Gang Green Nation
Was there a starter on day three?
In the NFL, any team that wants to be successful needs to hit in the Draft. It’s a nonnegotiable.
Teams need 22 starters and a bunch of depth and role players. There is a hard salary cap in this league. This means that teams can’t only hit early in the Draft. They also need to find value in the later rounds.
We are still in the very early stages of the Aaron Glenn-Darren Mougey era. Their first Draft class means as much as any other class. We don’t want to read too much into it too early.
Still, there is an opportunity here for Glenn and Mougey to show they are off on the right foot. Struggles with late round picks was one of the more understated reasons Joe Douglas ultimately was unsuccessful as New York Jets general manager. Douglas was solid in his early selections. While there were a few solid depth addition in later rounds, Michael Carter II and Jamien Sherwood were the only quality starters the Jets picked on day three in his tenure. And Sherwood was only a starter for one season on his rookie contract.
One of the things I will be watching with Glenn and Mougey’s first Draft class is to see whether any of their day three picks immediately steps into the starting lineup.
I searched the results from a year ago, and only ten total rookies drafted in rounds four through seven started more than half the games and participated in more than half their team’s snaps.
So if the Jets can find one such player, it would put them in roughly the top third of the league in this area. That’s where you want Glenn and Mougey to be.
There’s also the paths these prospects have. Both fourth round picks, wide receiver Arian Smith and safety Malachi Moore, play positions where the Jets are weak. Fifth round pick Tyler Baron plays defensive end, a position where the Jets have good starters in Jermaine Johnson and Will McDonald. The third defensive end spot, however, is open. A third defensive end can get something close to starter level snaps given the rest defensive linemen need.
It isn’t everything. It won’t doom Glenn and Mougey if it doesn’t happen. Still, things are lined up for a quality leadership group to nab at least one late round starter in the Draft.
