By Aidan Joly
Not much content to put out considering just about every sport has been postponed or outright canceled, so the eyes of the sports world are on NFL free agency and the draft in April.
The New York Jets have the No. 11 overall pick in said draft, and it’s come down to two possibilities, taking an offensive lineman to help out a depleted offensive line and help out Sam Darnold, or take a generational wide receiver that can be the team’s top guy for years to come.
In my opinion, the Jets should be taking a wide receiver with the pick. The short explanation is that you can find a good offensive lineman in any draft, but this year’s wide receiver class is much deeper than the typical year and the Jets should be taking advantage of that.
Right now, there are four wide receiver first-round selection locks, in CeeDee Lamb (Oklahoma), Jerry Jeudy (Alabama), Henry Ruggs III (Alabama) and Justin Jefferson (LSU) with the possibility of up to two more in Denzel Mims (Baylor) and Brandon Aiyuk (Arizona State).
This year’s class is arguably the deepest since 2014, where we saw five receivers, Sammy Watkins, Mike Evans, Odell Beckham Jr., Brandin Cooks and Kelvin Benjamin all go in the first round. 2015 had quantity over quality at six with Amari Cooper, Kevin White, DeVante Parker, Nelson Agholor, Breshad Perriman and Phillip Dorsett get selected. Of those six from 2015, the one with the best career so far has been Cooper, but the other five have all been serviceable, but not stars. The 2014 group has some of the league’s top receivers to date. 2017 had three go in the top ten, Corey Davis, Mike Williams and John Ross, but none of them have come close to top talent.
As for this year’s group, it seems like Lamb and Jeudy will be the best of the group. Lamb has a ton of athleticism and the ability to seemingly get to every pass thrown to him, and Jeudy has some of the best speed we have seen out of any college wideout in years.
On the offensive line side, the Jets seem to be enamored with Louisville tackle Mekhi Becton, as they should be. He’s huge, at 6-7 and 368 pounds and any team would want him, but I don’t see him being available at the 11th pick.
So you have that, which would probably make one of those two top wide receivers available. You already have (probably) three quarterbacks being selected in the top 10, maybe even top five, plus Chase Young, Isaiah Simmons, Jeff Okudah, Jedrick Willis Jr., Tristan Wirfs and potentially Andrew Thomas, it would make sense to have one of those top two pass-catchers still on the board, giving the Jets an opportunity to take one of them.
It would be a different story if the Jets had been able to grab one of the free agent wide receivers in AJ Green or Cooper, but Green was franchise tagged by Cincinnati and Cooper signed back with Dallas at 6 years and $100 million. A guy on the trade market was Minnesota’s Stefon Diggs, but he was traded to Buffalo late Monday night for a monster price tag, four draft picks, one of which was this year’s first round pick. He would have been a nice pickup in New York but it makes sense that the Jets would not want to give up as much as the Bills did.
On top of this, the Jets and Robby Anderson still may not come to an agreement to bring him back as he wants a salary in the $15 million range, which is steep for a No. 2 if the Jets want him. One thing I’ve said about Anderson is that he is not and probably will never been a No. 1, but if they can continue his development correctly, he can be one of the best No. 2’s in the league.
The Jets did pick up one of the more underrated offensive lineman in the league in former Seattle tackle George Fant for 3 years and $30 million, with just $13.7 million guaranteed. He can be the starter at left tackle, and they can bring in another guy with all of that cap room they have to upgrade on the right side and the line as a whole, potentially with some sort of combination of Alex Lewis, Stefan Wisniewski and Greg Van Roten, all of whom the Jets have been reported to have interest in.
The best option here is for the Jets to try to bring back Anderson, even if it comes at a steep price, potentially in the $13-14 million range and get that top guy to be a star.
This is their chance, and they should take it while they have it.
AJ Hoops 