What happened to NFL draft discourse?
It often feels like we forget what the “F” in “NFL” stands for. Instead of talking about football, today’s NFL draft media landscape has devolved into something of a reality show. Rumors, reports, mock drafts, and stock are all the rage, while 12 personnel, club-swim moves, and option routes take a back seat. Whatever is short and shallow enough for a 10-second summary on TikTok, I suppose.
Let’s turn our attention back to the gridiron for a second. It is between the white lines where we will find the clearest path to what awaits on draft weekend, not from a tweet citing an unnamed source (which is probably the IT guy at the team facility).
The New York Jets are preparing for their first draft under a new regime. This class will be a pivotal one as they attempt to establish their revamped identity under Aaron Glenn.
The Jets likely have an idea of what their prototype player looks like at each position. We don’t know what those prototypes look like yet; unfortunately, Darren Mougey’s cliché explanation of “smart, tough, aggressive, and resilient” does not narrow it down very much. Still, we can take our best stab at it based on what we know about the backgrounds of Mougey, Glenn, and the Jets’ coaching staff.
Here are the primary skills the Jets will likely prioritize at each offensive position in the 2025 NFL draft.
Offensive line
With Justin Fields at quarterback and an offensive coordinator hailing from the famously run-heavy Detroit Lions, there is ample anticipation surrounding New York’s ground attack. The passing game remains an immense concern, but there is real potential for the Jets to be a top-end rushing team.
For that reason, it is easy to get caught up in the hype around the Jets’ run game and think that a mauling run blocker should be the priority at this position. That is not the case.
While Jets offensive coordinator Tanner Engstrand does come from a Lions team that benefited from excellent run-blocking, Detroit’s pass protection was arguably more important to their offensive success. Yes, the Lions’ rushing attack was impressive, but it’s their play-action passing game that really put their offense over the top.
Lions quarterback Jared Goff led the NFL with 2,076 passing yards off play action in 2024. That was more than 450 yards ahead of the second-ranked quarterback, Justin Herbert. A shocking 45% of Goff’s passing yards were off play action.
To be effective with play action, great pass protection is utterly essential. You can work around shaky pass protection in a quick-release passing game, but in a scheme that calls for a heavy dosage of straight dropbacks off the play fake, the offensive line is paramount. Play action dropbacks take much longer to develop than non-play action dropbacks. Additionally, because the quarterback has his back turned to his defense to start the play, he is at an even greater risk of getting hit.
Yes, the Jets want to give Justin Fields a chance to succeed in 2025, and a Fields-catered offense might feature more simplistic reads and RPO opportunities as opposed to the traditional play action dropbacks that Goff relied upon. But Fields is probably not going to be the Jets’ franchise quarterback. The Jets know it.
For that reason, they cannot base their critical draft decisions around maximizing Fields. New York must select the best players for the next four years and beyond, long after Fields has come and gone.
Focusing on a mauling run blocker to build an electric run game around Fields might sound appealing, but pass protection is the skill that will transcend quarterbacks over the next decade, unlocking any passer in any scheme. Run blocking is still a factor when scouting linemen, but the Jets must value pass protection first and foremost. It is critical for not only keeping their quarterback upright, but also giving him enough time to maximize the play action game that Engstrand was instrumental in cultivating for Detroit.
No. 1 skill to prioritize at OL: Pass protection
Wide receiver
The wide receiver position is flush with traits to evaluate, which allows for wide-ranging philosophies on how the position should be scouted.
Some people value a receiver’s hands above all else. Others put YAC at the top. Size, catch radius, verticality, and football IQ are other aspects of the position that can be prioritized. All of these things matter to some extent. Choosing the most important is a matter of preference.
When it comes to the Jets, my best guess is that they will primarily emphasize raw separation skills with their wide receiver selections.
After eight years as a scout for the organization in various capacities, Darren Mougey first became a prominent figure in the Denver Broncos’ front office in 2020, when he was promoted to assistant director of college scouting. That year, the Broncos used their first two picks on wide receivers: Jerry Jeudy (first round) and KJ Hamler (second round).
