New York Jets- This Years Cleveland Browns?
Do teams tank in the NFL? Can teams tank in the NFL? Of course no team intentionally loses games because they could lose the interest of their fans, but how far are teams willing to go to find that next franchise changing player? Well it seems like the New York Jets are that team this year in full rebuild mode and it looks like they have their eyes set on a QB like Wyoming's Josh Allen or USC's Sam Darnold in the 2018 NFL Draft. The Jets will surely have competition for the pick with teams like the 49ers and Browns which is why they have started the rebuild process early.
So far this off-season the Jets have parted from WR Brandon Marshall, C Nick Mangold, LB David Harris, S Calvin Pryor and WR Eric Decker may be out the door this week. These five players are not depth pieces who play special teams, these players are starters in the NFL and some of which are even former Pro Bowlers. What these moves signal to me is that the Jets are ridding themselves of big contracts but it also signals that they are not looking to make a playoff push in 2017. The Jets defense still has the pieces it needs to be dominant with Leonard Williams, Muhammad Wilkerson and Jamal Adams, but the team is lacking a long-term solution at QB which is why they may be making these changes.
The Jets will go into the season with Josh McCown, Bryce Petty and Christian Hackenberg as their QBs. McCown is the most experienced of the three and has had moments of success as a starter but if the Jets really want to find their next star QB, put all the eggs in the Hackenberg basket and see if he is the QB everyone thought he could be when he was entering college. Early observations of Hackenberg this off-season is that he is still a work in progress and has plenty of room to grow but if the Jets want him to be their next QB, they need to give him reps early before it's too late.
Let me be the first one to say that I have been a Hackenberg supporter since his time at Penn State, even with James Franklin, but at this point I don't see him making a drastic leap into stardom like I had hoped. I still believe the Jets should go into this season with him as the starter but their best bet for the future may be to look at the 2018 NFL Draft. It almost feels like the Jets are modeling their long-term strategy to what the Browns did this past season when they signed Robert Griffin III in hopes he would return to his rookie form. Griffin suffered an injury early in the season which led to the Browns starting Josh McCown and rookie Cody Kessler and as we all know the Browns finished the season with one win and the #1 overall pick. If the Jets follow this model, they may end up in the same situation, but this time they will be looking for a QB.
What if the Jets do end up with the top pick? Who would they target with the top pick? The top QB prospects as of right now are the previously mentioned Josh Allen and Sam Darnold along with UCLA's Josh Rosen. Each of these young QBs has a different skill set to offer; Allen is the small school QB who has the huge upside; Rosen is the pocket passer who is the most pro-ready QB and Darnold is the QB who came out of nowhere and lit the college football world on fire with an incredible performance in the Rose Bowl. The Jets will have to decide which of these QBs has the best shot of being that rookie franchise QB like Andrew Luck but the difference between this year and last is that these three QBs all seem worthy of being drafted in the top 5. Let's just say the magnifying glass on this draft class will be focused on the QBs and whether or not they can live up the hype throughout the course of the season.
The other part of this discussion to consider is the possibility of the Jets' plans backfiring and they don't get a top pick yielding a QB. Two possible scenarios to consider:
A. Jets start Christian Hackenberg. Hackenberg plays up to his potential and helps the Jets win more games than expected. The Jets have their QB of the future but that means they gave up good players who could have helped them in the short-term (playoffs?)
B. Jets start Josh McCown. McCown leads the Jets to more wins than expected which knocks them out of a top pick in the draft. This option also prevents them from seeing what they have in Hackenberg or Petty and with no top pick the Jets either trade a for a top pick or they reach for a QB in the draft.
Both options listed above are not likely to occur this season but if either were to actually come to fruition, than all the moves made during this off-season mean nothing to the future of the Jets other than cap relief. The only way this plans works out for the Jets, if this is indeed their plan, is if they end up with a top pick and are able to get the QB they want.
The Jets will be one of the most interesting teams to monitor throughout the entire season and who knows, maybe they make a few more moves in the coming days and weeks before Training Camp. Remember Jets fans your 2018 draft big board should go as follows: QB then everything else.