FanPost

Thoughts on Our Draft Strategy


There seem to be a lot of upheaval over us taking three offensive linemen. I don't get it. I'll try to divide this up into sections to make this easier to read. Feel free to argue, but for the record, I think it's borderline insanity to ever get upset over ANY sixth round selection, regardless of who is left on the board.

1. We are rebuilding.

We have a thousand holes and even our "strengths" are not really strengths. That means that we are not approaching this offseason and draft the way we have the past couple years under that genius Mr. Christmas Tree. We are thinking of the next 4 to 5 years NOW instead of just thinking next year. You don't go into a draft on a year like this expecting to get as many picks as possible to fill all your holes and draft a different position each time. You go into it to build a foundation for the future. Because of that, you draft whoever gives you the brightest future. Maybe you pick a guy for his upside after getting some pro training and time under his belt (Aboushi). Maybe you draft a guy because he's your favorite at what he does and his personality will fit tremendously in the locker room (Richardson). Maybe you draft a guy who you think is going to lead your team to greatness (Smith). You DO NOT skip over a guy just because you have other players currently at that position and you DO NOT draft one guy over another just because his position is a position of need. We didn't address linebackers, receivers or safeties. So damn what? This isn't a one year plan we're doing. You can't build an entire house all at once. You lay the foundation, wherever you feel its need, and go from there.

2. Rounds 4 through 7 are a crapshoot.

If you can draft guys in this round with the potential to one day start, you made out like a bandit. However, that shouldn't be your concern. The best teams have solid depth. That's what you're looking for in those rounds. Depth is always needed at every position. So anyone getting mad that we passed up one guy in the fifth or the sixth or the seventh or traded our fourth, remember, you're getting pissed about a player who with almost statistical certainty, is likely to never be a quality starter. Personally, I LOVED Aboushi going into this draft and never dreamed he would fall to us in the fifth. He's a steal in my mind for his potential and I like he has a great shot at being a starter one day, which is extremely, extremely rare for his position (although less rare for linemen than other positions). But even if he doesn't pan out that way, I'm happy for the linemen depth because he's exactly the kind of risk you take at that spot.

3. We were unable to "waste" picks.

Or at least, we are unable to know if those picks were wasted already. Again, a team with as depleted talent as ours needs help everywhere. The only realistic way to waste a pick in an offseason like this would be to pass. You can disagree with the selection and think that player sucks (I'm personally not sold on Geno yet, but the certainly Jets are), but to call a pick a waste is crazy. We need young talent injected everywhere and we just got a bunch of it in some key places. Whether or not they pan out is one thing, but that has nothing to do with a same day proclamation of the pick being wasted. Our team simply is not that good and after this draft, we have gotten significantly better in all the ways you would expect us to relative to the rounds we picked in (got some day 1 and/or future starters in the first 3 rounds and some projects thereafter).

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