I'm not going to proclaim to be a NfL draft scout ( as I was certainly no fan of us taking Kelvin Benjamin) but there are two parts to a rebuild - cutting the deadweight which Idzik did a good job of and restocking where I am starting to get cautious. We knew WR was a need and we had the picks in a deep draft. Idzik has to be accountable for the weapons he put around Geno. Cutting Saunders who most of us were surprised by the pick at the time who was tiny and he never got a look despite out recent injuries reflects poorly on scouting. What did we learn in the past 4 weeks that they couldn't figure out during the draft process...training camp? This makes me wonder whether there are guys sitting on other teams practice squads better than the back end of our roster. Why were we so stingy with the UDFA budget? Can we have confidence that we are even putting the best guys on the field? (Took them 3 weeks to figure out Ivory was best back and an injury to an ineffective Nelson to show Salas is better) Shaq Evans had a history of drops in college and then, surprise, he does it in camp. That's different than Amaro who was prolific in college just having some growing pains. Idzik may be rebuilding but that doesn't give him a pass to whiff on what could end up to be a transformative draft for us (12 picks). He owes it to Geno, the offense and even the Defense. Not to mention the fans. Oh yeah and Saunders was our highest rated WR on the board. I guess the one positive is at least Idzik isn't being slow moving to admit a mistake.
How can Idzik get praised for cutting the dead weight? Everyone of his cuts were expected a year in advanced well before he was even hired. He simply carried out what everyone knew was coming. Tanny would have done the exact same thing had he stayed followed maybe by another Sanchez extension. Maybe I'll give Idzik credit for not doing the latter but not the former.
Now I'm getting irritated. This pick could have been used to pick a few of the following: Kevin Norwood Keith McGill Pierre Desir David Yankey Devin Street Cyril Richardson Ed Reynolds Aaron Murray A.J. McCarron Zach Mettenberger Jared Abbrederis Jordan Tripp Instead Jets opted for: Jalen Saunders [Good fucking job -_-;] Jeremiah George [What the fuck...] Brandon Dixon [Holy shit] Tahj Boyd [Jesus Christ] Jets could get any of the four from the list up there. Remember.
so could the other 31 teams that passed on him. who honestly thought 12 picks would make the roster? two have gotten hurt as well
These weren't passed on. They are still with the respective teams that drafted them. AND they address the need for this team.
Of course hindsight is 20/20, but keeping hill over nelson imo would have been the better move. Saunders never really deserved to make the final roster after missing a lot of the pre-season and not really even impressing, but i guess we needed a PR that bad that we kept him. Clearly wasn't ready for the spotlight, but I guess the Jets saw something in him. Hopefully he lands on the PS, or just another wasted draft pick.
You know the loses are tough to swallow, but these draft picks - they are getting picked up by other teams - being cut left and right. That hurts 100x more than these loses. Really had faith in Idzik, not so sure anymore. "Draft is our lifeline"
Hill didn't earn a spot either. If you have to pick between the 2, you have to go with the kid as there's an unknown element there. With Hill you know what you're getting and it's not good. Not to mention, Saunders could field punts.
Unless the accident in the offseason was because Saunders was on something or did something he should not have, theres no defense for this. And I have been Pro Idzik for so long but between this, Jeremiah George and two 6th round picks(Boyd/Dixon), we have 1/3 of this team's draft picks cut. There's no sugarcoating this, Saunders did not earn to be cut if he was dealing with an epilepsy issue that sidelined him. I can't believe they did this. for TJ GRAHAM. This guy was a bum in Buffalo, did nothing to standout for the Titans, he's a camp body. I'd rather they elevate Enunwa, domestic charge or not at this point then. If anything, CUT NELSON for Graham. Graham is basically what Nelson is, he can't get separation but he has the "Sexy straightline speed" that teams crave for. There's no defense for Idzik at this point and that pains me to say. He has no direction of what he is doing. You don't just cut 4th round picks like this right off the bat less than a freaking year into the whole thing.
It's kind of weird that Saunders's release would be the move to finally crack a minor opening in the force field that is Idzik's defenders.
That's my issue. Idzik stressed so much about draft picks being important so we have cut 1/4 of them already.....including the 4th round pick we got from the Revis deal. That deal's still worked out because of Richardson but we still counted on Saunders to be a nice part of that. Saunders can be something on special teams and as a trick player, he just should not have been drafted in round 4. Pegged him in round 6 with one of our comp. picks in my final mock draft down in the draft section, was stunned we took him before a Bruce Ellington or Martavis Bryant(I know Bryant is a project with suspect hands, still like him over Shaq Evans) but was under the impression we liked him enough to make him apart of the offense. What does Saalim Hakim do different than Jalen Saunders? Saunders probably isn't as raw of a WR as Hakim. Is Hakim's that good of a special teams player? He's had one strong kickoff return following it up with some suspect kick returns that didn't touch the 20 yard line. Its tough to take Idzik's approach seriously when draft picks become expendable. You don't just cut a 4th and a 5th round pick with a snap of a finger so soon in their careers. The Boyd and to a lesser extent, Dixon picks I guess I get since we had a bunch of non-tradeable 6th round picks outside the Dixon pick but on a team that doesn't figure to be very good, these young players would make all the difference.
I have been lukewarm with some of his moves but still understood he had a plan in mind and gave him slack since he's just in year 2 but this is just silly. There has to be some off the field issue to just drop Saunders like this. I would be shocked if Saunders found his way back to the practice squad. We kept a guy taken in the 6th round by Arizona over him basically for punt return duties.
Idzik truly has no clue. He's getting exposed. His whole mantra was build through the draft and 1/4 of his picks this year are no longer on this team. Add that to his lack of FA movement and you have a recipe for disaster when talking about The guy who is responsible for putting talent on this roster.
