2017 Draft Grades

Opening

Onan! What is best in life? To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and they hear the lamentation of their women.

Transcript

Machine transcript generated in 2026 by Grok Bot from the episode audio (Whisper small.en + sherpa-onnx speaker diarization). Speakers labeled Opening / Jake / Justin. Timestamps about every three minutes. Diarization note: HOST_LOCK: after Opening, host/welcome voice = Jake; other = Justin; host-welcome cluster=0 @ 20.0s → Jake; other-primary cluster=1 → Justin; intro-self-ID Jake confirms host; Justin name in host line kept on Jake (HOST_LOCK); Jason-ref Jake cluster 0 sim=0.89.

00:20 Jake: Welcome to Jack King podcast. I'm Jake. Joining me on the longest running near Jess podcast ever is Justin. Justin, how are you doing? Good. You don't sound good. Justin: I'm just in the middle of writing this. You're trying to write down our... Jake: Well we did some drafting. We did. The season is gonna be awesome because we drafted some players. Pretty much. Let's just talk about... Well we actually did some cuts too. you have it this quick. Yeah, sure we cut Gilchrist Yeah, yeah gonzers me just probably just not gonna knock it back and we didn't cut Justin: Drafted a bunch of guys to replace them. So let's talk about the draft Jake: Resign Bruce Carter the draft happened. Did you hear that? No, I didn't yeah, we resigned Bruce Carter Is this really 276 episode? Yes. Okay, cool. Awesome, all right. Yes, it is. So let's talk about the draft. One of us in this room got it exactly right, the first pick, one of us didn't, just wanna put that out. And so what we're gonna do, we're gonna kinda go through the draft overall, like what do you think, and then we'll kinda go with individuals, is there anything that stands out to you, and then we'll maybe give the whole thing a grade. Like. Thank you. A through F. What was your personal grade on the draft? And I know caveat, caveat, three years, caveat, whatever. We drafted a lot of players. You've been cursed. Oh, fucking yeah. So let's talk about what do you think? What was your overall kind of thought about how it went down? Justin: I liked the first round. I thought that went well. It was crazy. All the trades. It was nutty. And I think if, I mean, we drafted Jamal Adams in the first round and by all accounts, he was one of the top two players in the draft seems very familiar. That happened just two years ago with Leonard Williams. And, you know, crazy first round just sort of got kicked right off on pick two, with Chicago training from three to two to pick a quarterback. And apparently San Francisco is like, yeah, we just fucked them. Yeah. Oh, yeah, they took them out behind the shed. Jake: Yeah, we just banged them. Apparently the I mean, I know this is a little flat forged thinking. But in the in the quarterback sweepstakes for next year and who's going to lose the most games. I think the Bears could be right there and like bears like that top two could be the ones the Browns.

03:02 Jake: Basically those three Browns had a good draft. They had a great draft. But for some reason, they just never draft well. So like they still don't have a quarterback. Right. Well, they brought the cock. Well, they did. Justin: A quarterback and drift. They drafted a guy in the second round. That's a quarterback. Maybe. Well, it was a guy on our team. The guy on our quarterbacks are like, do you know him? Jake: Maybe he was awesome. Justin: Yeah, he's a good backup. All right. Yeah, so that just set off a chain of events that just went nuts in San Francisco. They were going to pick anyway. And Chicago probably could have just sat there and picked Trubisky because I don't think anyone pinned a quarterback on Chicago because they just went and spent in free agency for Glennon. Maybe they're like let's pick this guy and have Glenn and start and he'll just sit for like a couple of a Couple years maybe years maybe I don't see him playing this year Jesus Christ you you Jake: Everybody's yelling at the Jets for not starting fucking You know Hackenberg last year that the whole like we're gonna redshirt him and they did which I think was a good thing Justin: I don't I don't see this guy. I mean Hackenberg started for three years in college. I got it. I don't know this guy playing Jake: at all this year. But maybe at the very end of the year when they're totally out of it and they're like let's just lose they'll be out of it longer than that or sooner than that. But number two, like you don't trade like that to go up and grab a guy and then not use them. Yeah it's it's brutal. Justin: I mean what what and this was not a surefire like no no doubt about it. guy This wasn't a lock this wasn't no like you're trading up to get a surefire. All right, this guy's gonna be good wasn't can Newton Jake: This was supposedly a very deep defensive draft a lot of safeties a lot of corners. Yeah. Well, we picked a bunch of them not Great quarterbacks and not great linemen That was the overall pain, you know, like in terms of just quality. So Adams fell to us. Justin: I didn't think he would being that he was widely regarded as the second best player trapped. I don't see why a guy like that falls. Reading out about it after it's like not conventional to pick a safety that high. I don't see why. Right. That seems like old thinking to me because. the way the game is played today, it's all throwing. So wouldn't the safety be really important? Especially somebody who can cover a tight end or a running back or cover, you know, cover somebody over the top. So to me, I think they did a good job. They... I feel like if Adams was off the board and you saw they were very willing to trade, they were one of the more active teams trading in and out and up and down. Yes. Yeah, they would have been out of there. Yes, they would have. They would have gotten out of there. I know they would have because, you know, Houston came up to grab the quarterback. I think they were waiting for the Chiefs were coming up to the Chiefs and the Texans both came out of the 20s.

