There was an article published sometime after the draft documenting how JD fell in love with Zach's tape as early as October, long before he was a blip on this forums radar. That pick is squarely on the shoulders of Joe Douglas.
A lot of people fell in love with Zack Wilson, and that probably included JD, but I feel he must have deferred to the opinion of the incoming coach as to who he wanted.
I dont think so because even recently when they let go of LaFleur there were reports that relationship was fractured from the beginning because LaFleur was concerned about Wilson in the draft
You know as well as I do that reports can be wrong. I don't think we're ever going to know for sure, but I don't think it's logical for a GM to dictate who the QB will be in a situation such as the Jets had where it was in doubt. We know the coach is the one who is responsible for winning games. I'm not saying JD didn't have input, but Saleh should have been the one making the decision among Darnold and Wilson or someone else. If in fact JD was the one who insisted on Wilson over Darnold, then I would agree it's a fireable offense, but I don't believe it went down that way.
For sure. I think there's been a divide in this organization for awhile now though. Douglas brings in players that aren't a good fit for the system.
I don’t think Saleh or Douglas deferred. I think they were in complete agreement about it. They bought the hype train of the media circus around his late ascent and then the pro day where he threw the ball 40 yards on air falling backwards had those dopes high fiving just like Bowles and Maccagnan when they traded up and “ended up” with Darnold. The true sad irony in it is that it looks like the 49ers felt Darnold was a good enough fit to run the system of the coordinator we let go of who ran the same system. And that’s with their starter coming off Tommy John surgery and their 3rd overall pick who cost them a fortune being shown the door.
JD: We have Darnold on the roster, but can draft Wilson with our #2 pick. Who do you want? Saleh: I like Wilson and would rather have him. JD: I like him too, we are in complete agreement.
This is funny, but I think the one thing it discounts is the fact that Darnold was due a decision on his fourth and fifth year options and you had a brand new coaching staff coming in. Probably most, if not all, of the time a new regime coming in with the second overall pick in what's considered a strong quarterback draft is going to draft the quarterback when the incumbent has been terrible and has to be committed to. Who would hitch their wagon to something like that? The real problem is, they chose the wrong quarterback.
Good point, but I disagree that Darnold was terrible. He just had the misfortune of playing on a terrible team and didn't have enough talent to make a terrible team into a good team such as Peyton Manning, Andrew Luck and Trevor Lawrence.
I've actually come to this conclusion as well. Don't think he would have ever been a franchise guy though.
He may not have been terrible in the grand scheme of things, but the Jets had ruined him so badly by the end of that 3rd year that he gave them no reason to justify keeping him over a fresh start for a new regime. I know if I was an incoming coach I would never hitch my wagon to damaged goods when I had the 2 overall to start my own legacy.
I remember distinctly that Sam was view as being acceptible to the new CS... I believe that it was as much a financial decision - recalibrate the cost structure for the next 5 years - as it was how they viewed him. I will also remind eveyone SAM threw that same across the body pass that ZW did but he did it on the run in a game against the 49ers and it went for a TD. OH yea, the DC was our current HC.
I remember that 1st game against Detroit where he came back from throwing a pick six on his first pro pass to score a big victory. I thought we finally struck gold. I don't believe he was fool's gold as some do. More like tarnished silver.
I'd be interested to see what Darnold could do with the talent in San Francisco. He got drafted into one of the all-time worst organizations in professional sports and then got traded to an organization that is now competing with the Jets to try to be even worse in Carolina. Darnold never had a chance from the moment he was drafted.
Again a good point. As much as I believed letting Sam go was a mistake at the time, I recognized that a coach was entitled to have "his guy" as the QB leader of the team. If Saleh wanted Wilson, then so be it.
The Jets have damaged my emotional state so much over the years that I had three choices: be angry all the time, become numb and give up watching them and the NFL altogether, or learn how the business side of football works so that at least I could look at them intelligently and see where they were going, what they were trying to do, and what they should be doing. It's really helped. The reason I'm telling you this is that after year two, and all through year three, I knew exactly what was going to be the result with Darnold. Gase was coaching himself out of a job, and the decision about years four and five was looming. Unless Darnold lit it up and showed definitively that he was worth keeping, it was very clear that once the coach and his entire staff was let go that a new quarterback would be coming with the new regime. That's why it was so frustrating when they lost out on the Trevor Lawrence pick. The writing was on the wall, and the Jets being as dumb as they are, ignored it. Not intentionally, but that's just the way things go with this franchise. So I've lost a little bit of that crazy passion in exchange for comprehension, but none of these decisions catch me by surprise anymore. Except of course not getting a back up for Aaron Rodgers and throwing Zach Wilson back into the mix, but that's a story for a different thread. if anything, it's really showed me just how inept, clueless, and shortsighted the franchise is.
