NY Jets: Seventh Annual AGOP Contest

It’s here, oh, it’s finally here! The awe inspiring, cataclysmic, revolutionary, expeditionary, only once a year, and sometimes not even that, the thing we’ve all been hoping for and dreaming of, the only thing that makes life worth living, the one, the only Seventh Annual AGOP contest! Yay!!!

Each offseason, we put aside the hopes and dreams of the previous Jets season, to be replaced by new hopes and dreams, usually illusory, sometimes delusional, of the season to come. To that end Gang Green Nation is announcing the greatest thing in the history of the interwebs, the all new and improved, zero calorie, coronavirus free, socially distanced, even better than before, Seventh Annual GGN Offseason Plan contest (“AGOP”). No animals were harmed in the creation of this contest. The glorious AGOP competition returns, in the best shape of its life. We are asking all of you aspiring GMs to think deeply about the Jets roster, salary cap, potential trades, the draft and potential cuts and assemble the best 2018 Jets team you can, under the rules set forth in this article.

For those who are new to the contest, here’s how it works. All entries must be submitted via Fanpost. A few of the best will be selected by the expert judging team at GGN, and we’ll present those finalists to the GGN community for a vote. The winning plan gets its author bragging rights as best fake GM for a day at GGN over the next year, and, a PRIZE (YAY)! The winner gets a Jets related prize of their choosing from Fanatics.com, so long as the price is less than $30. Sorry fans of other teams, if you win your prize is still limited to Jets related merchandise. The winner also gets their winning entry prominently featured in the most respected, prestigious and spectacular of all possible forums, a front page article on GGN.

The rules are as follows:

