NY Jets continue to scout unusual position ahead of draft

Will the New York Jets drop a draft position bomb once more?

The New York Jets have a glut of riches at edge rusher.

Or at least, they seemingly do — but they’re sure not acting like it.

According to reports, the Jets scheduled a top-30 visit with Penn State edge rusher Chop Robinson. The 6-foot-3, 254-pound edge posted a 17.6% pressure rate in 10 college games last season and ran a 4.48 40-yard dash at the NFL Combine, posting a Relative Athletic Score of 9.68/10. He is currently the 28th-ranked prospect on NFL Mock Draft Database’s consensus big board, and his consensus draft position is at No. 27 to Arizona.

Perhaps the Jets’ meeting with Robinson is simply part of their due diligence on all prospects in the draft. Still, it will certainly strike Jets fans as odd after the team acquired Haason Reddick from the Philadelphia Eagles. The Jets have many mouths to feed at the edge position, including starters Reddick, Jermaine Johnson, and John Franklin-Myers, 2023 first-round pick Will McDonald, and rotational edge Micheal Clemons.

Maybe this subtly points toward Rich Cimini’s speculation that Franklin-Myers could be the “odd man out” in the Jets’ defensive line room. Robinson had a 76.3 Pro Football Focus run defense grade, although his size certainly would not replace Franklin-Myers’ 6-foot-4, 289-pound frame. Still, it would be exceedingly odd for the Jets to take a first-round edge rusher for the third consecutive season following Johnson and McDonald.

This doesn’t need to mean anything. Teams bring in all sorts of prospects in their top 30 visits. Still, for Jets fans still shellshocked from the McDonald pick, Joe Douglas has shown that he can do anything on draft night. It’s not out of the realm of possibility for him to do it again.