Florham Park – The Jets’ depth chart is out, and looking at it, this one thing quickly caught my attention.
There are no rookies starting.
And I view this as a positive thing.
Why rush guys into the lineup before they’re ready, no matter where they were picked, and that includes in the first round.
In 2016, the rushed a first-round rookie linebacker into the starting lineup, and he admitted after that season on SiriusXM NFL Radio, he wasn’t “comfortable with the playbook.”
“I wasn’t necessarily comfortable with the playbook in 2016,” Darron Lee told hosts Jim Miller and Pat Kirwan in the summer of 2017. “I couldn’t tell you half the terminology. Now I’m much more comfortable.”
The Jets enter the 2019 season on offense and defense with lot of veterans starting on both sides of the ball.
Rookie defensive tackle Quinnen Williams isn’t starting, but will play in certain sub-packages. Unlike in the past, he wasn’t thrust into the starting lineup just because he was a first-round pick.
And that is a good thing. No more anointing oil for first-round picks. Let them earn their way into the starting lineup.
Who knows how the 2019 Jets will fare (I don’t have a crystal ball), but you have to like the NFL experience they have on both sides of the ball.
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