Sperm Edwards

The bolded is not really true. We couldn't simply outbid other teams because of our team/GM/HC's reputation around the league, where we sign high priced players and then turn stars into garbage and then release them into FA with their careers in tatters. The high-priced player who did sign with us knew it would be his last big contract, and that he wasn't likely to see $13m+ by year 3 of a new contract with anybody. In his case, he might as well follow the money. But if there was a perception that he'd still be worth ~$12m in year 3, he may have signed elsewhere for less because (3x12.5) > ((2x14) + 5). That's what happened with the younger FAs who figured they'd still be in high demand in 2020 and beyond (Cousins, Norwell, Robinson -- all 3 turned us down despite us being the high bidder) so long as they stayed away from here. My hope - like everyone here - is this perception changes with Darnold. To your 2 other points: 1. I agree with this, except for LT. Unfortunately, good young LTs don't hit FA (and it's uncommon at center); look how much Solder got at age 30. However it is absolutely a good way to get a sure thing, if not someone elite outright, at both/either guard positions plus RT without spending in the high teens per year or more. 2. Yes and no; it depends on the player. While Levitre is an example of one side of that coin, our own Carpenter is an example of the other. He's trash in zone blocking but he's better than expected when he gets to engage on just 1 guy. He was bad last year here, and was considered a relative bust when he was with Seattle through 2014. The two years he looked good were when he was more or less exclusively man-blocking in 2015 and 2016. It's nothing more than desirous hope that Winters doesn't suffer the same fate, even though his health is conveniently being used as an excuse for every bad play last year. Point is more that 1st rounders (and high 2nd rounders) are hard to come by. Use them on players that are hard to come by in free agency and later in the draft (i.e. not a DT, a WR who usually only caught 1-2 passes a game, a LB-S hybrid, followed by two more safeties). You do it that way and then that's why it takes a GM 5+ years to rebuild into a realistic contender.

This excuse is simply not true and it bugs me that anyone actually gives him this unearned pass. Macc had all the access in the world to his own scouts and his own personal scouting, from spending the year with Houston as their head of college scouting. Are you suggesting in the weeks between getting hired by the Jets on January 13th and the upcoming combine 5-6 weeks later he forgot everything and burned all his own notes and deleted all his text messages and email correspondence from the entire 2015 college season (and the 2014 season before that)? He hired Rex Hogan as head of college scouting 2 weeks after he was named GM. Like with Maccagnan I find it ridiculous to suggest Hogan also knew absolutely nothing about the current draft class after scouting/grading them all season long. Right after that draft he replaced a few more, so at no time was he saddled with old Jets scouts as his only avenue for ranking/rating players. Oh yeah, and there's also an insane amount of resources online, to augment individual scouting work, which didn't exist decades ago. Worst of all, the first 2 prospects he took using only his hand-picked Jets scouts? Darron Lee and Christian Hackenberg; the latter a QB taken #51 in the country, who couldn't justify being #2 on the depth chart -- on a team with neither a top starter nor a decent #2 in either year he spent here. He's awful and is deserving of zero excuses.

and Revis. We didn't cut Cro after 2012; he was restructured as well. He also probably would have restructured Harris (IIRC he counted like $13m in 2013 after Tannenbaum insanely guaranteed like 75% of his contract). Probably others. But he wasn't going to gut the roster. It was not structured to cut everyone; it was structured with the idea of restructuring most everyone so we could compete that year, with Sanchez at QB.

My recollection is the opposite. I'm not going to search around now (you're welcome to), but after seeing the roster purged, Tannenbaum himself said he wouldn't have had to clean house, and that restructuring this or that player could have gotten the Jets under the cap and staying competitive. Of course that would have led to an even bigger piper to pay a year or two later, as he was all too happy to double down on Sanchez because he thought he was getting in early with a bargain contract extension. Whatever. It's in the past. I miss neither of them right now, and certainly won't miss the current GM either when he's gone. Much like January 2013, the Jets again missed a perfect opportunity to clean house at both HC and GM, and offer an incoming duo a clean slate with plenty of room for improvement and few contract/draft albatrosses from the prior regime. It doesn't take 10 years to get out from under bad drafts, despite the hyperboles to the contrary. A couple decent drafts plus wise moves in FA (finding a QB from one of the two methods), and any team can be a SB contender.

