Gang Green Nation
A certain type of receiver might be best avoided in the draft
The New York Jets have been an organization plagued with bad luck when drafting wide receivers. Garrett Wilson has panned out, but outside of that, the Jets haven’t had a receiver reach 1000 yards with the team since Jerricho Cotchery, who was drafted in 2004. That’s 20 years with 17 receivers who did not hit that mark with the Jets. A large reason for that lack of success is whom the Jets were drafting. And it’s more than just a talent issue. It’s when the players chose to declare for the NFL draft. That’s because the Jets are (normally) choosing non-early declare prospects, or, “NEDs”. And studies show that those players have a much higher chance of failing in the NFL than their early declare counterparts.
Some of that is common sense. After all, players who declare early for the draft usually excel in college football. Yet, general managers won’t stop themselves from taking chances if the ability is deemed to be there. One instance is Malachi Corley, whom the Jets selected on Day 2 of last year’s draft, only to see Corley ride the bench for the majority of the season. And though it may be too early to completely call it a career, the odds of him performing well with the Jets (or the NFL as a whole) are slim.
With that in mind, there are multiple players in this year’s draft who will be classified as “NEDs”, that the New York Jets should avoid in the first three rounds.
*For the purpose of this exercise, I will be using the MDB 2025 Consensus Big Board.
There are always going to be exceptions to the rule. However, just based on the “NED” criteria and their expected draft position, these players are better to avoid, than be selected by the Jets.
A lot of NFL fans love the prospect of Emeka Egbuka being on their football team. Egbuka hit 1011 receiving yards last year to go with 10 touchdowns. He also had an 82.4 receiving grade, which ranked 19th in the FBS. Egbuka was primarily a slot receiver with the Buckeyes, lining up inside at over an 82 percent clip. While that leaves room for him to also perform outside in the NFL, it’s not something he’s too familiar with doing.
The Ohio State receiver also holds a respectable 2.51 yards per route run. While that isn’t bad, what is concerning is his 7.9-yard aDOT, which was the 34th-lowest among receivers in the FBS (among 260 eligible players). Another issue (that fans may believe is not an issue) is that Egbuka has a high number of contested catches, with 22 in 2024. While he did catch them at greater than a 50-percent clip, a large number of contested catches usually signifies that a player is unable to create separation consistently. This is...
