A day after the New York Jets took a huge step toward removing the ‘SOJ’ label, their selection of Will McDonald brought it right back
If the New York Jets wanted to take a step toward respectability across the NFL, this was not the way to do it.
The early first-round returns seemed to be promising. Through the first nine picks, only one offensive tackle had been selected. That was clearly the Jets’ plan all along.
Then, the wheels fell off, starting with the Darnell Wright selection at No. 10 to the Bears. The Titans followed it up with Peter Skoronski at the next pick, and the Jets brass likely began to panic. Just when the pick got to No. 14 and they thought they could settle down, the Steelers leapfrogged the Jets and took the fourth tackle, Broderick Jones.
This clearly left Joe Douglas in a panic—a panic he may have brought on himself by trading down from No. 13 to No. 15 in the Aaron Rodgers deal. While Jets fans screamed for Jaxon Smith-Njigba or would’ve been satisfied with Calijah Kancey or even Nolan Smith, Douglas manned the phones.
In the end, he didn’t just take one of the best players available at a position of need; he reached tremendously. Will McDonald IV was No. 33 on the NFL Mock Draft Consensus Big Board for several reasons: he will already be 24 years old at the start of the season, signaling that he is near his ceiling as a pass rusher, and he is just 239 pounds, which plays oddly for a 4-3 defensive end.
Many Jets fans were shaking their heads and scrambling to find an upside to the pick after it happened. The rest of the NFL just laughed: these are the Same Old Jets.
A huge reach
The Jets have made some bad draft picks over the years. They’ve had high picks in recent seasons who did not work out. However, they have not taken this kind of reach in the first round in a number of years.
Consider the Jets’ last seven years of first-round picks compared to their consensus big board spots.
- 2022 – No. 4 Sauce Gardner (No. 2 Big Board/No. 4 mock draft)
- 2022 – No. 10 Garrett Wilson (No. 8/No. 8)
- 2022 – No. 26 Jermaine Johnson (No. 10/no consensus)
- 2021 – No. 2 Zach Wilson (No. 2/No. 2)
- 2021 – No. 14 Alijah Vera-Tucker (No. 19/no consensus)
- 2020 – No. 11 Mekhi Becton (No. 16/No. 10)
- 2019 – No. 3 Quinnen Williams (No. 2/No. 4)
- 2018 – No. 3 Sam Darnold (No. 3/No. 1)
- 2017 – No. 6 Jamal Adams (No. 5/No. 2)
- 2016 – No. 20 Darron Lee (No. 15/No. 17)
The biggest reach among those was Vera-Tucker in 2021, which was magnified somewhat by the fact that the Jets surrendered two third-round picks to get him. However, it was still only six spots ahead of where he was ranked, and the Jets did desperately need a guard.
This year, the Jets reached up 18 spots to take a player that they did not really need. They already have 2022 first-round pick Johnson, Carl Lawson, John Franklin-Myers, Micheal Clemons, and Bryce Huff on the edge. While some analysts may insist that it’s better to select a player a year early than a year late, that only applies if there aren’t other glaring needs and it is at least a mostly appropriate draft slot.
IDL is a far greater need for the #Jets. The problem is that there really isn't a player there at No. 15 that was worth the No. 15 pick.
Can make argument Will McDonald wasn't really worth 15.
Seen a lot of second-round grades on him pre-draft, including @dpbrugler
— Connor Hughes (@Connor_J_Hughes) April 28, 2023
Seth Walder of ESPN said it best.
…so they reached for a non-need? https://t.co/KQRbRKjpun
— Seth Walder (@SethWalder) April 28, 2023
All the analysis done both prior to and during the draft suggested that McDonald was a major reach. Besides the consensus big board, here is what ESPN’s probability estimator suggested about McDonald’s availability.
Will McDonald IV is a reach at 15, according to the Draft Day Predictor.
Here's what the model thought his chance to be available was at the time the Jets were on the clock. Note, the chart starts at 22 because it didn't consider his range to begin until around then. pic.twitter.com/qMdseD8w1X
— Seth Walder (@SethWalder) April 28, 2023
Douglas claimed that there were conversations about trading out of the slot, but McDonald was the top edge rusher on the Jets’ board.
