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https://www.theringer.com/2018/3/17/17133948/jets-colts-nfl-draft-trade
The Jets Just Bet Their Future on the No. 3 Pick in This Year’s Draft
Gang Green gave the Colts four first- or second-round picks to move up three spots in 2018. Where does New York stand after giving up this bounty—and how does the move impact the rest of the draft landscape?
By Danny Heifetz
Photo by Rich Schultz /Getty Images
The Jets and Colts staged their own version of March Madness on Saturday morning, agreeing to a trade that changes both franchises’ outlooks—in the 2018 draft
and for the foreseeable future. It made one thing very clear: The Jets just pushed in all of their chips.
The Deal
Colts Receive: Jets’ 2018 first-round pick (no. 6 overall), 2018 second-round pick (no. 37), 2018 second-round pick (no. 49), and 2019 second-round pick
Jets Receive: Colts’ 2018 first-round pick (no. 3 overall)
This Is the Jets’ Big Gamble
No pressure, but the Jets just bet their entire future on the player they select with the no. 3 pick in this year’s draft. The team’s front office must be banking on the notion that the difference between no. 3 and no. 6 overall is a franchise quarterback, and was confident (some might choose other words) enough to sacrifice three second-rounders over the next two drafts to complete this deal.
The trade comes less than four days after the Jets
agreed to re-sign Josh McCown and add free-agent Teddy Bridgewater, who secured one-year deals worth as much as $10 million and $15 million, respectively. Into that quarterback room should enter
a rookie who will likely be anointed as the franchise’s savior from day one.
Three second-rounders seem like a lot to part with to move up three selections, but the Jets were presumably bidding against other teams, including AFC East rival Buffalo, which has two-first round picks (no. 12 and no. 22) and is
reportedly interested in moving up in the first round even after signing AJ McCarron.
Additionally, the Broncos are
reportedly still in the mix to take a quarterback at no. 5 overall, despite signing Case Keenum to a two-year, $36 million contract (with $25 million guaranteed) last week.
Considering the picks the Bears traded away last spring to move up one spot and take Mitchell Trubisky, as well as all the teams who could have potentially leapfrogged the Jets to pick a QB in the 2018 draft, this haul shouldn’t be particularly surprising; it’s roughly the going-rate for a trade that could net a quarterback in the top three.
If the quarterback the Jets draft pans out (we’re
sure they’re not taking another safety, right?), the bounty that they gave up will be worth it. After all, the Eagles sent the Browns two first-round picks, plus second-, third-, and fourth-rounders in a package to move up six spots and draft Carson Wentz in 2016.
Just two seasons later, the Browns went 0-16 while the Eagles won the Super Bowl. Of course, not every deal in this mold pays off. Washington sent the
Rams three first-round picks and a second-rounder for the no. 2 overall pick in 2012 and selected Robert Griffin III; the team won 10, 3, and 4 games, respectively, over the next three seasons before giving up on Griffin in favor of some fourth-round pick named Kirk Cousins.
If the Jets whiff on this pick, especially in a quarterback-laden draft in which a highly touted QB was likely to fall to them at no. 6, it’ll go down as one of the biggest blunders in franchise history, and that’s saying something.
Again: no pressure Joshmar Darnrosenfield, or whomever the Jets draft.
The Colts Move Back to Push Their Team Forward
This is a no-brainer for Indianapolis. Even with Andrew Luck expected to return to the field in 2018 after missing all of last season with a mysterious shoulder injury, the Colts aren’t talented enough to compete come fall.
General manager Chris Ballard inherited one of the thinnest rosters in football when he was hired last year, and this move allows Indy to turn one high-level piece into four. Suddenly, the team has a war chest of draft capital.
View: https://twitter.com/Colts/status/975026894092619776?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theringer.com%2F2018%2F3%2F17%2F17133948%2Fjets-colts-nfl-draft-trade
This move is particularly wise for the Colts considering that they’re not in the market for a rookie quarterback, so the player they might have been targeting at no. 3 has a good chance of falling to them at no. 6. Depending on how the draft shakes out, Indy could be in line to trade down again.
The Ripple Effect
Unless Cleveland has an unfathomable level of confidence that the QB it wants in this year’s draft will still be on the board at no. 4 overall, it’s likely that the first three picks in late April will be quarterbacks.