Jeudy and Hamler were each known for their quickness and separation above all else. Neither had an imposing frame (both under 200 pounds), and both had issues with drops in their final college seasons (seven for Jeudy, 11 for Hamler). Jeudy had excellent YAC skills as part of his resume, but Hamler did not (only four missed tackles forced on 56 receptions in 2019).
Neither pick worked out for Denver, but it is fascinating to see a clear skill-set emphasis at the wide receiver position in Mougey’s first season with a prominent say.
These preferences align with Engstrand and Glenn’s background in Detroit. With the Lions heavily relying on intermediate routes over the middle, they needed quick separators who could win on slants, crossers, and digs. Receivers needed to shake press coverage in a hurry and make sharp breaks over the middle, creating horizontal separation so Goff could lead them and put them in a position to gain YAC. Hence, the short but shifty Amon-Ra St. Brown has emerged as their go-to weapon.
The Jets, like every NFL team, will assuredly evaluate every box at the wide receiver position. Drops, contested catches, YAC, long speed, football IQ – it’s all a part of the puzzle. But if there is one trait at the top of their list, it is a good bet that separation takes the cake.
No. 1 skill to prioritize at WR: Separation
Tight end
The Jets need quite literally everything at the tight end position, so this section has nothing to do with needs. It comes down to philosophy.
Conventional wisdom in today’s NFL suggests that a player’s impact on the passing game always comes first. If you can’t impact the aerial attack, you aren’t of premium value. Plain and simple.
That may be true in a broader sense, but when talking about tight ends, it is a little more complex than that.
The NFL’s shift to a pass-first league – along with the groundbreaking success of Travis Kelce – has brought about a new wave of “flex” tight ends in the past seven years or so. These are the types of tight ends that typically get drafted early nowadays. Some examples include Brock Bowers, Kyle Pitts, Trey McBride, Dalton Kincaid, and Mike Gesicki. All of these guys were selected within the first two rounds.
These tight ends are essentially drafted to create mismatches in the slot. They are more “big wide receiver” than “great pass-catching tight end”.
In 2024, all four of Gesicki (68%), Kincaid (61%), Bowers (55%), and McBride (52%) played over 50% of their pass-game snaps in the slot, each ranking top-11 among 43 qualified tight ends. Pitts was 22nd at 41%, but he lined up out wide on 21% of his snaps, placing fifth-highest. All five players lined up in-line on less than 40% of their pass-game snaps, placing each of them in the bottom half among qualifiers.
The idea is appealing in theory. If these guys have the route-running, hands, and YAC to sufficiently run multiple routes in the tree, we can create mismatches by flexing them out and isolating them against a linebacker.
In practice, though, flaws arise.
The supposed mismatch advantage dissipates when considering that these players are usually non-threats as blockers. Since they cannot block, their team often utilizes them with a heavy snap-count lean toward the passing game, which makes the entire offense more predictable when they’re on the field. Advantage, defense.
If the offense tries to mix it up by putting the player in-line to block, he is usually just a flat-out liability. Advantage, defense.
This allows opponents to match up by bringing their nickel package (5 DB) into the game. They can take a linebacker off the field and cover the tight end with a defensive back (typically a safety or bigger slot corner), which is an even matchup in the pass game. The tight end will always have more size in these situations, but that is negated by the speed and quickness disadvantages.
Defenses can comfortably make this switch because if the offense wants to run the ball, they do not have to worry about the “tight end” maximizing what should be a mismatch in that phase against a DB, since he is a non-blocker. If a TE’s blocking technique is poor, any DB can breeze by him to make a tackle, regardless of the size difference.
The idea of the flex tight end works best when the tight end can actually block. In this case, the defense has no real answer. If they want to match up with a DB to avoid the LB mismatch in coverage, they leave themselves vulnerable to the TE washing out the DB in the run game. If they want to put their base personnel on the field so the LB can match up in the run game, it becomes a mismatch for the TE in the passing game.