06:03 Justin: to grab quarterbacks. They very low. Jake: They didn't like the offers. Whatever it was, they didn't get... I mean, again, we never know because they never come back and say, hey, we got these for offers. Justin: Well, the offer just wasn't good enough to say, I'm not going to take Jamal Adams. Jake: But that one. Or, there's not enough in the jets to say, hey, we don't. We're going to take that quarterback, so you have to come up with a guy behind us. I mean, it's really about that positioning. I think it's great, because I think I think they wanted Adams. I think they didn't think they'd come to him, but they wanted him. And it's this time Leonard Williams was a absolute not need. But we got a great guy. And I think in the in the history of the Jets, we will. That will be a great draft back, right? That'll be a Nick Mangold, the breakershaw Ferguson type of pass, Justin: especially because he was six overall and not. You know, one overall. And then you read drafted it, you can make. Well, there were quarterbacks, but no, that wasn't the quarterback year, was it? Yes, that the Marriota. Yes. Winston year. Yes, it was. Yeah. So those guys were going one, two, but three. You know, the guy on the Jags, who was, I think, like third. like Fowler or something like that and I think the Dolphins picked a guy before. Jake: That's not him. Didn't they make Dion Jordan or is that him? Justin: Yeah, like these guys, you online or Williams. I mean he was the guy. Jake: So I think it's great. Not only did I just hear a lot about him, it's the leadership stuff. Again, there's ability and there's leadership. Apparently he's just an incredible leader and we have no leadership on the team. and everyone's gonna be young, and so having quality, you know, when you match need plus leadership, plus just raw ability, I think you nailed it. So I'm extremely happy with the first round. College pedigree, LSU, it's no joke. Yeah. SCC, it's no joke. But then I just think the rest of the draft... , the as a one safety safety Justin: Yeah. They had to have known Gilchrist wasn't coming back. Right. So they're sitting there. Like, all right, we have safety on this team. Right. And our secondary was absolutely torched. Jake: So it makes sense. Sure. To go get two safety. I don't really think the safety safety bothers me. Well, it was like best at two. They were like, all right. Justin: We have a lot of young, wide receiver talent on the team.

09:00 Justin: Decker got hurt and all of a sudden it's like we can't throw the ball like no one's open You can't tell me that You know Jalen Marshall is gonna be some great player or Sharon P He's gonna be this great player Richie Anderson or Anderson. Whatever his Robbie Anderson. Robbie Anderson. He's great No, I can blow him over I can blow on him and he would fall. Are you blowing him now? He weighs 120 pounds. He literally is a stick. He's a stick. All right. He's not going into traffic and catching a ball. So again, it's not that they picked wide receiver. It's kind of just where. To me, we have one receiver on the team. Jake: We had Quincy and that's it. Justin: But Decker is not going to play, I don't think. Jake: So if that if that's it, if you have if these guys are that kind of quality starting. Good job, buddy. I've heard. Yeah, you're off in the season. Wow. Then I thought that was. That was where I kind of went, oh. And to me, the tight end was sort of a bigger need, and I feel like there were better tight ends higher up that they kind of passed on, that I was like, oh, you know, I get it. That's my overall thing. They got the guys I thought they'd get, like they got a running back. Awesome. Kind of wish they'd got one a little higher. They got a, you know, they got a tight end. Awesome. Kind of wish they'd got one a little higher. here. Like, did you have to grab the safety in a second? Or could you have grabbed a tight end in that second? And then maybe go out of safety. And third depends on where you value them. And then they got and then corner. The other thing was corner where we have no fucking corners either. I have a bunch now. Justin: But yeah, but when you grab a corner in the sixth round, let me argue the reverse. Because you're like, we have all this young wide receiver talent. Well, one was the seventh round pick and two were undrafted free. Yeah. So how can you make that statement and then be like. Well, when you draft him in the sixth round, go ahead, because you said the opposite things right there in like the span of three minutes. Jake: Well, why would we drop these receivers when we have all this young talent? We have young talent on the team which had played on our team last year versus guys who have drafted. Free agents, seventh round picks. Yeah, sixth round picks. So same difference. I think the need of corner is higher. So I would have placed, I would have. Maybe gone. I would I would argue that you're wrong. Justin: That's always arguing. Well, I mean, the offense last year was ranked 26th. Then the defense was ranked 11th. The defense was clearly better. Then the offense. You just said that we got torched. The defense was still clearly better. Awful. Lost Brandon Marshall, by the way. Yes. And we have no clue who the starting quarterback's gonna be. So why don't we get a couple of receivers in there? So no one can build them all? So at least there's something to throw to. Yeah. Jake: Again, it's not the positions. There's nothing here that they picked

