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Obviously, the best approach to the draft is picking players to fit the coach’s philosophy.
So with that being said, if the Jets are on the clock at 4, and you have a defensive end and cornerback ranked close, they might lean towards the defensive end. Why?
“Saleh loves defensive linemen and he went to a Super Bowl because of a defensive line, not because of the scheme,” said former NFL GM Mike Lombardi on his podcast. “He is about the talent of the Front Seven. One thing about the Pete Carroll scheme you have to understand – is they typically don’t want to invest in corners because they play 80 percent zone. They had Richard Sherman. They got Richard Sherman in the fifth round. To play this defense effectively, you’ve got to dominate upfront. You have to be willing to have five, six, seven, eight defensive linemen. I think it has to be a defensive rusher to help his defensive front.”
So at four, you could be looking at a defensive lineman (or another position aside from CB).
Look, Cincinnati CB Sauce Gardner is a heck of a player, but they play mostly zone, perhaps you don’t pick a corner at 4. Usually, when you pick a cornerback that high, you are picking an elite man-to-man corner and you put him on an island against the other team’s best receiver.
“It’s all about the front” is what you often hear about the Saleh system that emanates from his time as an assistant with Carroll in Seattle.
The idea is that you create so much havoc upfront so that the corners don’t have to cover as long.
“If you want the secondary to be better, fix the pass rush,” Saleh said recently.
And what Saleh ideally wants is eight really good defensive linemen that he can keep fresh by rotating them constantly, so they can pin their collective ears back and attack the QB relentlessly from pillar to post.
“Great quarterbacks are neutralized with a four-man pass rush,” Saleh said. “If you can rush four on even the greatest ones, it’s shown time and time again that great pass rush neutralizes great quarterbacks every time.”
So maybe when it comes to breaking a tie between a cornerback and pass rusher on their board, the tie probably goes to the pass rusher.
“Unless you can rush, it really doesn’t matter how well you can cover,” said one former NFL GM.
Last year, the Jets’ pass rush was pedestrian. The starting unit was okay, but there was a big dropoff to the second team.
If this Saleh-Jeff Ulbrich defense is going to work, you need to go eight deep on that defensive line, and when that second team comes in, the heat on the opposing QB must remain intense.
That is why the signing of defensive tackle Solomon Thomas was an underrated move. He can come in for Quinnen Williams, and there won’t be a precipitous dropoff.
John Franklin Myers is probably a better fit inside. If the Jets went with an interior rotation of Williams, Franklin-Myers, Thomas and Sheldon Rankins, now that is what you want – a four-deep DT rotation that could be a nightmare for opponents.
But they need to get to where they are four deep at defensive end with high quality, so maybe FSU’s Jermaine Johnson, who they got to know at the Senior Bowl, could be a possibility with the fourth pick.
The bottom line is that we always need to keep in mind this is a front-driven defense that plays a lot of zone behind that front.
April 26, 2022
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