If he's ready week 1, and is even really close to McCown/Teddy, then I'm 100% behind it. I think the idea that players get permanently ruined by starting too early (e.g. Sanchez) is a fan's fantasy-excuse. It can, however, lead to bad habits that take longer to get out of, and if he's not ready for it he can also get hurt. Badly. Taking an extra month (give or take) isn't going to be some sort of invaluable experience where we wonder "oh, if only he started another 3-4 games in September as a rookie..." or anything. I'm most sympathetic to the "3 games in 11 days" reason. It's a lot for anyone to start right away, particularly behind a weak OL, and some challenges this early are just unnecessary for a rookie QB IMO. He'll have 15 years to get challenged like this, so there's no rush. This is the flexibility we're supposed to have by insanely paying Josh McCown freaking $10m plus another $5m+ for Bridgewater. But using Peyton Manning - a special outlier to say the least - as a rationale isn't going to sway me. It's as moving an argument as suggesting we shouldn't bother taking a QB in round 1 because Tom Brady was drafted at the very bottom of round 6. JMO

So did Ryan Leaf, IIRC. Manning also had normal scheduling his rookie season in terms of spacing out games (as @slats brought up, 3 games in 11 days is real, and isn't the same thing as Manning's 3 games in 21 days). Plus Manning's start isn't one that was particularly inviting to a young QB, and the idea that his career would have been worse off if he'd sat that first month is a hard argument to make. He not only did embarrassingly poorly in those games in terms of his numbers, but (looking it up now) he also got sacked 11 times in between his crappy passing. It was a hard opening schedule, even with normal space between the games, to start off against Miami, NE, and then us, and as prepared and polished of a prospect as he was, and as great as he was to become, he still was unable to rise to the occasion. He had a surrounding cast of Marshall Faulk, Marvin Harrison, Ken Dilger, Marcus Pollard, plus a couple more WRs who at least belonged on a football field (Pathon & Small), with a better OL protecting him than our current line. And even still, in his first 4 games he had a pathetic 3 TDs weighted against 11 INTs, 11 sacks, and a lost fumble. And those horrid numbers make Manning's performance appear better than it was: of those first 3 TDs, 2 of them were in garbage time as noncompetitive games were closing out, so in terms of meaningful drives it seemed more like 1 TD and 11 INTs, and 2 of those interceptions were pick-6s. You really want to use Manning's first career month as a model to use for Darnold? Truth is other than boasting with his balls after the fact years later, since he knows in hindsight he didn't get badly hurt or harmed, I'm sure even Manning privately knows that while getting his lumps in was a necessary part of his growth that he was overwhelmed that first month. It wouldn't have harmed his long career to have sat for those first few games. Just one of those sacks could have been devastating, say if Jason Taylor took out his knees or ripped his right shoulder back mid-windup or something because he was lost and unready for a month.

No he isn't. He's just paid like one. We had money to burn, so why not, but even Rams fans who watched him every week and wanted him back don't think he's a top 5 corner.

Yeah I don't know where this idea came from that we can get anything but lucky shopping for a LT in FA. Beachum at $8m coming off a horrible year in Jacksonville, or 30 yr old Nate Solder at $16m is what's for sale. Solder's reputation is better than his performance because he's been starting for NE for so many years, but he's no stud LT. Either that or you can rent a still above-average LT from the prior year, in his mid-30s, and hope for another year or two before he drops off. Teams don't let go of healthy, stud LTs with a future because they're as rare as good QBs. Also they don't typically let go of healthy reliable centers because they're so cheap to lock up early, it's foolish to let one go when you have one. RTs and guards are seen more as a position you can throw mud against the wall in the draft and land at least a solid-enough starter, which is why the very best of them that hit FA top off in the $13m range in 2018, while a just-ok LT like Solder entering his 30s gets millions per year more than that. We just signed Trumane for more than that and he's never once been deemed worthy of AP or PB honors: also millions/year more than 1st team AP guards in FA. It's a solid $4m/year less than Mo got 2 years earlier, with all the FA/cap inflation that's taken place since then. Hell, on an annual basis it's only $3m more than we're paying freaking Josh McCown. Guard is a great position to get the best one you can in FA and save early draft picks for positions that don't typically shake loose.

That occurred to me as well, but I have to believe even these morons wouldn't give a crap about one night of potentially higher ratings, weighed against a 21 year-old's career development. Plus while I'm sure both teams believe in their young QBs, they also know there's only going to be one winner and who wants the pressure of their guy looking like the wrong pick, even if only temporarily. They should let that stuff slide. Play him if he can handle it, and bench him if he can't. He's played on national TV plenty of times already.

