The New York Jets cut a guy four months after his elimination in the third round

You'd be hard-pressed to find a better synthesis of the dysfunction, incompetence and lightness of the New York Jets than this: On Saturday, the team managed to get the promising striker Jachai Polite just four months after writing it in the third round.

For the smart teams, the third round of the NFL draft is usually looking for reliable but limited or very talented but risky players, players you can immediately give meaningful play time and who, hopefully, can become reliable beginners. near future. The third players are uncertain, but they are closer to that than lottery tickets – and they are almost never, without total incompetence on the part of management, at the risk of being released from the team even before the start of their rookie season.

But it's the Jets we're talking about here, where incompetence is more often the norm than the exception. Many predictors saw Polite as a first-round talent in his first year at the University of Florida, until the emergence of the "fear of character" feared in the months leading up to the repechage. Feeling a good deal, the Jets rushed in and selected Polite with the fourth pick of the third round. They have come to regret it in record time.

Now, it is perfectly conceivable that Polite is really a kind of irascible asshole who will never arrive in the league or who needs a serious awakening in order to refocus and realize his considerable potential. However, the fact that the Jets are rudderless and allowed their early departure from the Jets is far more damning than any personal or professional flaw of Polite that contributed to his premature exit from the Jets.

Do not forget: the GM who called to choose Polite is no longer with the team. The Jets sent that guy back, Mike Maccagnan, just weeks after the draft. Let a lame duck general manager oversee a project, even if it was already clear that the DOJ and the head coach had serious disagreements over the team consolidation strategy during the draft. Only then did the front-office and the means empowering the same head coach less than a month later show a lack of foresight that would be stunning. Not so familiar with this franchise.

Politeness may very well never have a significant impact on an NFL team. But no matter what will follow for the player, the biggest failure here will always be the process that led the Jets to write and then cut Polite in the first place.

[ESPN]