What an opportunity

Joe Douglas’ mentor preached this all the time . . .

Ozzie Newsome, the legendary GM in Baltimore, who Douglas worked for from 2000-14 in the Ravens scouting department, always preached that the key to success in NFL player personnel is nailing your first and second-round picks.

Bucky Brooks, now with the NFL Network, like Douglas, was a former Ravens scout, and also worked under “The Wizard of Oz.”

“I go back to Ozzie Newsome – my first two picks in the draft I don’t want misses,” said Brooks a few years ago on his podcast.

Newsome wanted college prospects in the first two rounds, who were good every week, not just in some games.

“Give me the guys who have been the same guy from the beginning of the (college) season to the end of the season,” Brooks said about Newsome’s philosophy. “Maybe I’m sacrificing what a guy could be, but I don’t want to hope and wish with my first two picks. You have to nail it. We want to romanticize about getting guys in the fifth and sixth-round, but this is really a first and second-round league. If you are continually nailing the first and second-round picks, your team is going to be fine.”

So the opportunity Douglas has this year, with two picks in each of the first two rounds, both in the top ten, is rare, and an opportunity to transform the Jets.

The kind of players Newsome was referring to are players like guard Alijah Vera-Tucker and wide receiver Elijah Moore.

Vera-Tucker was a 2021 Jets first-round pick and Moore, a 2021 Jets second-round pick. Both players consistently produced on a high level in college, and that carried over to the Jets during their rookie seasons.

What Newsome taught his disciples like Douglas and Brooks is “don’t get cute” in the first and second rounds. Pick really good players who have shown they are consistently really good players, don’t gamble on potential. Do that later in the draft.

So Jets fans should be really excited about what Douglas can do with this incredible draft capital in the first two rounds. He has a chance to land four starters. Because remember, the Jets picks in the second round, the third pick of the second round, and the sixth pick of the second round (from Carolina), could land them two more players they had first-round grades on.

Remember, last year, the Jets picked Moore 34th overall, but had a first-round grade on him. Every team’s draft board is different, so what often happens at the top of the second round is players a certain team has a first-round grade on, slip to the top of the second, since every team values prospects differently, so it’s possible the Jets could get four players they had first-round grades on.

And the selections of Vera-Tucker and Moore showed us that Douglas learned from Newsome – don’t mess around, pick really talented, productive players in the first two rounds.

Those two players should be the type of guys the Jets look for with all four picks – consistently productive, supremely talented college players.

You might be wondering why I didn’t bring up Zach Wilson. Simple, QB prospects are different. Nobody knows if they can read NFL defenses until they reach the NFL. Hard to know before they arrive. So you roll the dice at the all-important position and hope it works out. But when it comes to Vera-Tucker dominating in the Pac-12 at guard/tackle and Moore dominating the SEC as a receiver in a great DB conference, that is more settled science.

January 19, 2021

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