This is the best argument for me. Otherwise I'd say if it's even close he should just start and get as many lumps in this season as he can. Also two of those first three games we're the only NFL game on, so the whole country would be fixated on him. Plenty of those games are going to happen, but first and third games of his career are a bit rough. I'd say the Cleveland one should be easier because it's Cleveland, but they've made a bunch of moves and it's half-expected that any decent QB should throw for 300 yds and 2-3 TDs against them (even though it didn't happen once last year because there was no need). I take for granted that an experienced QB like McCown is going to have a huge advantage just because nothing has been new to him for well over a decade. So if Darnold's even really close by the end of the summer that's close enough since he's the only one of the two will get better beyond that. I'm generally of the opinion that he (or any young QB) shouldn't be held back unless he's so raw he just looks lost out there, where all he's going to accomplish is getting hit and hit and starting to develop & reinforce bad habits that are hard to undo once they've taken root (especially hard to undo once the season is underway and he has to focus on gameplans not reinforcing the basics).

Except he was interested. He stopped trying when team stopped showing interest when they saw him try out, not the other way around. If he showed a little bit of anything, a top 10 pick (who was initially expected to go top 5) will get a hell of a lot more than $200K just for the presumed potential. It can be bad, but it's like broken bones or knee ligament tears. None are good, of course, but some are just devastating where others should be fine after surgery & PT in well under a year. The Achilles injury wasn't his career-ender, otherwise he wouldn't have made the team after he returned.

Yeah I stopped committing time thinking about him, but talent wasn't his issue (and for a bit, even as a rookie, started to look halfway decent), so he wasn't just Captain Combine. At some point he'd have to have been healthy enough for someone to take a shot on him, right? Think about all the useless scrubs on the bubble that spend their brief careers on & off rosters & practice squads. You're telling me no one wanted to try him out for more than 1 workout to see if he'd stick even as a 4th DB making the vet minimum? C'mon. Gotta be something more than just the injuries, unless he just couldn't play the same after his NFL injuries, but none of them seemed the career-threatening type. Surgery to repair a partially torn Achilles, his wrist, his shoulder... this isn't a Dustin Keller knee injury on his list, and most of the injuries are upper body not his knees.

Spilled beer on his Jordans? OMG Well it's not like she didn't have it coming to her. She's damn lucky Leo didn't join in and start pounding on her. Damn lucky.

Enunwa has stayed out of the news off the field, thankfully, but an Eagle Scout type? Didn't he get arrested & suspended a few years ago because he punched a woman in the mouth in his hotel room (or something like that)? And sorry but Lee is freaking mental. I see no evidence that he's smart-mental either, whether from his attention-seeking delusional story about getting jumped outside a bar but not wanting to press charges, nor the way Leo had to stop him from beating on some girl in an outdoor bar in public (which Leo looked like he could have done with 1 arm tied behind his back and 3 broken fingers on the other). He's athletic (and from college, experienced) enough that if he was truly smart he'd look like a superstar (or even a smart player, the way similar or lesser heralded prospects have right from the start). Most of the rest I agree with, though.

Teams do sometimes cut guys after they're arrested http://www.journalgazette.net/sports/professional/nfl/20180416/eagles-cut-player-following-arrest http://www.tmz.com/2017/11/18/nfl-rey-maualuga-arrested-battery/ http://www.sportingnews.com/nfl/video/eagles-cut-wr-josh-huff-after-arrest-and-comments-about-guns/oka7vcjejdxx1crb4kmyy1xzc http://www.tmz.com/2018/05/04/jeremy-lane-probation-work-crew/ http://www.kansascity.com/sports/nfl/kansas-city-chiefs/article184373343.html https://www.newsday.com/sports/football/giants/giants-waive-michael-bowie-after-domestic-violence-charges-1.14084914 http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/22734011/oakland-raiders-releasing-veteran-cb-sean-smith http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/20284962/green-bay-packers-release-dt-letroy-guion https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2018/03/27/seahawks-cut-qb-trevone-boykin-after-girlfriends-domestic-violence-allegations/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.daec3f503310 http://www.espn.com/blog/green-bay-packers/post/_/id/38326/packers-cut-ties-with-makinton-dorleant-after-injuries-arrest They just don't tend to cut great ones. Those guys get teams that are supportive and are "waiting for all the facts to come in for now" as they wait for the news cycle to come up with some new things, and then a plea deal then spins the original offense into, "Nothing to see here, folks."