Maybin did show signs of life for the Jets last year,so we can't say he is a bust yet.
I didn't care for JJ Watt but so far he looked pretty good.
Maybin is absolutely terrible. He has exactly one skill--speed--and even that doesn't translate particularly well into production because he's so awful at everything else that he's supposed to do. It's a big problem, to say the least.
He's a prime example (if an example was even necessary) of why a linebacker--or even, god forbid, defensive lineman--whose playing weight is in the 220s is basically worthless in the NFL. This explains why he
put on 25 pounds of muscle in the 2 months leading up to the 2009 draft, because his Penn State playing weight was a huge liability. OTOH, no matter how obvious it was that he was roiding, a FO full of idiots like the ones in Buffalo could totally talk themselves into his metamorphosis being legit, just like they've probably convinced themselves that Mark Anderson is a top-tier pass rusher. They're really dumb like that, and Maybin reaped the benefits.
That's why I consider Maybin to be one of the worst draft picks of the past decade: with other busts, you can at least see how he could have been good if things had gone a bit differently. With Maybin, there was really no conceivable way that he could have become a good, every-down football player. It was a physical impossibility. When he did finally have even a modicum of success in the NFL, it was because he stopped even pretending to be effective at that kind of weight and dropped back down into the 220s. At least that way he had his speed, even if it made him one of the most one-dimensional defensive players in the NFL.
As Rob already pointed out, even when he did get sacks he was typically beaten (soundly) at the snap, simply because any tackle who even gets his hands on Maybin can basically have his way with him. It was only when he was given an inordinate amount of time to recover and take the long way 'round (due to a combination of good coverage/terrible quarterbacking) that made any kind of an impact whatsoever. If you look at every play that he participated in, there were a few sacks interspersed with a bunch of plays in which he was basically blown off the field. Any team with an ounce of sense will just run directly at him everytime they see him on the field, and will do it with great success because he sucks.
That's why he's gone and
gained 20+ pounds this offseason, which is great except that speed is literally his only positive attribute. Slowing him down will be removing the only thing he does well, and this will put him right back in the the position that he was in in Buffalo: too slow to rush the passer, and still too weak/bad at football to do anything else.
So on one hand, you have Maybin, whose entire skill-set revolved around being too fast for NCAA tackles to handle. But everyone knows that that doesn't fly in the NFL, because the tackles are faster, have better technique, and if that wasn't bad enough, they're also much stronger. By NFL standards, Dwight Freeney is a "small" pass rusher, and he weighs in in the 260s. If you go and make a list of all of the prolific NCAA edge rushers who failed in the pros, almost all of them will have the same story behind their failure: once they got to the NFL, they couldn't just run around guys anymore, and that's all they were ever good at. This is why most of us saw the Aaron Maybin trainwreck coming a mile away. His skill-set was entirely optimized for NCAA flash, at the expense of NFL substance.
Chandler Jones is the polar opposite. His skill-set is perfect for the NFL, and perhaps a bit out of place in the NCAA. He's a straight-line pass rusher who wins by engaging and then beating him blocker with superior strength, hand technique, and leverage. This means that he can generate a pass rush without creating lanes for the opposing RB or giving the quarterback open lanes to step/throw into. Even if he doesn't get to the QB, he's still in the guy's face, so good luck throwing over his three-foot-long arms. Watching a guy get beat 19 times in a row and then fly in untouched for a blindside hit on the 20th may look sexier to some people, but I'll take the guy who contributes to the overall defensive effort on every snap (and still gets his sacks) any day.
