Mike Maccagnan wise to continue building Jets through draft
The New York Jets have a ton of work ahead in order to bounce back in 2017. General Manager Mike Maccagnan is wise to stick with his original plan of building through the draft.
From the moment general manager Mike Maccagnan was brought in by the New York Jets, he laid out a simple and clear action plan for the franchise. He wanted to build the Jets into a contender by addressing top needs with the best player available mentality via the NFL Draft while adding key veterans during the free agency period. It’s not easy but Maccagnan so far has made some very good decisions in his tenure with the Jets.
The problem is when a team starts to lose a lot of football games, everything gets magnified to the point of no control. It’s hard to believe some are questioning just how great Maccagnan has been after one bad season but that is how things are in the city that never sleeps. New Yorkers want championships every season and don’t want to hear any excuses.
The Jets ended 2016 with an abysmal 5-11 record and looked like they’re back to the drawing board. Luckily for Maccagnan, he now has the No. 6 overall pick in the 2017 NFL Draft in his arsenal. There are a lot of options for him to consider, which is why it’ll take months of preparation to hone down exactly what the best strategy is.
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With a top ten pick, expectations are incredibly high as that player must be able to step right in and take care of business. An impact kind of player that brings big results the moment he steps on the gridiron. Above all else, it’ll be another draft class with hopes that Maccagnan can find some diamonds in the rough that are ready to contribute immediately.
With areas of opportunity on their offensive line, defensive secondary, wide receiver, and even quarterback, Maccagnan must continue to turn the Jets younger and faster in the grand scheme of things. It’s hard to tell what will happen in the war room, but it’s important to continue trusting Maccagnan to once again deliver.
As per the Media Relations Department of the Jets, here is what Maccagnan had to say about some of his early offseason planning and why it’s important to build the team through the draft:
On if he will look to get the team younger and rebuild this offseason…
Going into this, our focus has always been to build through the draft. I think that’s the best way. You build your foundation of young players going forward. Ideally, you get to a point where you can either determine which players you want to sign from your own of players that have been in your organization for four years or five years, depending on their contracts, or go through free agency. From our stand point, that’s always been our focus. The flip side to that is as you go through that process, it takes time. The way we originally came in and structured everything was to give us sort of a window after two seasons with some of the veteran players we either added or were actually on the team. This offseason, we’re going to sit down and evaluate that to determine where we’re going to head going forward. The long-term goal has always been to build through the draft. We do have some ability the way the contracts were structured to make determinations on how to proceed going forward if we decide to either create cap space or keep the player. We’re no different than we were originally. Again, our long-term goal is to build through the draft.
Overall, Maccagnan is wise to stick to his original plan and keep his focus on addressing key weaknesses via the draft. Free agency isn’t going to magically fix this team overnight but continuing to bring in solid young talent thanks to the draft is the right way towards major success in the future.