#1 : Your Brandon Marshall Debate.

The jets may need help with recievers in the future, but marshall is not the answer. We have a young talented QB who needs time to develop with his recievers. Jericho has one of the best hands in the game. sanchez is also finding his rhythm with braylon, and he is also talented. I would much rather see the jets trading a first rounder +Gholston/Kellen for nnamdi than do the same (maybe more) for marshall.

Cotch is ridiculously underrated. He is probably the most underrated receiver in the league right now.

First of all, Cotch only played in 14 games (13, really, as he got injured early in the first Miami game). Now let’s consider their respective QBs’ overall numbers:

Sanchez: 196 completions on 364 attempts (53.8% comp pct), 2444 yards, 12 TDs
Orton: 336 completions on 541 attempts (62.1% comp pct), 3802 yards, 21 TDs

So let’s compute some rate stats:

Sanchez to Cotch: targeted on 26.4% of attempts, accounts for 29.1% of completions (difference of 2.7%) and 25% of TDs (note that these numbers don’t account for the fact that Cotch was gone for essentially 3 games)
Orton to Marshall: targeted on 28.5% of attempts, accounts for 30.1% of completions (difference of 1.6%) and 47.6% of TDs (same as above except 1 game except 3)

So if you combine catch rate with their respective QBs’ completion percentages and targets, Cotch empirically has slightly better hands. Marshall is obviously better at getting TDs (he’s taller and larger in general, makes for a good EZ target). But Cotch has a way better yards per completion number (14.4 to 11.1) AND yards per target number (8.6 to 7.3) than Marshall.

Also, I’m assuming you got those numbers from Football Outsiders… Cotchery has a higher DVOA than Marshall, 10.2% (27th ranked) to 2.4% (38th ranked). If you check out profootballfocus.com, they also have Cotch ranked higher than Marshall for last year.

I’m not saying that Cotchery is better than Marshall, but he definitely at least had the better season, believe it or not. Marshall is a supreme talent and he’d probably fare much better in our offense than in the Broncos’ offense, but Cotchery is just as valuable and possibly is a little more valuable. At this point I’d be more comfortable trading Braylon for him than Cotch.

Ideally, I’d like to have all three though ;)

I do believe Brandon Marshall is a difference maker anytime he’s on the field and can take it the distance. Unfortunately, I only think J-Co will secure the catch and get his feet in bounds every-time he makes a catch.

If you look up the stats, Cotchery actually has a better YAC average than Marshall, 5.5, to 5.0 according to profootballfocus.com. It’s strange because you’d think that Marshall is bigger and faster and stronger, so presumably he’d be better at getting those yards… and he might actually be, since you have to consider that Marshall was only averaging 11.1 yards per catch, so he’s getting like a good 45% of his yardage after the catch which would indicate he’s being used on short/intermediate routes almost exclusively which probably doesn’t play to his strengths. However, logic would also dictate that it’s easier to get more YAC the closer to (or behind!) the LOS you catch the ball since you are more likely to get blocks in front of you.

Sooooooo….. I dunno what to think on that.

As far as other trade possibilities… I just really am not comfortable with trading any specific player in exchange for him. Draft pick trades are more attractive to me in this case, the reason being Mark Sanchez. Especially Cotch because he ended up being his go-to guy at the end of the year and he was the most reliable target he had. But just overall, you don’t want to mess up that kind of chemistry, especially when you have a really young QB. Consistency is the key in these cases.

Agreed. I can really see Marshall putting up HOF #s for sure. And without a doubt he is a guy that could use a fresh start with a new team. Personally I think its gonna cost us more then a second and fourth to get him. But my reasons for saying "avoid" are many.

1. Young QBs tend to stick with a limited and low risk game plan. With Washington back next season, Sanchez will almost always use him as an outlet option on most passing plays. And having him as a saftey net will quicken his check downs and really limit the amount of balls thrown down the field and over the middle. Making Marshall the "second" option in Sanchez’ mind. Were talkin alot of money and picks to put on a Wideout while were still bringing along a young QB.

2. Marshall loves the slant but its the highest risk route on the passing tree. A color RED play in Rex’s dumbed down passing gameplan used for Sanchez. Lets not forget were not yet dealing with a vet QB who sees the whole field. Sanchez has yet to prove that he can even handle running an effective offense all season. He’s PICK PRONE.

3. The Jets are a running team. Marshall would never have another 100 rec year again if he came here. Can he handle that? Despite his amazing talent he would have to accept a reduced roll and take a back seat to a world class running game that Ryan will be reluctant to get away from, given this seasons dominating performance.

4. Marshall is a player who has shown the tendancy to be a cancer, at least to himself and possibly to his team. When things don’t go well for him, he shuts down. We were LUCKY to see Edwards put that BS behind him because he got to go to a winning team. Will we see the same patience from Marshall when dealing with a second year QB who will undoubtably have more a repore with his other options?

For me this all boils down to one thing. The money and picks could be better used to improve the team in other places. To beat the best teams in the NFL you have to find a way to beat their QBs (Manning, Breeze, Brady, ect). As good as the defense was they still got picked apart by Manning in the end, and it cost us the Super Bowl. Two problems were exposed in that game… The lack of a4 man pass rush and an exceptional corner to play with Revis. And thats were I think this team will end up blowing their wad with the Draft and Free Agents.
As much as I love what Marshall can do I just dont think its the right time to sign a guy like him. If we were an established passing team, and he was the last piece to the puzzle, I say go for it. But thats not the case.

For the recent past I can remember this team drafting very well on offense (Keller, Greene Bricks, Washinton,and Sanchez. I would expect to see that trend continue. So why not draft a slot guy like Shippley so he can grow with Sanchez comfortably instead of plugging in a guy who might turn the development backwards by demanding the ball?

Its seems to me that a Wes Welker type would help this team fill holes better than Marshall.