Joe Douglas said there were "some conversations" about a trade as the clock wound down with them at No. 15. But they saw McDonald as "a great fit" and he "plays our style."
— Andy Vasquez (@andy_vasquez) April 28, 2023
Although this is highly speculative, that is not the vibe coming off Douglas and Robert Saleh in their post-pick press conference. Their body language does not suggest an elated duo. The fact that they drained most of the clock before making their pick further points to a team that was outgunned for the offensive tackles they really wanted and then left stranded and panicking.
Robert Saleh says that Will McDonald compares favorably to Randy Gregory and Brian Burns: pic.twitter.com/NWVY3EG8Cg
— Jets Videos (@snyjets) April 28, 2023
There is another interesting nugget here which, while not a definitive knock on the Jets’ draft tendencies, does say something about their evaluations compared to those of the rest of the league.
This is rather remarkable: Only 2 Iowa State players have been drafted in the top 40 overall in the last 30 years:
DE Will McDonald, 15th tonight
RB Breece Hall (36th pick last year) #Jets— Rich Cimini (@RichCimini) April 28, 2023
This one tweet explains what most of the league believes about the Jets’ selection of McDonald.
The Jets…
-Telling everyone how much they love Broderick Jones
-Including pick swap with Packers in Rodgers trade so they’re behind division rivals
-Allow Steelers to leap them
-Reaching for Will McDonald
…is why they’re the Jets.
— Ross Tucker (@RossTuckerNFL) April 28, 2023
If that doesn’t scream “SOJ,” nothing else does.
It should be Rodgers first
When the Tampa Bay Buccaneers brought in Tom Brady, they made sure they had elite talent on the offensive side of the ball, starting with the offensive line. By contrast, the Jets’ offensive line consists of a severely underperforming veteran (Laken Tomlinson), an average veteran whom they clearly wanted to move on from until his price came down to dirt cheap (Connor McGovern), a tackle who has not started a game in two years (Becton), a 38-year-old tackle coming off rotator cuff surgery (Duane Brown), and one stud coming off a torn triceps (Vera-Tucker).
Meanwhile, while their receiving corps isn’t bad and does have a true No. 1, it does not have the one-two thump of Mike Evans and Chris Godwin, nor anything near Rob Gronkowski at tight end. Breece Hall, possibly the offense’s biggest difference-maker, is coming off a torn ACL and cannot be expected to be as dynamic immediately upon his return.
This was the time to protect Rodgers. If it couldn’t be offensive line due to an early run on tackles, Jaxon Smith-Njigba fell right into their laps. All they had to do was take the best receiver in the draft and turn their receiving corps from good to potentially elite. Just as Ja’Marr Chase elevated Joe Burrow’s game to another level despite a weak offensive line, Wilson and JSN together could have done the same.
Rodgers put up with a team that did not protect him for a long time in Green Bay. Reaching for a defensive player rather than taking the top receiver available is not a great way to help him win.
A familiar feeling for Aaron Rodgers: Since 2012, Rodgers' teams have taken a defensive player with 12 of 13 1st-round picks, per @ESPNStatsInfo #Jets
— Rich Cimini (@RichCimini) April 28, 2023
The Jets seem to be relying on Rodgers to do it all on his own, assuming that they can count on him to gain leads that they can then retain. Douglas and Saleh made reference to this.
Joe Douglas and Robert Saleh both alluded to a hope that they'll have more leads this year with Aaron Rodgers — and they like the idea of being able to shuffle in a bunch of different pass rushers.
— Zack Rosenblatt (@ZackBlatt) April 28, 2023
This is placing a massive amount of pressure on a quarterback entering his age-40 season. Quarterbacks who manage to prolong their careers usually do so by virtue of their supporting cast. Rodgers is seemingly expected to carry the load on his own. He has never been a quarterback to do that, though; in fact, 2022 demonstrated what can happen to him when he is not adequately supported.