1. The title of your Fanpost must begin with “AGOP:” (no quotes). You can follow that with whatever title you want, but it must begin with “AGOP:” so we can easily distinguish it from other Fanposts. Example - AGOP: It’s A Foregone Conclusion This Is The Winning Entry. If you do not follow this rule your entry will be excluded from consideration.
2. The deadline for Fanpost submission is 11:59 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, March 24, 2020. No exceptions. One entry per GGN member. Any GGN member who submits multiple entries, whether under one user name or multiple user names, will have all his entries disqualified. Don’t try to create or use multiple user names to submit multiple entries. You will just be wasting everybody’s time, and your entries won’t even be read.
3. There is no mandatory length, but there should be as much explanation as is necessary to fully explain how your plan benefits the Jets, works under the salary cap, makes reasonable trades, sets the team up for the future, etc. Spelling and grammar are not paramount, but entries should be reasonably readable. Use spell-check, use paragraphs and try to proofread for grammar and punctuation errors. If we struggle too much to decipher your entry it will probably not be judged favorably.
4. Your plan MUST fit under the 2020 salary cap, as set forth in overthecap.com, or it will be disqualified. In addition, consideration will be given to how the 2021 salary cap will be affected. If you try to backload too many contracts and push all salary cap hits into 2021 and beyond your entry will not be judged favorably.
5. Feasibility of plan execution is important. Don’t propose a trade of Blessuan Austin for Lamar Jackson and a draft pick. It’s not going to happen. If you think a trade might be perceived as one sided, tell us why it works for the other team involved.
6. Plans must be salary cap compliant using overthecap.com’s cap numbers. Overthecap.com has a really nifty salary cap calculator tool, which you can access here. We strongly urge you all to make good use of this tool, as it allows you to fiddle with the contracts of every player on the roster and every Jets’ free agent, doing all the calculations for you in terms of salary cap consequences for cuts, trades, restructures, franchise tags, re-signings, etc. THIS TOOL IS A MUST USE FOR ALL PRACTICAL PURPOSES. If you use the calculator you can be assured your numbers are correct. Use it. And in case I haven’t made this clear, USE IT. It will make the cap much less of a bear to wrestle with. Restructuring of current contracts to create cap room is allowed provided it complies with the data on overthecap.com, is allowed under the Collective Bargaining Agreement, and is shown to be something the player should realistically have no objection to. Please keep in mind proration of signing bonuses is permitted for a maximum of 5 years under the CBA, so no proposing a ten year proration to finagle extra cap space.
7. As of the posting of this article the status of the proposed new Collective Bargaining Agreement is unclear. Therefore, all AGOPs should just assume the old CBA remains in place and proceed accordingly, regardless of whether or not a new CBA is approved during this contest.
8. The Jets’ draft, for the purposes of this contest and prior to any trades in your AGOP, is as follows: 1 (#11), 2 (#48), 3 (#68), 3 (#79), 4 (# 120), 5 (#158), 6 (#191) and 6 (#211). ANY TRADES IN REAL LIFE BY THE JETS WILL NOT BE REFLECTED IN THIS CONTEST. NO MATTER WHAT THE JETS DO, YOUR DRAFT PICKS REMAIN AS LISTED ABOVE. Draft picks must be justified in being available at their designated slot by at least one reputable mock draft site. You can find an extensive list of Mock Draft sites here. If you are using a Mock Draft that appears to be an outlier in terms of where one or more players are chosen, tell us which Mock Draft you used and why. For example, if you are picking Chase Young in the third round, there better be some very good and highly persuasive reasons why you think he’ll be available there, or we aren’t buying what you’re selling. No more than three trades of draft picks for draft picks are permitted. If you propose more than three trades involving picks for picks, only the first three such trades will be considered. Unlimited player trades (players for players, picks for players or players for picks) are permitted. You should provide some reasons why the trading partner would want to do any proposed trade. Any trade of draft picks must be in rough compliance with the standard trade value chart. You can find a nifty interactive version of the trade value chart here. This interactive chart allows you to input any team’s name and it highlights all of that team’s 2020 draft picks on the chart; very cool. Trades may include picks from any round, as well as future years 2021 and 2022, but not beyond 2022.
9. Trades of current players for draft picks are limited as follows: Jamal Adams for a #1 and a #3, Quinnen Williams for a #2, C.J. Mosley for a #3, Marcus Maye for a #4, Chris Herndon for a #5, Le’Veon Bell for a #6, Jamison Crowder for a #6, Folorunso Fatukasi for a #7, and Trevon Wesco for four #1s and three #2s (just kidding). Sam Darnold is off the table, period. No other Jets player may bring back any draft picks in a proposed trade. The reason we have set values in players for draft pick trades is so that everyone is playing by the same rules. That is, Entry X may propose trading Marcus Maye for a #2, while Entry Y proposes trading Maye for a #4. Entry X then has a clear advantage in his plan, though they are both simply trading the same player. To avoid such issues, we have set standard trade values, similar to the way we require you to roughly comply with the draft pick trade value chart. Please don’t bother disputing the set values; they aren’t important so much for their accuracy as they are for their uniformity. Every year somebody feels it necessary to engage in lengthy criticism and debate about the set trade values; DON’T BE THAT GUY. It isn’t important; what’s important is that everybody is on an even playing field with standard trade values. Everyone has to play by the same rules, so just go with the values given.
10. Whether the Jets might realistically execute your plan doesn’t matter as long as the plan itself can be considered realistic given the current free agent and trade markets. In other words, you don’t have to operate the same way Joe Douglas would operate. Just make your plan something that could in some world be seen as realistic.
11. Free agent salaries should be realistic. You may sign any unrestricted free agents you wish, INCLUDING ANY FREE AGENTS REPORTED TO HAVE AGREED TO A CONTRACT WITH ANOTHER TEAM DURING THE LEGAL TAMPERING PERIOD AND ANY FREE AGENTS SIGNED BY OTHER TEAMS AFTER THE SIGNING PERIOD BEGINS. This year the contest was delayed in hopes of the approval of a new Collective Bargaining Agreement prior to the start of the contest. That has not happened. As a result, for this year only, you may sign any unrestricted free agents you wish, including any free agent reported to have agreed to a contract with another team, provided that any contract you propose should be roughly equivalent to or better than any contract such players are reported to have agreed to, and provided they fit under the salary cap. You may NOT sign other teams’ restricted free agents. You may NOT sign any players tagged by any other teams with the franchise tag or the transition tag. If you are proposing some backloading of contracts to fit better under the 2020 cap, that’s fine, so long as you then sketch out how the whole contract works so we can gauge how it impacts future years.
12. A word to the wise: don’t submit an AGOP where the Jets land every one of the top 6, 7 or more free agents on the market. That isn’t a realistic outcome, and it will hurt your chances in the contest. No harm in selecting a few of the top of the class free agents for the Jets, but taking every one you’re interested in just isn’t in the cards.

The finalists will be posted on or about Wednesday, April 1, 2020, with community voting to run through Wednesday, April 8, 2020. The winner will be posted on the front page of GGN shortly after the close of voting.

So get your minds working and try being Jets GM for a day. Let the Seventh Annual GGN Offseason Plan contest commence!

Editor’s note: Clarification on trades.

On the trading of draft picks, up to three trades involving draft picks for both teams involved in the trade are allowed. However, you may make as many trades involving picks for players, players for picks, or players for players as you wish. Any hybrid trades (i.e., my picks for your player and picks, or vice versa) will count as one of your three permitted picks for picks trades. I hope that clarifies all possible trade scenarios.