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Can you believe it’s been three years?
The Jets tweeted on Tuesday: “On this day in 2019, we hired GM Joe Douglas.”
Some were quick to remind them the record hasn’t been great since that day.
“And have since been an abysmal 13-36, with 6 wins in the last two seasons,” tweeted one fan in response.
Look, nobody can argue the record is good, but it’s pretty clear Douglas is the best GM the Jets have had in many years.
He seems to have a good eye for talent in the draft and generally doesn’t give out frivolous free-agent contracts.
His first draft doesn’t look great right now, but keep in mind he was picking for different coaches and schemes. In retrospect, perhaps they should have fired Mike Maccagnan and Adam Gase at the some time in 2019. However, we can’t lose sight of the fact that Gase, whether you like him or not, was a big reason why Douglas took the job. Gase and Douglas were friends from their time with the Chicago Bears.
But Douglas drafting for Gase and his staff one year, and then having to change his approach a year later, and pick for Robert Saleh and his staff, contributed to the 2020 draft not working out ideally. There is no way the Jets pick Mekhi Becton for Mike LaFleur’s system that calls for lighter, quicker linemen who excel at zone blocking. No way. And that isn’t an ad hominem attack on Becton, but just dealing with the reality of the zone blocking scheme. They picked Becton for Gase’s offense.
So Douglas’ rebuilding of the Jets was set back to a degree. But looking at his last two drafts, it looks like he knows how to mine college talent and stack a value board.
The 2021 draft trio of first-round guard Alijah Vera-Tucker, second-round receiver Elijah Moore and fourth-round running back Michael Carter look like a special troika.
Now it’s hard to know how the 2022 draft class will fair, but on paper, their three first-round picks, and second-round pick who has first-round talent, look like quite a quartet.
I will dust off this quote again:
“This is one of the greatest drafts I’ve ever seen,” said Dusty Dvoracek on SiriusXM’s ESPN U Radio. “That is four starters in the first 36. [Joe Douglas] has knocked this out of the park.”
Time will tell, but on paper, it looks like a transformative group.
So you look at the draft trio from 2021, and the foursome from 2022, and you have to be somewhat oblivious to not see Douglas has a good eye for talent and knows how to run a war room.
I’m going to judge Douglas on the last two years, because the first year and change, were kind of strange, based on things we’ve already mentioned.
But with all this being said, we all know this is a QB-driven league, so a big part of his success is going to be what he gets from the QB position.
And if he wants to be successful, he can’t allow confirmation bias to get in the way of his QB decisions. That never works.
So he certainly should ride with Zach Wilson for a while, but if it’s not working out, and I’m not saying it won’t, don’t be afraid to make a change. Don’t let ego related to where the player was picked get in the way of pragmatic decision-making.
June 7, 2022
Premium will return by 9:30 pm on Wednesday. We will have Part II of our look at Douglas’ performance so far.