Joe Douglas’ tendencies suggest Jets will target these prospects in 2022 draft

Pinpointing the 2022 NFL draft prospects who fit the athletic criteria of Joe Douglas and the New York Jets

Over the past couple of days, I have spent plenty of time breaking down the drafting tendencies of New York Jets general manager Joe Douglas in terms of how much he tends to value prospects’ athletic profiles. I first broke down Douglas’ most notable trends before identifying 2022 draft prospects that might be avoided by Douglas based on those trends.

Today we’ll look at the other side of the coin. Which 2022 draft prospects should we expect Douglas to favor based on his previous drafting tendencies?

Here’s the most notable athleticism-based tendency that Douglas showcased between the 2020 and 2021 drafts: his propensity for drafting prospects with a Relative Athletic Score (RAS)* above 9.0.

Douglas selected seven players with a RAS of 9.0-plus from 2020 to 2021, tied with Denver and Washington for the most of any team over that span.

*RAS is a 0-to-10 rating that takes into account a player’s performance in various testing drills relative to their height, weight, and position.

What does it mean when a player has a RAS of 9.0? Well, a player’s RAS correlates closely with their percentile ranking among all players at their position in the history of athletic testing data, so a RAS of 9.0 means the player owns better testing numbers than about 90% of players at their position. A RAS of 9.5 places them around the 95th percentile, and so on.

The bottom line is that any player with a RAS above 9.0 is a truly incredible athlete. Joe Douglas and the New York Jets have strongly favored players with such a high level of athleticism, so any prospect who hits this benchmark is worth monitoring as a potential Jets target.

Let’s go position-by-position and identify the 2022 draft prospects who registered a RAS of 9.0 or better.

Cornerback (16 players)

Throughout this article, each prospect will be listed alongside their current overall ranking among all prospects on the consensus big board at NFL Mock Draft Database (as of April 13, 2022), which is calculated through the combination of 63 big boards from draft analysts around the internet. This gives us an approximate idea of where in the draft each prospect could realistically be targeted.

Beneath each list, I will also note if there are any highly-regarded prospects who did not qualify for a Relative Athletic Score due to their insufficient number of completed drills during the lead-up to the draft.

Without further ado, let’s take a look at all of the prospects who registered a 9.0-plus RAS. We begin with the cornerback position.

Notable prospects who did not complete enough testing to qualify for RAS: Ahmad Gardner (#4), Andrew Booth (#24)

Defensive end (17 players)

Defensive tackle (11 players)

Notable prospects who did not complete enough testing to qualify for RAS: Perrion Winfrey (#50)

Fullback (3 players)

Linebacker (20 players)

Notable prospects who did not complete enough testing to qualify for RAS: Nakobe Dean (#26)

Interior offensive line (10 players)

Notable prospects who did not complete enough testing to qualify for RAS: Tyler Linderbaum (#23)

Offensive tackle (8 players)

Notable prospects who did not complete enough testing to qualify for RAS: Evan Neal (#3)

Quarterback (3 players)

Obviously, I doubt the Jets will target a quarterback in this year’s draft, but I figured this info was worth including anyway. Perhaps one of these names could generate enough interest to prompt a team into trading up for one of the Jets’ picks.

Notable prospects who did not complete enough testing to qualify for RAS: Malik Willis (#11), Matt Corral (#35)

Running back (9 players)

Safety (14 players)

Tight end (6 players)

Wide receiver (11 players)

Notable prospects who did not complete enough testing to qualify for RAS: Drake London (#13), Jameson Williams (#15)

Based on what we saw from Joe Douglas and the New York scouting staff over the last two years, I would expect the Jets to draft at least three or four of the players listed in this article.