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Ready, Set, Joe! Joe Douglas, the Jets general manager, finally gets his crack at the NFL Draft on Thursday, 10 months after he was hired. Douglas, the career scout, has been waiting for this chance. “I don’t take this opportunity lightly,” Douglas said. “We’ve got eight picks and four in the top 79. We have …
Ready, Set, Joe!
Joe Douglas, the Jets general manager, finally gets his crack at the NFL Draft on Thursday, 10 months after he was hired. Douglas, the career scout, has been waiting for this chance.
“I don’t take this opportunity lightly,” Douglas said. “We’ve got eight picks and four in the top 79. We have to do our best to get the right type of player, the right type of person that’s going to come in here and turn things around and get us going in the right direction. We’ve seen impact drafts make a real difference in a short time.”
When the Jets hired Douglas to replace Mike Maccagnan, a big reason why was his eye for talent. That will be tested now. The Jets’ roster has holes all over it and the fan base is restless after nine consecutive seasons out of the playoffs.
The Jets’ recent drafts have been terrible. They have just 22 homegrown players on their roster, the fewest in the NFL, according to overthecap.com. Douglas is armed with four picks in the first two days to find difference makers and four more picks on Day 3 to add depth.
He referenced Ravens coach John Harbaugh, who would tell the Baltimore staff to draft players who get everyone excited. That is what Douglas plans to do.
“Let’s get the guys we’re all excited about,” Douglas said. “We take that subjective viewpoint and we mix that with the objective viewpoint of analytics and we try to follow the right path to the right player.”
Expect Douglas to hit the offense early and often in this draft. Adam Gase’s unit ranked No. 32 in the NFL last season. Third-year quarterback Sam Darnold needs help both in front of him on the offensive line and around him at wide receiver.
That leads to the biggest question of the draft for Douglas: Does he take the third- or fourth-best offensive tackle with the No. 11-overall pick or does he take the best or second-best wide receiver?
The safe bet is that he will go tackle in the first round. Go back to the day of his introductory press conference when Douglas stated the Jets would be a team that imposed its will on other teams by being strong in the trenches. The Jets have neglected offensive line in the draft for a decade now. The last time they selected a lineman in the first or second round was in 2010, when Vlad Duccasse was their second-round pick. They have not picked a lineman in the first round since 2006, when they took tackle D’Brickashaw Ferguson and center Nick Mangold.
There are four tackles rated above the rest — Jedrick Wills Jr., Tristan Wirfs, Mekhi Becton and Andrew Thomas. There is a chance that three of them will be off the board by the time the Jets pick.
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If they don’t take a wide receiver on Day 1 of the draft, they surely will on Day 2. It won’t be a surprise if they take two. This is one of the deepest wide receiver drafts in memory. The Jets feel they can land a good wide receiver after the first round. While CeeDee Lamb, Jerry Jeudy and Henry Ruggs are all tempting choices in the first round, league sources say none of them are projected as elite receivers and the drop-off is not as great at receiver after the top tier as it is at tackle.
While the early focus is expected to be on offense, Douglas also has work to do on defense. The Jets need help at cornerback and edge-rusher. The only way those become first-round possibilities is likely if they trade back. But expect them to be hit at some point in this draft.
One of the things that frustrated people inside the Jets last year about Maccagnan was his inability to maneuver during the draft. Douglas is seen at being more adept at figuring out ways to maximize picks through trades, something he did when he was highly involved in the draft in Philadelphia. While the Jets enter this draft with eight picks, he could come out with more through trades.
As far as traits the Jets are emphasizing, speed, character and durability are at the top of the list. Expect a lot of players with fast 40 times, were team captains and guys who did not miss much time in college to become Jets in the next few days.