It’s all negated without blocking skills. At that point, teams are just throwing out a big, slow slot receiver. While it will allow him to put up gaudier receiving stats than most tight ends, that is not the right comparison when the player is used in such a role. He should be compared against other slot receivers. And is a guy like Dalton Kincaid or Mike Gesicki really a better slot receiver than an actual slot receiver?
There are some success stories among this archetype. Bowers was a smash hit in his rookie year. McBride had a breakout year in 2024. If you can find a flex tight end who puts up numbers to the extent that Bowers and McBride did, they can be worth it despite the subpar blocking.
Otherwise, a tight end must be multi-faceted to truly lift the entire offense. The whole point of the position is to be a cross between an offensive lineman and a wide receiver. If a player leans too far in one direction, his matchup advantages are negated.
Versatility is essential at this position, especially as the Jets prepare to build what will likely be a heavy 12 personnel (2 TE) offense under Engstrand. They need tight ends who can play both sides of the position at a high level. This is what truly creates mismatches for defenses to worry about.
No. 1 skill to prioritize at TE: Two-way ability
Running back
Value at the running back position ultimately comes down to one simple question: What can you add above what is presented to you?
There are multiple ways for a running back to pull that off. He can put his head down and bowl over defenders to grind out yards after contact, a la Derrick Henry. He can dance with defenders in space to make them miss, a la LeSean McCoy.
Or, most impactful of all, he can just breeze right by them, a la Saquon Barkley.
In a perfect world, the Jets’ offensive line will establish itself as one of the league’s best over the next few years. They have a realistic chance to pull it off.
If that happens, the Jets will present their running backs with plenty of gaping holes to run through. It will become less important for their runners to break multiple tackles or grind through contact, and more important for them to turn free 10-yard lanes into game-breaking home runs.
Moving from the putrid Giants offensive line to the excellent Eagles offensive line in 2024, Barkley demonstrated the team-altering ceiling that is presented when you pair great blocking with scorching breakaway speed. Barkley did not have to evade many tackles to change the Eagles’ season. Oftentimes, he simply took the lanes that were presented to him and outran defenders to the end zone.
This is the easiest way for running backs to stockpile bundles of yardage above expectation. While it can be entertaining to watch an old-school running back tack on an extra yard or two here or there with his sheer power, the impact of those yards is minuscule compared to the dozens upon dozens of bonus yards that can be created through elite breakaway speed. And when you have a strong offensive line, there are even more bonus breakaway yards waiting to be gained.
The Jets already have a running back who has displayed elite breakaway potential in Breece Hall. However, this aspect of Hall’s game disappeared in 2024. New York is hoping to see it return, but they should not rely on it.
As they evaluate prospects to add to the back of the depth chart for competition purposes, breakaway speed should be the Jets’ priority. Neither Braelon Allen nor Isaiah Davis offers this trait, so if Hall does not rediscover it, the Jets will be left without a running back who can break loose for 80-yarders. That would waste the potential of their budding offensive line.
No. 1 skill to prioritize at RB: Breakaway speed
Quarterback
While the Jets will likely not be making a substantial investment at quarterback in this year’s draft, they should still begin planting the seeds of what they view as essential traits for the position. This is their chance to begin building a pipeline that fits their vision for the team.
Physical traits are all the rage at quarterback in today’s NFL. The position is getting faster, quicker, and more agile with each passing year.
At the end of the day, though, the same traits that made quarterbacks great in 1970 are still vital today. That will continue until the conclusion of time as we know it, provided that the NFL is still an active league at that point.
Whether you’re Lamar Jackson or Jared Goff, succeeding at quarterback is all about decision-making. It doesn’t matter if you’re deciding whether to keep the ball on a read option versus handing it off, or if you’re torn between ripping the skinny post and coming back to the checkdown. All quarterbacks have ever done is make an absurd number of rapid decisions over the course of a few seconds, and it is all they will ever do, no matter how much the position’s archetype changes from a physical standpoint.
