Joe Douglas reportedly has a line in the sand that he won’t cross in New York Jets negotiations, but is that accurate?
There’s a four-letter word around New York Jets parts right now, and it’s spelled L-E-V-E-R-A-G-E.
Everyone has an opinion about which team has the leverage in the Jets-Packers trade negotiations for Aaron Rodgers. The answer likely lies somewhere in the middle: both teams have leverage, and therefore, neither does.
Many Jets fans are confident in their hero and savior, Joe Douglas, to “win” the trade. Jamal Adams and Sam Darnold, they’ll say knowingly.
“In Joe We Trust” memes abound.
However, there’s been a curious trend in some of Douglas’ negotiations outside of those trades. Is Douglas really as savvy a negotiator as Jets fans believe?
Free agency
This is now Douglas’ fourth offseason as Jets GM. His track record from the previous three is spotty.
2020
Connor McGovern’s three-year, $27 million deal with $18 million guaranteed was a blatant overpay for an average center. He was the 10th-highest-paid center in the league when his play was somewhere between 16th to 20th in each of his three years with the team.
George Fant, a career backup, received three years, $30 million with $13.7 million guaranteed. This was an overpay despite Fant’s strong 2021 season. In the end, his injury track record did him in.
The saving grace is that Douglas did not give Fant an extension prior to his injury-riddled 2022 season.
2021
Carl Lawson has not lived up to his three-year, $45 million deal. His injury is no excuse, as it was his main issue in Cincinnati. The same goes for Corey Davis, Douglas’ other big-ticket signing that offseason.
Sheldon Rankins had one terrible season and one strong one for the Jets. Recency bias makes it a good contract.
2022
The D.J. Reed signing is obviously a smashing success thus far, even if the three-year, $33 million price might still be steep. Laken Tomlinson’s contract was a big overpay compared to James Daniels’ and Austin Corbett’s contracts. It blew up in Douglas’ face in Year 1.
Douglas overpaid Braxton Berrios, and the Jets will now eat $3.2 million in dead cap as a result.
Signing C.J. Uzomah and Tyler Conklin to starter-level contracts was confusing at the time. After the season, it’s even more befuddling considering the pair’s usage. Uzomah got $8 million per year to block, while Conklin functioned primarily as a safety valve.
Jordan Whitehead had a poor season, but his contract makes him easy to release. His 2023 cap hit of $10.2 million cannot be on the 2023 roster, though.
Jacob Martin was another sneaky overpay. With a player like Bryce Huff on the roster, Martin’s skills were redundant. His three-year, $13.5 million deal with $6 million guaranteed went to nothing.
Perhaps the worst move of the offseason was being forced to sign Duane Brown for $11 million a year. Douglas left the tackle position razor-thin, gambling that Mekhi Becton would stay healthy. When he inevitably didn’t, Douglas then ramped up conversations with Brown. The result was a contract with three void years and too much money for a 37-year-old tackle.
Overall, Douglas has found some value in free agency (such as signing Kwon Alexander and picking up John Franklin-Myers and Quincy Williams off waivers), but he has overpaid an awful lot.
Draft
Regarding the draft, it’s important to look at value, not just the player. This might sound foolish, but in business, the value of an asset is measured in surplus, not just absolute value. In other words, how much did you pay for the asset?
Furthermore, there is a strong concept of ceiling vs. floor for draft prospects. Teams must weigh whether they prefer to take a swing on a player’s ability to hit their ceiling or go with the safer pick.
Obviously, there are many factors that determine whether the player ascends in the league. One important one is player development. The GM must know he has the right plan in place to develop the players he drafts.
Mekhi Becton
Douglas swung for the fences by picking Mekhi Becton in 2020. Tristan Wirfs was more highly regarded by many draft analysts, but he was also seen as a right tackle. The Jets wanted a left tackle, and Becton had played there in college.
He was a bruiser with the ability to become a dominant tackle, but there was also the fear that he would never develop his technique. There were also whispers that he struggled to keep his weight down.
It’s easy to look at how things have turned out and say that Douglas should have taken Wirfs. Becton showed potential in Year 1 but has not played in two years, while Wirfs is a two-time first-team All-Pro.
There was reasoning for the Becton pick, but Wirfs’ floor was undoubtedly higher. Should Douglas have taken Wirfs?
Zach Wilson
According to SI’s Albert Breer, 23 out of the 23 front offices he polled would have taken Zach Wilson with the No. 2 overall pick. That should give Douglas a pass, right?
However, those who were looking more closely saw the low floor. Wilson’s NFL.com draft profile labeled him as a boom-or-bust prospect. The fact that he had ascended out of nowhere in the Covid-19 season after two nondescript years at BYU was a red flag.
Douglas once again took a swing for the fences. Perhaps it was a calculated swing, but he also did not put enough in place to be confident that the team could develop Wilson toward his ceiling.