12:01 Jake: that I thought the position was stupid. Like they didn't draft. Like I'm glad they didn't draft quarterback. They didn't draft, well, like they didn't draft anybody for the lines. Justin: I will say when that 6 pick came around, now Adams was not drafted so I was like alright, I feel like that's our guy, but I would have been excited had they picked Watson. Really? Yeah, I said we were watching together. I said I know it's not necessarily the right thing to do But I will be excited if they do pick him I know I felt the same way like if they pick Watson right here, I'll be excited for the next couple of years Well, you'll be really good right or he won't right listen when they picked Sanchez like fourth fifth overall Two, three years in, I was excited. We went to a couple of championship games. And then, you know, it was all good. And then the Tim Tebow thing happened and his career just went down the tubes. Bad coaching, bad whatever. So I'm hoping that these guys can get coached up. properly so we can actually develop a quarterback to work with some of these what are you happy that we didn't draft a quarterback besides at the end of the day yeah because we have we have a guy who drafted last year we have a guy that we drafted the year before I mean they showed the Jets had drafted a quarterback every year for the last like eight years or something And none of them are even on a team except for these two. Right. One of them is completely unknown. One of them we have no idea. And the other one we saw and what we saw was a good look very good. Doesn't good. And then we have a mechanic 38 who's not the future. Clearly he's just there to help. And I hope he's never mentored. I hope he's. a good soldier and a mentor and a guy who's like, all right, I'm totally willing to just sit here and if these guys get hurt, I can play. I want him to just lose that point. But I'm happy, yeah. I want the, I want him to come down Jake: and be the quarterback at that point because I don't want to lose out. Like I don't, my nightmare situation is those two guys get hurt. A, we don't see enough of them, they get hurt. so we can't really tell whether they're good or not. and Justin: he's good enough to be on the field and move you between he's good enough to be on the Jake: But when you have two guys who and again I I'm making a prediction my bold prediction I actually think you're gonna see more of petty this year than anybody expected everybody really think he's gonna go all um Hackenberg right I just have this thing And yes, you just like him. Well, I like him. But I also think there's something about him being

15:00 Jake: there for a longer period of time. Like he has actually two years. His thing last year was he had no prep time. He was the third string quarterback, third string quarterback, get no prep time. Let's see what happens. But I could see as a prediction him actually winning the job over Hackenberg. Maybe! Anyway, it's just something... It's gonna be a real competition Let's hope so Let's hope so Um Uh, anyway, so what else? So what else sticks out at you? Like, I, again, I looked at these guys... There's a couple guys, that like, when the grades came out, they're like, Justin: yeah, don't even know if that guy should've been drafted Like, Dylan talking to you cause he went to western Georgia But supposedly he's an absolute monster and hey They did what I like, which is I think the last four guys they drafted, one in the fifth, three in the sixth, linebacker running back corner corner could all play on teams. They could all play on special teams. Oh, yeah. Special teams. Yeah. So like, great. Let's get some young athletes to just run around real fast on special teams. And if that running back has a six round pick of breakout. Great. Right. Who cares if he doesn't? He's. covering kick returns. And the two corners, gunners. Right. Like, go. Fast. Run. And if they get on the field, which I'm sure they're going to have to, because what did we do? We signed the guy from Dallas. Yep. Who's always injured. So he's going to get hurt. Right. And then it's like Buster Screen. And the guy we got last year. And McDougall and Burress. And Burress. And that's it. Because I don't think... I don't think... I think Williams was a free agent. I don't think we signed him. So he said, like, play. And we didn't... We didn't pick up the option. It came from big schools, by the way. Like Michigan Ole Miss. Big schools. They didn't... Jake: We didn't pick up the option on prior. So he's right. This is he the guy is kind of a lame duck season for him. Justin: the draft is over trading you don't often trading you don't Yeah, it doesn't happen like after the draft usually, unless somebody gets injured in the preseason stuff, like in the training camp or the OTAs or what have you. I mean, I think the best thing for prior would be, let's try and deploy that safety as a linebacker situation that happens in Arizona and it works. Jake: But did they see if they, the problem with that is they thought that was actually a plan. They would have. It would have kept him. So they're kind of saying- They are keeping him. They're keeping him for this year. No, I mean, but not for next year. Justin: But they could test it this year to see if it works. If it doesn't work, then you don't want him for another year. Because to me, he can play that position. He can play that, like, again, you have to say, all right, we're a 4-3 team now, and he's playing in the middle, and it sort of pushes David Harris somewhere that he wouldn't be comfortable. the the the

