Full disclosure: when I watched Tom Brady’s final appearance in college -- in the 2000 Orange Bowl, when he (then at Michigan) and future Seahawks great Shaun Alexander (then at Bama) piled on TDs like they were chips in a high-stakes poker game -- I thought Brady was a surefire NFL first round draft pick.
Even fuller disclosure (ouch, this one still stings): I thought, back then, that if Brady wasn’t the best QB available in the 2000 draft, Tee Martin from Tennessee was.
The point is, picking QBs is an incredibly tough task, whether you’re some fan with too much time on his hands like yours truly, or a highly-paid NFL GM. The difference is, your job only depends on it if you’re the latter.
To date, it sure seems like the Jets GMs have done a lousy job of picking quarterbacks over the past few years. That may be the primary reason that “GMs” is plural. And it’s not like they haven’t had opportunities. Only one other franchise has chosen three signal-callers over the top four rounds of the past four drafts: the Raiders. And let’s face it, if you’re doing the same thing as the Raiders, you’re doing something wrong (though Derek Carr seems like he might be the real deal).
Gang Green’s three selections in those recent drafts, as all of the team’s fans are well aware: Geno Smith, Bryce Petty and Christian Hackenberg.
Hey, they’re all still with the organization. Normally, that’s a good sign. In this case, not so much.
At the start of the season, I said, with that uninspiring trio on the bench, the Jets were in trouble if Ryan Fitzpatrick got hurt. Now, the way Fitz has played so far, it appears they’re in an awfully tough spot whatever happens. But, if you’re gonna be one of the very few teams in the league to carry four QBs, it’d be nice if the thought of at least one of the backups actually playing didn’t keep you up at night.
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Of course, it’s not always a bad thing to carry four quarterbacks. The Pats did it, back in 2000, when they saw just enough promise in their sixth-round pick --actually, their second sixth-rounder that year -- that they decided to keep him on the roster.
I think it’s safe to say Smith won’t be the next Tom Brady. And while he looked a lot better in his second preseason than his first, I’m not envisioning Petty as a future Hall of Famer either. Hackenberg? Who knows?
If I were Jets GM Mike Maccagnan, I wouldn’t have drafted the ex-Penn Stater. But, again, full disclosure -- I wouldn’t have picked Dak Prescott either. My choice would’ve been either Cardale Jones or Kevin Hogan, neither of whom has gotten any closer to the field than Hackenberg.
But I’m not the GM. Hackenberg is here. And for the sake of Maccagnan and Jets fans, he doesn’t have to be another Brady, but he can’t be another Smith.
And if he is, would you trust the GM to draft another QB?