Groupthink is dangerous in any business. With the track record of NFL front offices in the draft, taking the “consensus” pick is not always correct. Whether Wilson’s failure in the NFL is on him, his coaching, or a combination thereof, it was risky. Douglas swung for the fences and missed.
Alijah Vera-Tucker and Breece Hall
As good as Alijah Vera-Tucker and Breece Hall are, both picks shattered NFL positional valuations from an analytics perspective.
Alijah Vera-Tucker
With Vera-Tucker, it was mainly the cost. Giving up two third-round picks to take an interior offensive lineman is a very steep price to pay. As good as AVT is, as indispensable as he was last season, it may not have been the best use of resources.
Yes, the Jets needed an interior lineman, and AVT was by far the best available. But they also had other positional needs that could have been filled at both No. 23 and the third-round picks.
The Vikings picked Christian Darrisaw with that No. 23 selection. Does Darrisaw bring less value to his team than AVT to the Jets?
Breece Hall
The same applies to Hall. As dominant as he is, trading up to obtain a running back is not considered good business. In fact, the No. 146 pick that the Jets traded to the Giants to trade spots could have just as easily been used for an RB.
Hall is a phenomenal player whom the Jets are glad to have. But was it ideal team-building and use of resources? There is a strong argument against it. The counterargument that Hall’s production comprised most of the Jets’ offense until his injury is fair. So is the rebuttal that Hall’s ACL tear often befalls RBs and compromises their already-short shelf life, though.
That being said, giving up a fifth-rounder to move up two spots isn’t much. Drafting a running back at No. 36 is valuable capital, though.
Furthermore, the team really needed a free safety, more OT depth (which they never addressed properly), and defensive tackle help. From a one-year perspective, perhaps the pick made sense in giving Wilson as much help as possible. From a team-building angle, it was questionable.
Jeremy Ruckert
This was a strange pick at the time and continues to be so. The Jets had just given starter-level contracts to both Uzomah and Conklin. To take a developmental tight end in the third round when the team had other needs was odd.
Trades
As stated before, Douglas fleeced the Seahawks in the Adams deal and the Panthers for Darnold. He also got back a fourth-round pick for Chris Herndon and a sixth-rounder for Blake Cashman. He’s made a flurry of late-round draft trades.
However, he also traded away former first-rounder Leonard Williams for third- and fifth-rounders, which wasn’t necessarily great value. The aforementioned draft trades for AVT and Hall bring questions along with them.
2022 and beyond
It’s important to note that the NFL is on to Douglas. They won’t let him get away with fleeces anymore.
He traded Martin and a 2024 fifth-rounder in exchange for a 2024 fourth-rounder. NFL GMs generally value a future pick as one round lower than the actual round. That means Douglas got the equivalent of a fifth-rounder back for Martin. The team still has $2.3 million in 2023 dead cap from that trade.
The James Robinson trade was a necessary gamble. Still, Douglas could have questioned why Jacksonville was so eager to part with him. The answer was evident almost immediately: Robinson’s knee was not healthy.
The lost sixth-rounder isn’t going to sting too much and the Jets did need a back. Since they ended up using Bam Knight anyway, though, the trade looks somewhat spotty.
The most recent Elijah Moore trade is worse than the Jimmy Johnson trade chart will have fans believe. Teams rarely use the Johnson chart at this point. Rather, they use a chart that assesses true performance-based pick value.
According to the chart based on Pro Football Reference’s Approximate Value, the Jets got back the equivalent of the No. 130 overall pick for Moore, a fifth-rounder. That’s poor value for a player who’s not yet 23 and has shown potential. Yes, this trade happened for reasons unrelated to talent, but it’s a bad look.
Rodgers trade
All this leads to the supposed “line in the sand” that Douglas has when it comes to doing business. Jets and Packers fans are involved in heated debates about who has the leverage in a Rodgers deal.
Ultimately, this is a question of how stubborn each side is and who blinks first. If Douglas is truly willing to wait until the beginning of the season to acquire Rodgers for the absolute minimum possible, he can keep the leverage on his side indefinitely.
Conversely, the Packers can stow Rodgers and wait for Douglas to bite as mandatory minicamp approaches, making the media calls for a trade hit a frenzy.
Then the question is if Woody Johnson can withstand the public pressure. Douglas is beholden to his boss. If all the people in Jets camp are on the same page, though, they can hit a real Packers pain point.
Will they?
Leverage questions
Can Douglas go past the draft with no QB? Will the Packers give in because they desperately want 2023 draft picks? Or do they not believe in Jordan Love as much as they say they do?
Green Bay reportedly wants a first-rounder “plus more” for Rodgers. The Jets refuse to give that. The Packers feel that Douglas is lowballing them.
For now, neither side has conceded. The Packers seem to be using the media to build leverage more than the Jets are. The tidbits leaked to Adam Schefter are clearly coming from the Green Bay side of the aisle.
As Robby Sabo previously explained, Douglas needs this Rodgers trade to happen. Can he negotiate from that place and still be effective?
This is, perhaps, the biggest test of his Jets tenure.
