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Todd Bowles was asked today why Marcus Williams went undrafted out of North Dakota State.
“I have no idea,” Bowles said. “There’s a bunch of guys that go undrafted. I don’t have a real reason for why he didn’t get drafted.”
Perhaps he doesn’t know, or he just doesn’t feel like getting into it.
I will tell you why – he didn’t run well, and his speed concerned teams. He ran in the 4.6 area, and some even considered moving him to safety.
When you combine his pedestrian forty time, with his level of competition, 1-AA, this led to him falling through the cracks.
But as Bill Polian points out, even the best drafting teams bat about .565 in the draft.
Clearly a lot of scouts missed the boat on Williams. If you redrafted the 2014 draft, this guy is probably a third round prospect . . .
People are making such a big deal over this Antonio Cromartie injury. Look, he’s a decent player, but the Jets will live if he misses some time.
The aforementioned Williams or Buster Skrine (who started for Cleveland most of last season), can fill the bill just fine.
And while Cromartie did recover a fumble in the end zone against Cleveland, which was obviously important, he had two shaky plays before exiting after 1.5 quarters.
He was beat by speedster Travis Benjamin down the right sideline for a 54-yard touchdown. He couldn’t keep up with the Belle Glade-native who runs under 4.4.
Remember Johnny Manziel’s 22-yard scramble on the same touchdown drive? Well Cromatie had a shot at him early in the run, but got juked in the open field and whiffed. Cromartie and the Jets were fortunate the play due to an illegal chop block. But it’s illustrative of the fact that open field tackling has never been a strength of Cromartie.
And honestly, Williams and Skrine are better tacklers.
Look, I’m sure some of you think I’m beating up on Cromartie.
I’m not.
I’m just dealing with reality.
People make such a big deal about him possibly missing time. It’s not the end of the world based on the fact that he’s lost a step and isn’t a very good tackler.
Can he help the Jets this year? No doubt, but he’s not irreplaceable.
Some will act like the sky is falling if he can’t play. It’s not . . .
It came out today that the Daily News is laying off some sportswriters. Two of them are columnists Mike Lupica and Filip Bondy. I’m don’t like to dance on people’s graves, but these moves help the Jets, who are constantly fighting this “Same Old Jets” and ghost nonsense from certain columnists, and these were two of the biggest culprits.
Look, I wouldn’t feel so sorry for these two. They both made a lot of money writing about sports for about 40 years each. No fundraiser is needed. Nobody coming out of journalism school now is going to have a 40-year career writing for newspapers. That is a heck of a run.
Also fired was Daily News sports editor Teri Thompson. She is a big fan of Manish Mehta, and was behind his meteoric rise at the paper.
So Mehta has to be a little nervous.
September 16, 2015
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