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He has them picking this QB at two.
I’m talking about NFL Network draft analyst Daniel Jeremiah having the Jets picking BYU QB Zach Wilson with the second pick in the draft, in his first mock draft of the year.
I’m not that into this mock draft stuff, but sometimes, you can glean a little from the mock drafts of certain guys, especially related to certain teams where they have strong connections.
Jeremiah is close with Joe Douglas. They worked together as scouts in Baltimore, and when Douglas took the Jets’ job, there were rumors he wanted to hire Jeremiah on his staff. From what I hear, he perhaps wanted too much money, so it didn’t happen. Jeremiah makes very good money in his broadcasting career with NFL Network and as the radio analyst for the Los Angeles Chargers, so the money had to be significant for him to jump to the NFL.
But the fact that Jeremiah has the Jets picking Wilson means something.
Don’t get me wrong, Douglas isn’t tipping his hand, even to a close friend, but it’s more Jeremiah knowing Douglas’ thinking as a close friend and former co-worker.
If the Jets stay at two, and go with a quarterback, they probably need to pick Wilson over Justin Fields. Why? It has everything to do with reading defenses and seeing the field better. Fields has a similar issue to Sam Darnold, in that he’s got a lot of natural ability, but tends to lock on his first read.
“Just some of those issues (Fields) has when he gets stuck on one, if one’s not there, (he) holds the ball; then you saw him kind of force things (against Indiana),” Jeremiah said on NFL Network in December. “It all comes back to the same thing — my only concern is kind of vision, just his overall vision.”
Jets probably can’t go there. They’ve had three years of that with Darnold, so if they pick a QB at #2, he needs to be full field reader.
Bucky Brooks, a former NFL scout like Jeremiah, recently said about Wilson, “He’s a player, where if the one is taken, he’s going to the two, if the two is taken, he’s going to the check down.”
That is more of what the Jets need.
“I go back and watch Zach Wilson, and some guys are just effortless,” said Jeremiah on NFL Network. “If there is a soundtrack, it’s ‘Easy like Sunday morning.’ He’s just so effortless and smooth.”
Jeremiah did express a slight concern with that fact that Wilson had reconstructive shoulder surgery after the 2018, so that will have to be checked out. He also expressed concern about Wilson being a little skinny, starting last season at 205 pounds.
But the bottom line is, if the Jets stay at two, Wilson seems to make more sense than Fields, due to having better field vision.
However, it should be pointed out that Douglas could be shopping the pick, and so all of this could be a moot point. He could be looking to start a bidding war between teams looking to trade up for Wilson or Fields.
However, Jeremiah having them taking Wilson at two, means something, because he knows a ton about Joe’s way of thinking.
January 25, 2021
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