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The last couple of days, I was doing deep dives on the Jets’ four premium draft picks, the three first-rounders (DE David Bailey, TE Kenyon Sadiq and WR Omar Cooper) and second-rounder, cornerback D’Angelo Ponds.
I was doing extensive research on all of them for the next issue of Jets Confidential Magazine, which comes out next week.
So here are some thoughts on what looks like a bumper clock class of first and second rounders for Gang Green.
Let me start from the back and go forward.
Ponds is clearly a first-round talent who went in the second round because of his height – 5-8 3/4.
But it’s funny, because there has been so much talk comparing him to Jets coach Aaron Glenn as a cornerback prospect, and the irony of that, vis-Ã -vis Ponds slipping to the second round and pick 50, is that the former Indiana cornerback is actually taller than Glenn.
When Glenn came out of Texas A&M in 1994, he measured 5-8 1/2, and the Jets picked him 12th overall in the draft.
It’s harder these days to pick a corner under 5-9 in the first round.
The court of public opinion is brutal these days, and can you imagine the heat a team would take on social media for taking a corner under 5-9 in the first round?
And also, so many owners micromanage their teams now, more than ever, and if you picked a sub-5-9 corner in the first round, and he goes out there and struggles on 50-50 balls, you are going to hear from your boss – “What the hell did you pick a short corner in the first round?”
Miami defensive end Reuben Bain was drafted 15th overall by Tampa Bay after dominating for the Hurricanes the past couple of seasons. Why did he slip in a league with so many teams in dire need of edge-rush help?
Simple – his arm length, which is under 31 inches.
If you pick an edge-rusher with short arms in the top 10, and he can’t get off blocks, you are going to get destroyed on social media, and could be called into the owner’s office.
Picking him at 15 gives you a little more leeway with the public and ownership.
But based on all my research, Ponds, to me, is a first-round corner. If he loses some 50-50 ball battles with taller receivers, so be it. Watching the Mike Evans and DeAndre Hopkins of the world at receiver, I’ve seen those guys destroy bigger corners than Ponds on 50-50 balls over the last decade. It’s going to happen to 5-8, 5-9, 5-10, 5-11, 6-0 corners as well.
As for Cooper, I think Mougey did the right thing picking him at 30 (trading up three spots) as opposed to picking him at 16. Very good player, but he makes sense more sense, from a value standpoint, at 30. Fans are going to love his run-after-the-catch ability. And one reason for that is his powerfully built lower body, built to break tackles.
Sadiq has some things to work on as far as blocking technique and the consistency of his hands as a receiver, but he was too good to pass up at 16, especially because he’s such a relentless blocker. If you told me they were picking an undersized tight end, who was more of an H-Back or move tight end at 16, that would have been a mistake. You wait on those, but since he’s not only a tight end who can stretch the field with his 4.39 speed, but he really gets after it as a blocker, it’s worth picking him at 16.
Bailey is going to be interesting. Like I mentioned the other day, while he had 14.5 sacks last year for Texas Tech, every other player on that defensive line was drafted. Is it the chicken or the egg? How much did he help them, and how much did he help them?
I think he will get sacks for the Jets, but it remains to be seen if he can be a 14.5 sack guy for them last he was in Lubbuck last year.
April 30, 2026
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