18:00 Justin: And it kind of pushes Lee somewhere that he wouldn't like it kind of just the pieces aren't there. They're going to have to get very creative with a three safety package if they're going to get all three of these guys on the field. And maybe that's the case. Maybe one of them can really cover like one. Maybe one of them can really cover a slot. Right. Well, that's not prior. Jake: I'm not Marcus. Well, it's not the one I'm talking about. It's like the guy who's gonna cover the tight end. Justin: It's not the one I'm talking about. It's not the one I'm talking about. because they have players at all the positions. where they're lacking is corner and they drafted two of them fine they weren't gonna reach for one i i feel like they could have in the second round chosen a corner they went safety instead right and it was knocked it beat over the top it was any more it was a very it was a very deep Jake: corner but like deep like because corners generally what there's two or three good ones in a draft or it's not like there's ten but you never know which one it's gonna be that's true It's not. Justin: often that the first one picked is the one. Jake: That's just sort of where I look at this draft. It's like one awesome, I think, home run pick. Everything else, I understand the position. I just wish some of them had been prioritized differently because when I went back or when I was watching it, I was like, hey, there's that really good, like top two, top three, although all the three tight ends went off in the first round, which is odd. I think all three of the top rated tight ends went first round. Yeah, right. Justin: Because Howard and then the Giants picked one and then. Jake: Oh, yeah. And then the Browns traded back into the first round to grab. To get the guy I wanted. The guy that you wanted. Right. So all three went in the first round. Justin: So that all happens. Jake: That probably shifted our priority there. To me then, right. If tight ends a priority, like him in the second round. Justin: But don't reach. Why reach? Like if those three guys went in the first round. But then there were like all right. All the others that went before we picked. Who's to say that they're any better than this guy? Jake: This guy. All right. So let's do let's do. We got only a couple minutes here. I think we both agree on the best pick. Number one pick. We think that's a great pick. That was great. What's the worst one? What's the one that you're just like the most questionable one? Justin: I don't know these guys. Well, I think it's the Dylan Donahue because of the small school aspect Western Georgia like I'm distracted. I don't know. Yeah, but that's fine. Whatever. Okay. I mean again teams special teams this guy could be You know, it's like does Malden exist on the team anymore? Right, right But could this guy have been an unrestricted or an an undrafted free agent? Probably we picked him in the fifth. Right. I imagine he- he, he would have been available at some other point in time. So. I'll just question that one just because of where he went to school, Jake: but for no other reason. My question is, is the two with the second safety,