Brutal. 2022 season is where the most hits are, but even these are only in the 1st and top of the second. It's true that AVT is really a starter, but the guy is hurt for two years now, and Becton while starting hasn't really played like a starter. So, fair game there. One thing I do need to bring up is that JD had more picks than usually available because he traded away 3 starters we had to get more picks: Leonard Williams, Jamal Adams, and Sam. So, in reality he traded away 3 starters to get more picks, and still ended up with just 7 starters over 4 years. Aside from Michael Carter, no starters past high second round. This is pretty terrible, no matter how you slice it, even when factoring in 2022 draft.
Well written and I see where you are coming from. I wanted to keep Darnold because I did not want to go back to Square 1 with a new QB after seeing 3 years of Sam struggling, but at least he got 3 years of NFL experience. Many on this blog posted: watch.....Wilson is so much better than Sam, we wouldn't be going back to Square 1. They were right. We are at Square Zero.
I was on hiatus then, I didn't see all of that, but even if Wilson was similar to Sam as far as the way they play, we are definitely at square zero because we don't have the clean break we had with Sam. We could, but clearly we're not getting rid of everybody so it's an awkward spot. And frankly, drafting a quarterback in the top few picks for the third time in seven years is just solidifying the definition of insanity.
All of Douglas draft have the same problem. Where are the offensive player dart throws? Where the WR additions late that could help? Where are the dart throws at OL? Good teams find these WRs or OL in the later rounds that contribute, but we are here throwing darts at Jabari Zuniga, Hamsah Nasiriideen, Jamie Sherwood, Jonathan Marshall, Michael Clemons, Zaire Barnes, and Jarrick Bernard-Converse. There is a reason why we have absolutely no depth on the offensive side of the ball. All these picks in round 3+ are being used on defensive dart throws and reaches. 2020 - Zuniga and Perine were laughers. James Morgan as a developmental guy just because there were rumors of BB liked him? Becton over Wirfs is insane. He went for the homerun when the high floor was there with Wirfs. RT or LT, it didn't matter. It's like Douglas has no idea when to swing for the fences or just take the single. 2021 - Don't really need to get into the Zach pick. But, Elijah Moore, Michael Carter, and Michael Carter. Small. Moore and MC (RB) were both less than 10th percentile in size, weight, and wingspan for their positions. Sherwood, Nasiriideen, Jonathan Marshall? We are taking college DBs and trying to move them all over the place to become LBs and safeties. Why are we wasting these assets on stuff like this? Where are the late round offensive players? 2022 - Best draft easily and probably the only reason Saleh and JD still have jobs. Homeruns with Sauce and GW and Breece. JJ took a nice jump. Ruckert is a fine TE2 pick at that spot. I'm okay with the Mitchell pick to get some depth on the OL, but Michael Clemosn with a 4th rounder? That is a top 120 pick. We just spent a 6th dart throw on Jonathan Marshall that didn't work the year before, now we take Clemons for the same thing? Come on. His resource allocation stinks and it's like JD has no grasp on it whatsoever. 2023 - WMD can be a fine player, but resource allocation again. How is that pick not on the offensive side of the ball? One of the WRs would have been perfect here. You could have had GW and JSN as your main 2 weapons for the next 8 years. What a missed opportunity here and now we need to go spend on another WR via trade, FA, or draft to make up for this miss. Tippman is fine. Carter Warren is probably the pick that replaces Mitchell next year. Izzy is fine if they ever gave him the ball. Hopefully he is RB2 next year. Here we go again, round 6. Zaire Barnes and Jarrick Bernard-Converse, what are these picks??? Connor Rogers didn't even have those two as top 300 players. Those picks are so out of left field and could have just been signed as UDFAs. These two picks are on par with the Zuniga pick and Perine pick back in 2020. Just clueless dart throws and on defense nontheless. My biggest concern with JD and Saleh are if they stay this year and run it back in 2024, they make the WC, they then get extensions? When Rodgers leaves in 25 or 26, you really trust those two to make the proper decisions to rebuild? I don't.
