What will Jets general manager Joe Douglas decide by November 3?
No, I’m not referring to the upcoming election. That same date happens to coincide with the NFL’s trade deadline, and the Jets, by virtue of their 0-6 start to the season, seem to be firmly entrenched as sellers.
These next two games – at home versus Buffalo and at Kansas City – will surely serve as Showcase Sundays as Douglas looks to accumulate more draft capital for his rebuild.
As you’d expect for a team that is on pace for the worst point differential in NFL history, the problem is that there isn’t much in the cupboard that others desire that badly, and two tough outings likely won’t alter anyone’s opinion. I am shocked that linebacker Jordan Willis, a reserve who couldn’t even make the Jets’ active list the last three games, returned the same compensation (a bump up to a future sixth-round pick from a seventh-rounder) from San Francisco on Wednesday as defensive lineman Steve McLendon garnered from Tampa Bay on Sunday.
Other media outlets are serving up “most likely to be traded next” posts, but if Douglas has shown us anything in the last 10 days, it’s that he’s pretty much open to moving everyone out if he can get a fair price.
Well, almost everyone. Let’s reserve space on the roster over the final half of the season for his 2020 draft class, even if it has been mostly injured or underwhelming in the small sample to date. When you don’t include those rookies, it’s a much harder exercise to find five players who SHOULDN’T be traded, but here goes:
1) Jamison Crowder
The lone bright light among a dreary array of less-skilled skill players, Crowder, the highest-paid player left on the roster, topped 100 yards receiving in each of his first three games played before Miami held him in check on his seven catches last Sunday. Still, the Jets’ only two pass plays over 40 yards this season were to Crowder out of the slot, and he is signed through next season, so he needs to stay because someone who can get open needs to be here for (insert quarterback here) in 2021.
2) Quinnen Williams
This wasn’t as tough a call as I thought it would be, given that I will die on the hill that his third overall selection in the 2019 NFL Draft was the wrong choice – especially as I’ve watched him follow it up with a penchant for disappearing acts when he’s not committing egregious personal fouls. Still, Williams is only 23, and there has been some progress this season: only Baltimore’s Calais Campbell has a higher run stop percentage than Williams’ 13.3 percent among interior linemen with over 40 snaps on running plays, per ProFootballFocus.com. He may not become Aaron Donald on the pass rush, but Williams can be useful while still on a rookie contract.
3) Brian Poole
How Douglas was able to re-sign Poole for under $5 million after his terrific work at slot cornerback last season is mind-boggling. Poole started slow in 2020 but has picked it up over the last three games, allowing just six receptions for 60 yards – a seventh-best 37.5 opposing quarterback rating when targeted (50 coverage snap minimum), per PFF – while notching two interceptions and one pass break-up. Though the 28-year-old is again a pending free agent, the Jets just haven’t been able to find other quality corners in free agency or the draft in recent years, with too many duds to list individually. Why throw the one good one out with the bath water? Extend him.
4) John Franklin-Myers
An unsung member of a disappointing defense, Franklin-Myers joined fellow interior defensive lineman Folorunso Fatukasi this season as a PFF darling, posting the league’s third-best pass rush percentage at his position (50 pass rush minimum) at 9.9 percent. It has only translated into one sack, but at least he’s hurrying opposing QBs, which is more than you can say for the rest of this motley crew. The Jets picked up Franklin-Myers when the Rams waived him last season, and he’s on the 2021 books for a very affordable $920K; when building a team, you don’t trade cheap players who produce.
5) George Fant
Admittedly not my favorite of Douglas’ free agent acquisitions, Fant has held his own in the games where he’s played his more natural right tackle position. When rookie Mekhi Becton was holding down the blind-side tackle slot, the Jets at least minimized the damage from outside pass rushers (the interior, unfortunately, was a different and more horrid story). In those three contests, Fant shared the league’s 18th-best pass blocking efficiency among the 56 tackles with at least 75 pass block snaps, per PFF. Fant was always far from a finished product, but Douglas obviously saw something in his play in Seattle to warrant a hedged three-year, $27.3 million offer, with the last two years nonguaranteed. Fant has at least earned Year 2.
Dis-Honorable Mention: Sam Darnold
This merits a column of its own, but for this purpose, no team will surrender fair value for a quarterback with a wounded wing, so I’m tabling any discussion of the Jets dealing Darnold, who has been “limited” at practices this week and still is experiencing “a little pain, but nothing crazy,” until he returns to action.
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