Jets Draft Countdown: 2 days to go

It’s April 23rd, meaning there are only two days to go until the 2019 NFL Draft kicks off in the heart of Nashville, Tennessee.

As we count down the days until the Jets prepare for their fifth draft under Mike Maccagnan, I thought it would be fun to climb up the ladder of the best Jets draft picks of the 21st century.

Each day until the fateful morning of the 25th, I’ll name off one of the top eleven most productive Jets selections of the millennium. How did I rank them, you might ask? Good question! I stacked them up according to their scores as calculated by my genius formula — proven to be 100% accurate and 0% arbitrary!

Players earned points for accomplishing any of the following while in a Jets uniform:

• 50 points for a first team All-Pro appearance
• 25 points for a Pro Bowl appearance
• 1 point for each point of Approximate Value (via Pro Football Reference - a number that aims to calculate a player’s total value)
• 0.5 points for each regular season game played

Yesterday, I continued the rankings at #4 with D’Brickashaw Ferguson. Let’s move up to #3!

#11 - Jerricho Cotchery (94.5 points)

#10 - Sione Pouha (107 points)

#9 - Laveranues Coles (110.5 points)

#8 - Bryan Thomas (141.5 points)

#7 - Muhammad Wilkerson (148.5 points)

#6 - David Harris (174 points)

#5 - John Abraham (208.5 points)

#4 - D’Brickashaw Ferguson (224 points)

#3 - SHAUN ELLIS

226 points: 91 approximate value (2nd among all Jets draft picks since 2000), 170 regular season games played (1st), two Pro Bowl appearances

Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images

• Born and attended high school in Anderson, South Carolina
• Selected 12th overall by the Jets in the first round of the 2000 Draft (Tennessee)
• Played with Jets from 2000-10 and Patriots in 2011
• Career Jets regular season stats: 552 tackles, 80 tackles for loss, 73.5 sacks, 18 passes defended, 13 forced fumbles, 5 fumbles recovered, 1 interception
• Career Jets playoff stats: 12 games, 44 tackles, 11 tackles for loss, 3.0 sacks, 2 passes defended, 1 fumble recovered

Fast facts (Stats are regular season only unless otherwise indicated)

• You rarely have to go far down the ladder to find Ellis on a Jets all-time list for a defensive stat. He is ranked second in team history in sacks (72.5), fourth in forced fumbles (13), and sixth in total tackles (552). He is tied with Mark Gastineau for 11th in approximate value (91), and fourth among defensive players.
• Since tackles for loss were first tracked in 1999, Ellis leads the Jets with 80 of those.
• No player has appeared in more Jets playoff games than Ellis, who was a part of 12 postseason contests during his tenure with the team. The Jets won six of those games, tying Ellis with Bryan Thomas for the most Jets playoff wins enjoyed by an individual.
• Ellis played a total of 182 regular season and playoff games for the Jets, placing him fifth on the franchise’s all-time list. He was a part of 94 Jets victories, tying him with Mo Lewis for the second-most in team history behind only Pat Leahy (113 wins). Ellis’ career winning percentage of .516 is the highest among the 20 Jets to appear in at least 150 games.
• Ellis posted 12.5 sacks in 2003 (sixth-best single-season total in Jets history) and followed it up with 11.0 sacks in 2004 (eighth-best). His 23.5 sacks over that two-year span placed him fourth in the league, and he was the only player to place top-15 in total tackles and top-five in sacks.
• Since the beginning of the Brady-Belichick era in 2001, Ellis ranks fourth in sacks against the Patriots (including the playoffs), with 11.0 in 21 games. 10.0 of those sacks came against Tom Brady, ranking Ellis fourth on the list of players to sack him the most behind Jason Taylor (12.5), Aaron Schobel (12.0), and Cameron Wake (10.5).
• Ellis had at least a half sack in 65 regular season and playoff games as a Jet, most in team history.

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