The Jets said they would take the best player available in Thursday night’s first round of the NFL draft. They never imagined it would be the player many people considered the best player in the entire draft.
New Jets general manager Mike Maccagnan selected USC defensive end Leonard Williams with the sixth overall pick after Williams took a surprising slide out of the top five. Nearly every mock draft out there had Williams going either third or fourth. Instead, he was sitting there when the Jets time to pick came.
Despite defensive line being the furthest thing from an area of need, the Jets picked him.
“He was the best player on our board and we were kind of surprised he actually fell to us and felt it was basically too good of a value to pass on at that point in time,” Maccagnan said about his first draft choice as general manager.
Williams is a 6-foot-5, 302-pound athletic freak. He gives Jets coach Todd Bowles another piece on what might be the best defensive line in football.
“The Jets just got a very, very good football player,” one scout from another team said.
As Williams slipped, you began to wonder if he would get to the Jets and what they would do if he did. While Maccagnan swore he would take the best player available, they needed help in other areas — namely offense. The Jets have selected a defensive player with their last seven first-round picks over the past six years. The last time they selected an offensive player in the first round was 2009 when they took Mark Sanchez.
This is the fourth time in five years they took a defensive lineman in the first round.
For years now, the Jets’ defense has been the strength of the team and there is an argument they needed to bolster the offense, but Maccagnan stuck to his principles and took the top player on the team’s draft board. He called it a “fairly easy decision to make.”
“You can never have enough D linemen,” Bowles said. “I had a bunch of D linemen in Dallas when I was there, too. Having a lot of good football players doesn’t matter. I think everyone on the D line has to learn how to play across the board in our scheme anyway. Having him added to the mix just makes us better.”
The selection of Williams raises questions about Muhammad Wilkerson, who is entering the final year of his contract and is seeking a long-term deal. Will the Jets now trade him? They fielded offers for him this week. Will they hold off on signing him to a long-term deal? Maccagnan and Bowles said they would reach out to Wilkerson to assure him he is still part of their plans.
“Right now, Muhammad’s on our team. I’m not going to speculate,” Maccagnan said. “We’re not actively trying to shop Muhammad. Right now, he’s part of us. At some point in time we’re going to talk to him and his agent and kind of proceed forward.”
Williams, who is from Daytona Beach, Fla., had seven sacks last season for the Trojans and 80 tackles. He was the team’s MVP and left after his junior season. The Jets attended Williams’ Pro Day and had him come to New Jersey for a visit on the chance he would fall to them. Williams is only 20 years old and won’t be 21 until June, something that has the Jets thinking he will only get better.
“To me, you’re looking at a guy that to me is scratching the surface of the player he could potentially be,” Maccagnan said.
Williams said he was surprised the Jets took him. He was asked if he is out to prove the teams that passed on him wrong.
“Not really prove other teams wrong, but just really prove the Jets right,” he said. “I really want them to be proud of their decision and them to know I’m coming in with a lot of passion and willing to put up whatever it takes on the line to make a lot of great plays and be successful.”
If he lives up to his pre-draft scouting reports, that should not be a problem. This was one scout’s take in Nolan Nawrocki’s Draft Guide:
“Leonard Williams is hands down the best player in the draft,” he said. “He is Reggie White. He can play anything and dominate. … He will be a perennial Pro Bowler — no ands, ifs or buts. If I am [Buccaneers coach] Lovie Smith, I’m not taking a chance on a quarterback. I’m taking the sure thing.”