21:03 Jake: it's not that I don't think they should have grabbed another safety. I just think at that point- I would have liked to see them go a little bit higher on either tight end or corner. At that point, I thought there were better corners and it was just a bigger need than to grab another safety. And they could have got a safety in the third or fourth, whatever. Again, it's not a player thing because I don't know these players. I mean, what's the most intriguing one? Who's the guy who you're like, you're gonna be watching in the preseason. Like you're excited to watch, see if he gets on the field. Justin: Good question. Thank you. Jake: It's gonna be the receivers. Justin: I wanna wanna see if Ardari Stewart can be a guy that can line up on first, second, third down and be on the field. Right. As a third, cause. . Again, our best wide receiver is a nouma and to me he doesn't play outside. Like that's not where I think he his skills translate. Like he to me is more of a inside slot almost tight end type of guy. So to put him outside. All right. Go do something you're not really good at. They grow up with the quarterback ain't ending a little report for clearly, you know, both of them are all Where's this man? Jake: Adams Jersey Worthy yet? Um, who wants to see him play? Justin: Yeah, I usually go for a rookie, but I don't think I did last year. Like I would, I think I'm on the Williams jersey at this time. I was really looking, I have one of those. I was really looking forward to Jake Butt, so I can have my butt jersey. Right. And we could have totally picked him, but the whole thing, butt. But. that he wasn't he just wasn't gonna play this year. They're saying he's on track to maybe play this year. Yeah, you can come back. There's also like, you know, Adrian Peterson came back, but he's a maniac. Right. So he's not with the Saints. Back up. Yeah. Imagine that. Adrian Peterson, if I were to tell you at the end of two seasons ago. Jake: This guy's just gonna be a backup somewhere else and a run is a running back. Absolutely Jamal Charles just signed who he signed with He like Torah ball is twice. Yeah, that's so the one I'm looking for because I just I Just I'm I'm intrigued by the running back. I think that's I'm gonna get a lot of work Justin: Yes, and I was get work in the preseason. I really really do wait Jake: I'm just hoping we have we've got cuz you know for Tay they're gonna be like bubble wrap. Yeah, nothing. How old to like, Hey, dude, we don't really want you getting hurt. Here's here's the first series. Great. Now go pick a chair. Here's the first third down. This guy's gonna be in our so I'm most excited about them. All right. Overall, we haven't we Justin: haven't done our big swath of undrafted free agents yet. We did a bunch.

24:01 Justin: We didn't do like the huge like because rookie camps coming up really soon I don't think we did the like big like here's 15 guys that the Jets just signed. I saw a post on it. I didn't see it yet Jake: So let's give a let's give a so overall your grade Again, I'm gonna go If we talk about, to me this is kind of two grades, so I'm not actually going to draft, I'm going to grade all nine of them. I'm going to say, I think the first one's an A, and then the rest, absolutely just, I'm going to give the rest of it a C plus. So it's an A, and then like two through whatever. is a C+. I actually liked them trading around. I thought that was fun. And I liked that they actually picked up a draft pick next year. Yeah, that was good. That was good. So to me, that's like, that was well done. I just, again, my only thing is I felt there were some positions they should have prioritized higher and that there were better tight ends and corners at two. And you didn't need to grab the safety there. Most people are kind of questioning the double safety. It's not that they got a second safety, it's where they got him. They could have got a third round safety, whatever. Justin: I didn't know that this was the first year, and so I didn't know it, that you could trade the conditional picks. That's new. I think that's new. It is. So that was interesting, because we ended up picking in every round except for seven, which is fine. And they ended up having multiple picks towards the end of the draft, so it was good. I liked the maneuvering that McAdnan did. He picked up extra picks. He moved up where he needed to move up to get back into the fourth round, for example. We didn't have a pick. He got an extra pick for next year already, which is nice. To me, I liked the maneuvering. I liked the way that he did that and for that and getting the second best player with the sixth pick. I think you have to give this draft. I'm gonna give it a B. Solid B. Jake: Okay, I think I'll go B plus. I know it's kind of A plus C. I'm gonna go B plus just because I think if I locate it and I see starters... Like, I agree with you on these special teams. I think there's a few- Our special teams, if you talk special team starters, I think you have like six. I think you have at least three starters in this draft. I think the top three picks are all starting. Justin: I think both. The first two have to start. They don't. There is a safety on the roster that was a first round pick that's been a starter since he got here and they don't have to start. Case in point, your second round pick doesn't even have to play. Jake: Yeah, so I that's a thing. I think I think you have Adams is an absolute starter. The tight end is gonna start and he's one of those receivers is definitely and you're right. So I think there's three guys and then anybody else is is there upside. I'm excited about the running back. I don't know. I just feel like something they never draft and I want them to draft running backs. Because I feel like every other team out there, again, as a Jets fan, just like every other team out there like grabs one and then just they blow up.

27:02 Jake: And I'm like, what the fuck? Why don't we just grab one in the fourth round and have them blow up? We never have one of those guys. So great. All right, we got to go. All right, that's it. We got mini camp starting. We got rookie camp starting. Rookie camp first, then mini or mini then rookie. I think rookie mini-camper story now. All right, we'll be back. As always, Justin and Jake saying, let's go, Jess. Yes.