Mangini is such a fool! But one thing's for sure - he will definitely secure a lot of "mangini guys" - intelligent 5th and 6th rounders with great character who aren't athletic enough to play football but listen to everything their inexperienced leader says. Everyone will know the playbook, but that doesn't put points on the board. SO GLAD we finally have a coach who realizes that talent wins in this league.
I am not going to speak to how smart the guy is. But he is doing exactly what all the best rebuilding coaches do on draft day.
I think he's having a good draft so far. Trading 5 picks into 10 and also getting an anchor center in the middle as the first pick is an extraordinarily sound move that both Parcells and Belichik would approve of.
Anybody who ever ran an NFL team successfully would approve of doing whatever you need to to get your franchise QB, particularly if you have many of the other pieces in place. So the question both of them would have is: is Mark Sanchez really a franchise QB? That's the question we're all left with also today. If he is then Parcells and Belichik would call this a great move. If he is not they'd call it a terrible move.
Let me ask a counter question here: If you are Mike Tannenbaum and you feel that your job might well depend on whether or not your QB plays well for the next few years, are you more comfortable staying with Clemens and Ratliff at this juncture or going and getting Mark Sanchez now to give him the opportunity to improve the play at that position? If I'm Mike Tannenbaum I go get Sanchez if the price is bearable, and it was. If Sanchez busts he's going to get fired, but if Clemens and Ratliff didn't prove out the same result happens. So he's potentially damned if he sticks with Clemens/Ratliff or selects Sanchez. The upside in Sanchez however is greater because the odds on Clemens or Ratliff turning into a top 5 QB are minimal at this point. Sanchez at least has that possibility left.
They'll start dumping picks into next year at some point fairly soon. Or alternately they'll go out and get Anquan Boldin for next to nothing given what they started with.
Clemens, Ratliff, and Sanchez are all pretty much the same at this point. Unknown quantities. Trading up is for teams knocking on the door and suckers.
How far behind the 2005 Giants are the Jets at this point in terms of talent? I think the Giants got very lucky to have the Eli Manning trade work out for them, however you make your luck and in the end it worked out for them. For the record the 2001 Giants went 7-9 and the 2002 Giants went 10-6 and the 2003 Giants went 6-10 and the 2004 Giants went 4-12. Then they made a huge tradeup for Manning and everything changed overnight. I think the Jets are basically where those 2005 Giants were or maybe a little ahead of them at this point. And now we have a QB too.
I completely agree with you about this trade. I'm not a particularly big believer in Sanchez. However, as far as trading up goes, Tannenbaum has done it two years in a row and he's gotten some exceptional returns on his investments. I used to totally agree that trading up was a terrible idea unless the team proposing to do it was legitimately one player away from contention. However, Tannenbaum's past two drafts have given me some reservations about this notion. I'm starting to think that it's hard to make too many sweeping generalizations about the draft. Each decision has to be evaluated on it's own particular merits. Still though, I completely agree with you that I would not have made this trade.
He's a very good QB prospect. Not a mid 2nd round pick or a 4th round pick, etc. There's a huge difference between a top 10 QB and everybody else in terms of the potential return on investment. There's another dividing point about 40 picks in or so. The Jets had a B prospect and a C prospect at QB going into this draft. They have an A prospect now.
