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Jets general manager Mike “Mr. Coffee” Maccagnan held is his pre-draft press conference today at One Jets Drive in Florham Park, and it went as expected.
It was exceedingly boring and didn’t provide any meaningful information.
One photographer commented – “He’s not very animated. He stands up there like rigamortis is setting in.”
But as I’ve said many times, none of this matters. This isn’t about winning the press conference, it’s about winning on Sunday.
And I always come out of his press conferences with the impression that this is a very bright football man.
I still wonder about the whether he has the requisite alpha dog leadership qualities to lord over a football operation, but I hesitate to totally condemn him on this front because I’m not in the football meetings with his staff. Press conferences and staff meetings are obviously different animals.
And I will say this, he and Todd Bowles were dealt an awful hand when powers above them forced Darrelle Revis on them right out of the gate. That was a flat-out awful move, and I’m not sure people realize the damage it did. The Jets’ secondary the last couple of seasons was horrendous, and he was at the forefront of the problem. And then last off-season the Jets had cap issues, which limited their activity, and the Revis contract was a big part of that.
Look, I’m not saying Bowles and Maccagnan did a top-shelf job their first two seasons, but that Revis’ situation was really bad for their program, and it wasn’t their doing.
I’m willing to cut them a little slack on that, and see what they can do now that that mess is in the rear-view mirror.
It was a signing that put a ball-and-chain around their collective ankles – on the field and salary-wise. It was one of the worst personnel decisions in Jets history.
And it really hurt the coach and GM.
But don’t get me wrong, the coach and GM need to do a much better job, but that move really hurt them.
While Maccagnan didn’t reveal any worthwhile information today (he wouldn’t even say whether he’d pick up Calvin Pryor’s fifth-year option), the Jets did show ankle the other day, inadvertently, about their draft thinking.
ESPN’s Jenna Laine reported that LSU safety Jamal Adams told her following his Jets visit that the team told him, “Your wasting your time. Why are you here?”
In other words, the Jets don’t think he will be there when they are picking at six.
So that stands to reason that if he slips to six, they will be all over him.
There is no question the Jets need better player leadership, and this guy is the best leader in this draft class. The people at LSU raved about him.
“You hear great stories about him from a leadership standpoint,” said former NFL scout Daniel Jeremiah, now with the NFL Network. “Talked to folks at LSU, they say he’s the best leader they’ve had there in 20 years.”
Not only can the Jets use an alpha leader like this, but first-and-foremost, they need a game-changing safety.
Marcus Gilchrist is rehabbing a torn quad, and Pryor has been average. Pryor is a big-time hitter and willing to sacrifice is body, to his credit, but his coverage instincts and durability have been somewhat problematic. And if the Jets loved him, they already would have picked up his fifth-year option. They wouldn’t be dragging their feet.
So while it’s hard to get quality info out of the war room of NFL teams this time of year, this nugget on Adams is a good one, and does shed some light on the Jets’ thinking.
April 24, 2017
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