, he posted a 45.8 run defense grade at Pro Football Focus that ranked at the 10th percentile among qualified edge defenders. Ngakoue has never ranked in the top-half among qualifiers in PFF’s run defense grade and has never even ranked higher than the 27th percentile in a season. If Ngakoue is paid like a household-name superstar, his new team will be massively overpaying for the level of production that he provided over the past two years. However, if Ngakoue’s struggles lead to him landing a one-year deal, he could end up providing outstanding value in a prove-it year.
I am mentally preparing myself for Douglas to hand a blank check over to an interior offensive lineman who plays for a team that is notorious for letting OL leave and those OL being average at best.
Jets need to land one of these pass rushers- Shaq Barrett would be awesome We’ve been on the hunt for an outside rusher since John Abraham lol, it needs to end now