The Bills, who entered this offseason with the 21st and 22nd overall picks, acquired the 12th pick in a swap with the Bengals earlier this week, seemingly putting them in line to land Lamar Jackson, Mason Rudolph, or any of the top prospects at the position who falls beyond the top three.
NFL teams apparently lose their minds when it comes to the draft and quarterbacks, though, so plenty could change over the coming weeks. For all the quarterback movement of the last seven days—Keenum to Denver, Cousins to Minnesota, Sam Bradford to Arizona, Tyrod Taylor to Cleveland, and the apparent logic behind this Jets trade—there’s still lots of time left for more Capital-T Trades.
March is half over, but the madness of draft season is just beginning.
https://www.si.com/nfl/2018/03/17/n...-darnold-josh-rosen-baker-mayfield-josh-allen
The Jets Are Coming After Their Quarterback
By ALBERT BREER
GETTY IMAGES (4)
The Jets suffered a big loss this week when
Kirk Cousins signed with the Vikings. But the good news? They’d been preparing to take this blow since January.
It played out this week, first with a slew of free-agent signings, then with the big bang on Saturday: an aggressive swing by GM Mike Maccagnan to send the Colts the sixth, 37th, and 49th picks in this year’s draft, plus the Jets’ 2019 second-rounder, for the third overall pick, which will be spent on the team’s next franchise quarterback.
So Saturday was a significant day in franchise history, and an era-defining one for both Maccagnan and coach Todd Bowles. If they get the right quarterback, there’s a good chance they’ll be in East Rutherford for a long time. If they get the wrong one, it’s likely both guys will be fired. Here’s what’s clear: This offseason was always going to be about finding
the quarterback for the Jets. Period.
With that backdrop, the team’s brass was taking no chances. Plan A, back in May and June, was to be in position to pluck from a ballyhooed group of college quarterbacks, and owner Woody Johnson made it clear, before leaving for his ambassadorship in the summer, that he was all-in on the idea.
As such, at ownership’s directive, the Jets live-scouted just about every UCLA (Josh Rosen), USC (Sam Darnold), Wyoming (Josh Allen), Oklahoma (Baker Mayfield), Louisville (Lamar Jackson) and Washington State (Luke Falk) game last fall, and put resources and bodies into doing background on each quarterback.
But as that was happening, a feisty young defense sparked a three-game winning streak early in the year, and quarterbacks coach Jeremy Bates gained credibility in the building. Instead of landing at the top of the draft the Jets wound up with the sixth pick, Bates got promoted, and an ideal quarterback for his offense, Cousins, was out there to be signed. So what had been Plan A became Plan B.
Once Cousins was off the board, it was on to Plan B (which originally had been Plan A), and that wasn’t just about trading up for the third pick.
It was first about stocking the quarterback room with character, intelligence and competition, which the team feels like it accomplished by bringing back Josh McCown and adding Teddy Bridgewater, to create the right environment for the incoming rookie.
Then, it was about giving that defense pieces with the money that would’ve gone to Cousins, and that happened with ex-Titans linebacker Avery Williamson and ex-
Rams corner Trumaine Johnson signed.
Because the Jets were picking sixth, the step that came Saturday—the trade up—was necessary. And the Jets had planned for that going back to January. Exploratory talks on moving up into the Top 4 began at the Senior Bowl, I’m told, and so New York wasn’t starting from zero when it was spurned by Cousins earlier in the week.
Additionally, my understanding is that the team is comfortable with the top four quarterbacks in this year’s class—Rosen, Darnold, Mayfield and Allen. And with the Bills, Cardinals and Broncos looking at the idea of moving up, being aggressive became vital.
Why do it now? Because as the spring moves forward, teams will have a better idea of which quarterbacks they like—or don’t like—and bidding could push the price tag up. Since the Jets have already spent endless resources on studying the top quarterbacks, they felt like they could move forward now with conviction and use their head start to their advantage.
Will it work? It’s hard to say right now, of course. The last time three quarterbacks went at the top of the draft, two of them were Tim Couch and Akili Smith. What we do know, though, is that the
really big decision here is the one that’ll be made on April 26.
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