Fevered Dreams: Hindsight being 20/20

I was thinking about how close we were to scoring Daren McFadden in the 2008 draft. Instead the Raiders stole him, and we got stuck with one of the laziest soon-to-be draft busts in our illustrious drafting history (Gholston). So I was thinking, why not go back to the 2005 draft and do some back seat driving... after the fact. Hindsight is always 20/20.

It's April 2005, the Jets are coming off one of their most complete seasons, which ended in a heartbreaking OT loss to Pittsburgh. We had an aging RB and O-line, a solid Defensive line and we desperately needed to start rebuilding our secondary. In that draft we chose Mike Nugent with our top pick. This was a horrible pick to say the least. It ranks up there with picking Blair Thomas over Junior Seau and Emmitt Smith in 1990. In 05' we took Nugent and Justin Miller in the second round and left guys like Vincent Jackson, Frank Gore, and Justin Tuck on the board. Imagine Ellis, Jenkins and Tuck on our D-line. Wow! We did score a good value in the 4th round with the selection of Kerry Rhodes. His best days seem to be behind him, but he was looking like a real steal until we gave him a big contract. We also picked up Pouha in that draft, and he his finally making a contribution, 5 years later.

In 06' Mr Tannenbaum took the reigns and he had a lot of holes to fill. He landed Ferguson and Mangold in the first round. I love our center, who may be the best in football today. As for the D'Brick pick... in that draft I had two players targeted with the #4 overall pick: Haloti Ngata and Reggie Bush. I knew there was little chance Bush would slip to us, but there was little doubt Ngata would not be available when our pick was up. D'Brick has started every game since his rookie season. He's done a satisfactory job. Considering the value of that #4 overall pick, and the season Jets fans had to suffer through to earn that pick, I feel it was wasted on Ferguson. Ngata would have had much more of an impact for our team, no question.

In round two we took Kellen Clemens from Oregon. I liked the pick, and I wish he would have had a chance to start this year and get a crack at playing with our current O-line and offensive weapons. The powers that be didn't have faith in Kellen and now he holds a clipboard for a living. Considering the way things worked out I think that second round pick would have been better used on Greg Jennings or Maurice Jones-Drew. We did score Neon Leon later in the fourth round. There wasn't a ton of talent in that draft in later rounds, and we did pick up 3 impactful players.

In 2007 I was livid about how MR.T traded away a bunch of draft picks for a young CB out of Pitt and an ILB, especially considering that we already had Vilma on the roster. The 07' draft was very similar to the 09' draft where we mainly scored two players. For that to work, both players need to grow into probowlers, which is very unlikely. Well, in this case it worked out and Harris and Revis are the to most impactful members of our defense. We also picked up Stuckey, who was a big part of the trade that landed us Braylon Edwards. Can't really attack this draft.

In 2008 everyone could see how perfectly the Arkansas RB Darren McFadden would fit the NY Jets. We had the #6 overall pick and the only team that looked like a threat to snatch up McFadden before us was the Oakland Raiders at the #4 spot. As the commissioner announced Oakland's pick my heart dropped. Can you imagine our O-line opening up holes for this explosive young back, and players like Edwards, Keller, Cotchery, Washington and Sanchez filling out the line up on offense? Not only would we have the most exciting young offense this league has seen in years, we would also not have #50 Vernon Gholston on our roster.

My fantasy line up (using a little thing called the rear view mirror) would have a D-line made up of Justin Tuck, Jenkins, Ngata, and Ellis... and an offense with MJD and McFadden in the backfield and Greg Jennings complimenting Edwards and Cotchery. Sometimes it's easier to live in your own fantasy world as a Jets fan then in the real, 4-5 world. =)