You can still go far in today’s NFL with a pure pocket quarterback. Joe Burrow, Matthew Stafford, Tom Brady, Justin Herbert, Brock Purdy, Aaron Rodgers, and Jared Goff have carried that torch into the 2020s. You can still go for broke with the most athletic quarterback in football; just ask the Indianapolis Colts.
It all just comes down to decision-making. If you can find a guy who makes the right decision at an incredible level of consistency, you have a keeper, no matter how he plays the game or what his Relative Athletic Score is.
How exactly do you measure decision-making? That remains an inexact science. How do we even differentiate the good decision-makers coming out of college from the bad ones? They were all great players in college, after all, or else they wouldn’t be coming to the NFL.
If scouting quarterbacks was easy, the NFL would be a world of perfectly balanced parity in which every team had a superstar signal-caller and every season yielded a completely random smattering of 7-to-9 win teams that are barely different in quality.
In the real world, though, scouting quarterbacks is really, really hard, even if you try to play it “safe.”
Baker Mayfield was the “safe” guy in 2018, yet the Browns misfired by choosing him first overall (although that was largely their own fault, as we’ve seen with Mayfield’s later development). Josh Rosen was viewed as the class’s “high-floor” guy with a limited ceiling, yet he went on to display one of the lowest floors we have ever seen. Meanwhile, the teams that took the two “riskiest” guys of the 2018 class’s top prospects, Buffalo and Baltimore, continue to reap the rewards and will continue to do so for many years.
These rare success stories inspire every team to believe that they can find the next Josh or Lamar. They prompt teams to take gigantic swings on potential, which might work 10% of the time, but usually result in equally gigantic misses. Thus, you get the massive gap between the few teams who hit on their big-swing quarterbacks and the many who did not. It is the source of the mammoth chasm that separates the league’s perennial contenders and its perennial bottom-feeders (hello, Jets).
Arm strength is appealing. Speed is appealing. Height is appealing. And these things should not be overlooked. They certainly lift a quarterback’s ceiling if utilized properly.
But sometimes, you just need to weed through the noise and bring it back to the basics.
Go through your reads quickly. Check it down if nothing is there. Throw it away if you’re under pressure. Eat the sack if all hope is lost; don’t try to do too much. Slide, don’t risk your future for two extra yards. Can you do these things? Cool, here’s the helmet with a green dot. Go win us a football game. Oh, but you ran a 4.82? I forgot when that affected your ability to throw a 10-yard out with anticipation.
Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson aren’t stars because of their athleticism. They are stars because of their ability to play quarterback. Their athleticism supplements those base fundamentals to take their games to new heights.
Again, though: How do we know who has these traits and who doesn’t?
Zach Wilson completed 73.5% of his passes for 33 touchdowns and three picks as a junior. Josh Allen’s junior year saw him complete 56.3% of his passes for 16 touchdowns and six picks – at Wyoming.
These are just stats, but the film told similar stories. Wilson had scouts in awe, while Allen was an enormous project that many teams were too scared to undertake. If there was anything on tape that foretold Wilson’s yips and Allen’s rapid development to a man who carries a small Rust Belt city on his back, Wilson would have gone undrafted, and Allen would be in Cleveland.
I don’t know how to project a quarterback prospect’s decision-making to the NFL. Clearly, neither do the guys getting paid to do it. And that’s the fun of the draft, isn’t it?
It’s fun for you and me, at least. Our jobs won’t be in jeopardy if we advise our employer to hire someone who throws a prolate spheroid 5% less accurately than his peers.
Ultimately, quarterback remains the most complex position to evaluate in all of sports. It is difficult to pinpoint one trait that separates future stars from future busts. Amidst all of the hoopla, though, the best bet is to strip the analysis down to its bare bones and remember that we are talking about an extremely cerebral position that revolves around quick-time decision-making. Whichever method they choose to evaluate this aspect of the position, it is any team’s best bet on the road to finding their guy.
No. 1 skill to prioritize at QB: Decision-making
