Eh, did a quick breakdown to try to better explain my position on this whole "The Jets are awesome at drafting" position. It's not an outright lie, but it's not the truth, either.
First round: Brick, Revis, Gholston, Keller, Sanchez. We'll go ahead and call Brick a hit, sure. Revis is a home run, Gholston sucks, and the jury's still out on Keller and Sanchez. 2 for 3 is alright, but when 3 of those picks were in the top 6, it's at best decent. Ideally, in a four-year span you want at least 3 sure contributors, but because Revis is so good and Sanchez might turn into a good player, I'll say that the Jets have done a reasonable job here.
Second round: David Harris, Kellen Clemens. 1 for 2: yes, to repeat, out of four years of second round picks, the Jets have received exactly one serviceable player. That's absolutely terrible, and the conveniently-ignored downside of their trade-up philosophy. Everyone complains about the Pats' second round success rate, but at least they know enough to stockpile the picks so that even if you're only hitting on a third of them, you're still replenishing your team's talent level. And watch out, one good draft under this philosophy and your team can be set for years to come.
Third Round: Anthony Schlegel, Eric Smith, Shonn Greene. Let's go ahead and call Greene a hit, and Smith too while we're at it. Once again, in the third round of the draft they've acquired two serviceable players in 4 years. Which means that, from 2006-2009, the Jets have acquired three legitimate football players from rounds two and three. That's just not good, at all.
Fourth Round Lowery, Washington, Smith. I don't expect much from 4th rounders (I consider Wilhite a hit for the Pats, after all), so let's go ahead and consider them all hits. Good thing, too, because it helps to make up for their second and third-round woes.
For better or worse, that's pretty much what the Jets' philosophy amounts to: they're not going to get many picks, so they'd better nail the ones that they have. To Tannenbaum's credit, they've been pretty good in that respect, although the team has gradually taken on the same identity as the draft philosophy: top-heavy; lose one guy that you were counting on to contribute, and there's no way to replace that production.
So yeah, people can talk about all of the Pats' misses all they want, but the Pats' philosophy is built to withstand those misses. The Pats can afford to whiff on a Wheatley or a Chad Jackson here or there, because for every second round selection that the Jets have made since 2006, they've made 3. And with 3 second-round picks coming up, that disparity isn't getting any smaller.
And yeah, even with a philosophy that's predicated on putting the team in draft positions where it can't miss, the Jets still do. That's a simple reality: that some draft picks won't pan out. Whereas the Pats have built a philosophy that works around that reality, I'm not sure that the Jets have. If the Jets actually had some more picks, maybe they could afford to get no production out of a #5 overall pick and subpar production out of a #30 overall pick. But they don't.
