Top Jets Draft Pick of the 21st Century

By Michael Nania@Michael_Nania Apr 25, 2019, 9:43am EDT

It’s April 25th, meaning that tonight is the night that the 2019 NFL Draft will kick off in the heart of Nashville, Tennessee.

As we’ve been counting down the days until the Jets begin their fifth draft under Mike Maccagnan, I’ve been climbing up the ladder of the best Jets draft picks of the 21st century.

Each of the past ten days until this fateful morning, I’ve named 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 #2 with Darrelle Revis. Let’s move up to the green and white throne at #1!

#1 - NICK MANGOLD

441 points: 84 approximate value (tied for third among all Jets draft picks since 2000), 164 regular season games played (second), seven Pro Bowl appearances, two first team All-Pro appearances

Born in Centerville, Ohio and attended high school in Kettering, Ohio
Selected 29th overall by the Jets in the first round of the 2006 Draft (Ohio State)
Played entire career with Jets from 2006-16

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

Mangold is tied for seventh in league history in Pro Bowl appearances by a center, with seven. He is also second in Pro Bowl appearances for the Jets, behind only Winston Hill, who was named to eight Pro Bowls.
Weird fact: Mangold collected nine tackles in his career, making him the all-time Jets leader among offensive linemen. D’Brickashaw Ferguson is a close second with eight. Mangold checks in tied for 17th on the NFL’s all-time list for tackles among offensive linemen. The more you know!
Over his final five seasons in the league (70 games), Mangold committed a shockingly low total of only four penalties. From 2012-16, he never committed more than one flag in a season. How good is that? In 2018, Spencer Long and Jonotthan Harrison combined for nine penalties at the center position! Mangold had 10 penalties over his final 100 regular season games! For his career, Mangold averaged only 1.95 total penalties per 16 games.