I have a sneaking suspicion Mike Maccagnan wakes up some nights screaming, “Build through the draft, build through the draft” as he has a nightmare about failing to get a draft card turned in on time.
The Jets general manager has made “build through the draft” his mantra to the point it should be printed on his ubiquitous coffee cup. It has been what Maccagnan has preached since he took the Jets job in 2015, and it became more of a rallying cry than ever this offseason, when he tossed expensive veterans overboard.
The draft fans are focused on is the one in 2018, when the Jets could land one of the top quarterback prospects like Sam Darnold, Josh Allen or Josh Rosen. But the reality is, at this moment, the 2015, ’16 and ’17 drafts are much more important for the Jets.
It is time to see if Maccagnan’s first three drafts have provided this team with a core for the future that a quarterback like Darnold, Allen or Rosen could add to. Maccagnan has drafted 22 players as the Jets GM. All but one of those players remain on the roster. That is a good batting average, but only one looks like a star — Leonard Williams — and only four others have been starters — Darron Lee, Jordan Jenkins, Lorenzo Mauldin and punter Lac Edwards. It looks like Jamal Adams, a first-round pick this year, will be very good, but he has not played a game yet.
“We’ve always said from Day 1, we acknowledged the real core of this process was going to be done through the draft,” Maccagnan said this week. “That does take time. Our goal in the end is to have a core good group of young players to kind of be our foundation going forward.”
It is time to see if that core is beginning to form. That is what this training camp and this season is about. Even if the 2017 season is a failure in the win-loss column for the Jets, they would feel good if they walk away from it knowing they have seven or eight players to build around.
The list of Maccagnan draft picks who are under the microscope this season begins with quarterback Christian Hackenberg. He may not be the starter in Week 1, but you can expect to see him starting games by Halloween. If he proves he is a long-term answer at quarterback, which feels like a long shot, the Jets can go in a different direction in the draft next year. If he falls on his face, the Jets will be drafting a quarterback.
While Hackenberg is the headliner, there are plenty of other players the Jets are hoping will emerge during this camp and season. Mauldin, Lee, Jenkins, Juston Burris, Brandon Shell, Marcus Maye, ArDarius Stewart and Dylan Donahue are all being given plenty of chances to prove they can be part of turning the Jets around.
“Our focus has always been to build that team so that we would have a young team with a core, a young core coming together and, ideally, at a time when we could be competitive for the playoffs on a yearly basis,” Maccagnan said. “That’s our goal, and I think really when you look what we did from Day 1 until now, it was sort of a natural progression of how we’re trying to build this thing, but our focus has not really changed.”
One of the dumbest things done every year by the media is the post-draft grades that are handed out right after the draft. No one knows how those picks will pan out. But Maccagnan’s draft grades are about to get real. We’ll know how he did in 2015 and have a good feel for how he did in 2016 after this season.
Jets fans will feel a whole lot better about the 2018 draft and the man running it next year if Maccagnan lands some A’s on his report card.