There’s a narrative around the media that the Jets are clearly tanking to get Sam Darnold in the 2018 NFL Draft. Members of both local and national media are hyping the notion. ESPN’s Rich Cimini wrote the following:
“In a matter of a few hours on Tuesday — Bloody Tuesday, we’ll call it — the New York Jets‘ ongoing rebuilding plan took a sharp turn in another direction.
Their GPS has a new destination: Tanksville.”
Colin Cowherd of Fox Sports Radio offered this advice to Sam Darnold:
“If I’m Josh Rosen or Sam Darnold and the two worst teams in the league next year are the Jets and Browns, I’m staying in school.”
The Jets are not tanking to get the first overall pick. There are several reasons why tanking is insane in the NFL, especially Sam Darnold.
New York Jets Not Tanking for 2018 First Overall Pick
NBA vs. NFL
This is not the NBA. In the NBA, there’s almost a guarantee after the high school graduating class starts college who’s coming out early and where they will end up in the draft.
In the NFL Draft, it’s completely different, especially at the quarterback position. We can’t have any level of certainty if anyone will come out early. If a team were to project a player to come out early, then, set up the team to fail, and he doesn’t come out early, that would be insane and would actually warrant losing jobs.
It’s All About the Money
The so-called youth movement in New York is about one thing, money. All of the veterans cut this offseason were cut, because they were no longer worth the money the Jets would’ve had to shell out this season. In addition to that, the contracts that were removed either didn’t count much or at all against the Jets cap space.
People point to keeping Sheldon Richardson, but dumping the contracts of Eric Decker and David Harris. There’s a simple answer to that. Richardson’s contract is fully guaranteed. The entire $8.069 million will count against the Jets cap number even if they cut him. On the other hand, the Jets save a total of $13.75 million in cap space by trading or cutting Decker and cutting Harris.
It’s simple math. The Jets felt the production they’d get didn’t warrant the cap hit. So, that means the players must be moved.
Youth movement ≠ tanking
From the beginning, the Jets wanted to build through the draft, but some circumstances led to straying from that philosophy. According to Luis Tirado of The Jet Press, here’s what Mike Maccagnan had to say:
“Going into this, our focus has always been to build through the draft. I think that’s the best way. You build your foundation of young players going forward. Ideally, you get to a point where you can either determine which players you want to sign from your own of players that have been in your organization for four years or five years, depending on their contracts, or go through free agency.”
Some will point out that there are only four players over the age of 30 on the roster. That’s what happens when you build through the draft, though. Inevitably, the age of the roster will be young until you start adding key veteran free agents later.
Say what you will about the Jets “tanking” in 2017. The Jets are not taking this approach for the 2018 first overall pick. It just may be happenstance, if they were to end up in that position.
