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A lot of news you hear about free agent and draft prospect team interest means very little if you are a critical thinker.
Like, when you hear about a player who met with a team at the combine.
For instance, a lot was about the Jets meeting with USC WR Makai Lemon at the combine.
When many people hear this, they think this means the team is very interested in drafting the player.
It doesn’t mean that at all.
It means the GM and his staff are doing their job.
GMs, scouts, coaches, and so forth meet with hundreds of players.
Last time I checked, they didn’t have hundreds of draft picks.
These meetings don’t mean as much as many people think.
It’s about teams doing their due diligence on as many prospects as possible. Meetings don’t always equal interest. In fact, a meeting could lead to a lack of interest if the exchange doesn’t go well.
I know I’ve brought up this anecdote myriad times, but when the Jets picked Virginia linebacker James Farrior in the first round of the 1997 draft, the player said after he was picked, he had no contact with the team at all before the draft.
Bill Parcells, who was running the Jets football operation at the time, kept the team’s interest in Farrior a secret.
So take “meetings” with draft prospects with a grain of salt.
Just like you need to take the following anecdote like the following with a grain of salt.
“Teams are doing work on Tua, the Jets amongst them,” NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo said.
Teams do work on hundreds of free agents, free agents to be, or players teams are looking to trade.
“Doing work” on players is what NFL player personnel people are tasked to do.
What Garafolo said doesn’t mean the Jets are interested in acquiring Tua.
It just means they are looking at film of him, just like they are looking at hundreds of other players who will be available once the league year starts. That is what GM and their personnel staff do. It’s their job.
Tua to the Jets makes very little sense. His limited arm talent in the windy Meadowlands is not a good match. Tua should go to a team that plays its home games in a dome. Now, of course dome teams have to travel to outside stadiums for road games, but at least he’s guaranteed 8-9 games with no wind, rain, or wintry conditions.
As for Lemon meeting with the Jets, there are some mock draft that have the Jets picking him at 16. To me, that is patently absurd.
The Jets need so many pieces on defense, that they don’t have the luxury of picking a WR at 16. If Lemon is the highest raided player on their board at 16, trade back and acquire more picks.
The Jets picking a receiver at 16 in the 2026 draft would be derelict of duty. I’m serious. That Jets 2025 defense is the worst I’ve covered in all my years reporting on this team. They have enough receivers – Garrett Wilson, Adonai Mitchell, John Metchie, the underrated Isaiah Williams (not underrated as returner but as a receiver) and keep an eye on the Quintin Skinner kid – good size and excellent at high pointing the ball.
I’m not saying the Jets should not pick a receiver in the draft. Not at all. Just saying not in first round, or even with any of their picks in the top 44.
They’ve got a defense to fix with needs on all three levels.
But the bottom line is, be a critical thinker when it comes to all these tweets and stories about a team’s “interest” in a player based on thinks like “doing work” on a player.
“Doing work” on players is the job of Darren Mougey and his large staff.
March 5, 2026
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