If he nets a 3rd I wouldn't call it a good deal but it wouldn't be a travesty at least. Winters was a 3rd round pick at the same position and he looks like a negative value for the team although Warford was picked shortly before and appears to be a stud so you never know. With all of the extra mid round picks this year I wouldn't mind taking that 3rd for Slauson if it materializes and pooling it with another 3rd to get another high 2nd round pick or even adding it onto the 2nd round pick to get another pick late in the 1st. The first strategy could be used to net an Evans or Lee in the 1st then a plug and play guard in the 2nd with the other 2nd rounder used on a BPA likely starter between TE, S, a 2nd WR, or a 2nd G. Seems like a high percentage way to add 3 good starters with a lot of ammunition left in rounds 3-7 to add depth and try to get lucky on a flyer.
The Chargers signed more free agents than they lost. Sometimes a team is awarded a 7th round pick if they lose much better players than they signed but generally if you sign more than you lose you're not getting comp picks and that includes situations where you lose very good players and sign just average ones. The compensatory picks are awarded based on the net effect, not on individual players. If Slauson has a very good year in Chicago he's going to contribute to that effect. The net effect is looking pretty good for the Jets right now. We lost starters in LaRon Landry, Mike DeVito, Matt Slauson, Shonn Greene and Yeremiah Bell who are making significant contributions elsewhere. We also lost Dustin Keller who is on IR for the season. We're probably in line to get a 3rd, 4th, 5th and 7th round picks out of the deal. We signed nobody who was not a cut so our line is going to be 6+ losses (not sure who else went as a free agent) and zero gains.
No, that's how we get to 12 picks. 7 normal picks. 3rd from the Revis deal. 4 compensation picks which is the maximum allowed.
It's not a travesty. If we wind up with a 6th it's not a travesty because that's what we spent on Slauson in the first place. He's an average guard at best. You should go look at some of the film breakdowns people did on him early last year. There's a reason he was losing playing time to Ducasse and it wasn't because Ducasse was good.
He was losing time to VD because Tanny wanted to show he had not made a mistake picking VD in the second round.
Not anymore. Guard is becoming more important and the compensation for these players has been rising as a result. The days where successful teams can put studs at the tackle positions and fill the interior line with scrubs is over as defenses have adapted to bring more pressure to the inside. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line and a bull rush up the middle will beat an OLB to the QB every time it is successful. If guard was not important, our lack of talent at the position would not be crippling our team.
Our lack of talent at WR, S, CB (this year), TE, QB and G are all equal contributors to the crippling effect. As an example, if we had a WR who could get open quickly inside (like Kerley) available we'd be a 6-3 team instead of a 6-7 team. If we had a TE (like Winslow) who could get open, make defenders worry about the underneath stuff and handle the comeback routes to help out his QB under pressure available for the same game as the WR we'd be 4-1. See how things like guards crippling the team become less of an issue when actually competent receivers who can help out a QB under pressure are available? You know what the scariest thing about this season is? The Jets are 4-1 when they had both Kerley and Winslow available and they didn't have both available in the NE and NO wins.
And that would never have happened if Slauson was playing well because Slauson was a 6th round pick of Tanny's as well. The reason Slauson was losing playing time to Ducasse last year was because he wasn't playing well enough to avoid losing some playing time.
Guards contribute on all offensive plays for all 16 games. WRs and TEs are often missing games due to injury (especially concussions) and are useless on running plays unless they are big enough to block.
PFF's rankings are suspect to me. Last year they ranked our oline a top line in the league which was a joke if you actually watched the games and take hits & sacks into account. PFF over analyzes and makes stats out of what shouldn't be, IMO. Slauson was decent but he really wasn't great or anything. If I remember right, his pass protection was decent but his run blocking was garbage.
I haven't looked at PFF recently but my original issue with them was that they had an open system of grading. They didn't balance out the books so to speak. They'd credit an offensive lineman with a plus play without putting a defensive demerit in place anywhere. Systems like that tend to allow for subjective analysis and grading as opposed to objective. The fact that they always had the Jets done before other teams and at the time I was looking were not grading all 32 teams on a timely basis led me to believe that they were not looking at the games objectively but more from a fan's point of view.
I don't disagree with you that competent guard play is a necessity for most teams. I just disagree with your statement that the guards are crippling the team this year. There are a lot of factors that are playing into the Jets overall mediocrity at this point and the guards are just one of those factors and not the biggest one by a long shot in my opinion. The Jets are the 11th ranked team rushing the ball this year. You don't do that if the guards are doing a singlehanded job of crippling the team.
Pass protection is horrible though and Winters is a big part of that. Colon is a penalty generating machine.
A second is more important than a sixth. More of an investment. I recall Slauson playing poorly his first year as a starter, but by last year he was much better. And it's not like they benched Slauson. He was still in for roughly 2/3rds of hte plays. It was more about VD and getting him on the field than it was about Slauson. A dumb move all around.
Slauson having 'better' stats this year is not entirely on him, I'd think. Guards' value increases a lot when there is a prevalence in 4-3 defense, with employment of undertackle. [Think Warren Sapp.] Now, tell me, how many 'scary' undertackles are out there in the current NFL? I can name one - Ndamukong Suh - and that's about it. When the league is almost evenly distributed in terms of base personnel (3-4: 15, 4-3:17), with lack of star power at under tackle, OGs WILL grade positively with relative ease, compared to other positions. In other words: do not take PFF's joke at face value.
Slauson was getting called out by everybody when none of the Jets RB's could make yards early on last year. Gang Green Nation had a photo essay on missed blocks, missed assignments, etc. The upshot was that Slauson was one of the major reasons that Shonn Greene and Bilal Powell were getting shut down. Then Slauson got hurt.