Jets’ defensive philosophy
Jermaine Johnson played around 30% of the Jets’ defensive snaps last season. There is a conceivable situation in which McDonald could play even less than that.
The fact that the Jets rotate their defensive line so heavily makes this pick even harder to understand. If they had selected a defensive tackle (such as Kancey), at the very least the Jets’ interior defensive line room is thin, which would mean that the rookie would likely get more reps. The Jets already went five-deep at edge, though. There are simply not enough snaps to go around.
Perhaps the Jets will release Lawson, which would open up snaps for McDonald. That would free up $15 million in cap space, killing two birds with one stone. However, with the way Saleh spoke about Lawson at the owners’ meetings in Arizona, that does not sound all that likely. He seemed to indicate that the Jets intended to keep Lawson around as long as his body holds up.
Now, maybe that was before the run on tackles happened at the draft. It could be that the Jets will shift their stance. Maybe they’ll try to trade Lawson and get something in return, although his value is not that high due to his large 2023 salary.
Another alternative is that they plan on shifting Franklin-Myers to the interior defensive line a lot more than they did in 2022. JFM dominated as an interior pass rusher in 2020 and is a Kancey-style tweener. Perhaps the team decided to take advantage of their own taller Kancey rather than drafting one. Although JFM only played about 33% of his snaps inside last year, if the Jets increased that rate a lot, it would open up edge snaps.
However, considering Franklin-Myers’ Twitter response to my article explaining that the Jets correctly deployed him on the edge, that doesn’t seem to have been the plan.
That’s real! Maybe now others will watch the tape before forming an opinion 😂 https://t.co/OLXIXi4cZU
— John Franklin-Myers (@J_FranklinMyers) March 2, 2023
Again, it could be that the Jets will pivot, but it doesn’t seem likely. That means that the Jets likely just used a first-round pick in an all-in year on a player who may not play more than one-third of the time.
Nothing against McDonald
Jet X’s Vitor Paiva had tweeted prior to the draft that the Jets should try to acquire the edge rusher with the most bend. Despite posting good sack numbers as a team in 2022, the Jets’ overall pressure off the edge was not consistent.
NFL Network’s Lance Zierlein, among others, said that McDonald is the bendiest edge rusher in the draft. On that note, the pick would seemingly make sense. McDonald’s explosiveness is reminiscent of Bryce Huff’s.
Will McDonald is a New York Jet. pic.twitter.com/RvjRPcGCXB
— Jets Videos (@snyjets) April 28, 2023
However, just as Huff is not a three-down player due to struggles against the run, McDonald enters the NFL with the same concerns. His NFL.com draft profile lists edge-setting and maintaining leverage in the run game as his two biggest weaknesses. Do the Jets intend to give McDonald a shot to play on every down when they didn’t give it to Huff? That seems highly unlikely. If anything, Johnson, last year’s first-rounder, is more likely to see increased snaps due to his excellent edge-setting, which gives him more baseline competence than McDonald has.
Given McDonald’s speed and bend, it is likely that he will make a difference for the team on some level. It is simply highly questionable whether that will be enough to justify a reach at No. 15.
Having a plan
The Jets are far from the only team to make a head-scratching decision on Day 1 of the draft. From the steep price the Texans made to move up to No. 3 and select Will Anderson, to the selection of two running backs in the top 12 by sub-.500 teams in 2022, to the reach for Jack Campbell at No. 18 by Detroit, there was no shortage of surprises.
That being said, the Jets will need to play their cards right through the rest of the draft and the rest of the offseason to silence the critics and ease the concerns of fans. If the team trades Lawson and indicates a plan to use JFM inside at a higher frequency, that would help the McDonald pick make more sense. If they select Dawand Jones in the second round and fill out their other needs with their remaining picks, perhaps the first-rounder looks a little better.
Until then, the Jets will still be an underdog looking to prove the doubters wrong. That is perpetually where they have been in the last half-century. Acquiring Rodgers was supposed to help change that, but it has not done so to the extent that some might expect.
The Jets could have made a first-round pick to further their legitimacy in the league. Instead, they continue to search for it.
Follow Rivka Boord on Twitter @rivka_boord
