The five paths the Jets could take in the quarterback if they don’t get Trevor Lawrence

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The past few days have been tough for most Jets fans.

The team’s victory over the Rams took the Jets out of first place in the 2021 NFL Draft. It seems unlikely they’ll win it back, which would mean no Trevor Lawrence.

I think the disappointment comes from the loss of certainty. There is nothing more difficult in the NFL than determining the position of quarterback.

The current standard for team building in the NFL is trying to find your quarterback through the draft. You then get four years where the quarterback is on a cheap rookie contract. While the cost of a veteran quarterback can now reach over $ 30 million per year, rookie contracts are much cheaper. A team that finds a quality quarterback through the draft gets quality quarterback play at a fraction of what it costs most teams. The savings can be used to load the rest of the list.

Of course, it’s easier said than done as the Jets have learned. There is no guarantee that the drafted quarterback will work. When you don’t have a productive player in the most important position on the pitch, it takes your team to the bottom of the league.

This is where the loss of Lawrence hurts. No prospect is even a 100% sure thing, but Trevor Lawrence is as close to a sure thing as you can ever get for a prospect in the position. The Jets were reportedly set up with their inexpensive young quarterback for four years.

There’s still a chance the Jaguars will win a game, but if they don’t, the quarterback pick will become much more complicated for the Jets. I see five possible paths.

This is the most likely plan, and I think any other would be extremely unpopular within the fan base.

Lawrence isn’t the only quarterback who could help the Jets perform a standard build with the quarterback on a rookie contract. There are other legitimate quarterback prospects in this year’s draft. This outlook carries more risk than Lawrence, but if the Jets made the right choice, they wouldn’t be far from getting Clemson’s quarterback.

The options include: Justin Fields, Zac Wilson, Trey Lance

Anything other than drafting a new young quarterback will be very unpopular among much of the fan base. Few options would be less popular than giving Sam Darnold one more chance.

For a while, I agreed that the Jets would have an impossible time attracting a head coach if Darnold remained the quarterback. I’m not sure that’s necessarily the case, however.

In 2019, any coach who held the job clearly tied their future to Darnold. It wouldn’t be true this time around. Darnold would enter the final year of his contract trying to save his career. If he failed again, the team would move on after the season. There would be no long term commitment from the coach.

As crazy as it may sound to some, you can’t rule out the idea that some trainers might actually believe they can fix Darnold. If you’ve been following insiders in the media over the past few months, there’s been a lot of buzz that the Jets could still potentially receive a high draft pick in a trade involving Darnold. This suggests that there is a sizable population of people in the league who believe the quarterback can play and has been coached by his situation.

I’m not suggesting this is the most likely scenario, but I do think it’s more likely than many Jets fans would like. I ask you not to take your anger at me for saying it was a possibility. I am only the messenger.

There is a perception that a new coach always wants to immediately get their own quarterback through the draft. This is often true, but not always.

In 2013, Andy Reid was hired by the Kansas City Chiefs. They held the number one pick in the NFL Draft. Instead of using it to select a quarterback, the Chiefs traded for veteran Alex Smith.

Smith ended up playing a valuable role for the franchise. Reid managed to hit the ground with a quarterback who could execute his offense on day one. The team didn’t need to live with the growing pains of a young quarterback. Smith already had them years earlier in San Francisco.

The Chiefs made the Playoffs the first year. Smith spent five successful years with the Chiefs. As important as anything, he bought Kansas City the luxury of time. Knowing that they didn’t need to look for a quarterback out of desperation, the Chiefs could wait to find the perfect prospect. After disembarking him, Smith’s presence meant Mahomes could come at his own pace rather than being rushed into the lineup.

There would certainly be a backlash if the Jets went this route. Fans want a quarterback on their own, not someone else’s rejection. There is also something exciting about a young quarterback with a theoretically unlimited cap. You pretty much know what a veteran quarterback can’t do. A rookie could possibly do anything, even become Patrick Mahomes. Just be aware that thinking doesn’t account for how the bosses actually got Mahomes.

The options include: Matthew Stafford, Matt Ryan, Kirk Cousins

The Jets will be one of the league’s leaders when it comes to salary caps heading into this offseason, and it should be noted that there is a top ten of quarterbacks in the league who have an unresolved contract situation. .

It seems unlikely that Dak Prescott will hit the open market. Without an obvious replacement in place, the Cowboys would most likely give him the franchise tag for a second year in a row in case the two sides still couldn’t come to a deal.

If Prescott hits free agency somehow, I think the Jets should at least give it some thought.

Let’s eliminate the obvious concerns. Prescott would seriously injure himself, which is always a red flag. Its contractual requirements are also exceptionally high. One would assume he would demand a bonus if he signed with the Jets. The recent history of the NFL has shown us just how big, negative quarterback contracts can have. Kirk Cousins with the Vikings and Joe Flacco with the Ravens immediately come to mind.

We’re still talking about a top ten quarterback here. Adding that changes a lot.

The unique circumstances of the Jets could also make them uniquely suited to handling a mega quarterback. Few teams have so many premium draft picks over the next two years. After a hypothetical signing from Prescott, they would be able to add even more by trading the second pick to a team that wanted Fields or Wilson.

This situation could upset traditional team building. Instead of having the cheap quarterback on the rookie deal and spending massive amounts of money to load the rest of the roster, the Jets could pay a lot for the quarterback and have young talent drafted cheaply in all of them. the domains with all the choices they will have.

There’s no rule that the Jets need to dive into a quick review. They could take a more deliberate approach to building the roster.

The Cleveland Browns turned things around using this approach.

After a 3-13 2015 season, the needy quarterback Browns traded second pick to stock up on draft capital. With the pick, the Eagles picked Carson Wentz. A year later, they traded again with the first round pick they got in the Wentz contract for even more picks. This time their partner was Houston who took on quarterback Deshaun Watson.

This approach drew sharp criticism from the Cleveland front office for ignoring the most important position on the pitch. The Browns went a 1-31 combined over the next two seasons. At quarterback, they used veterans like Josh McCown, salvage projects like Robert Griffin III and young quarterbacks who weren’t early players like Deshone Kizer, Kevin Hogan and Cody Kessler. The hope was that they were going to hit lightning in a bottle with one of these players. If they didn’t, they could potentially aim for a high pick that would then fit into a fully stocked list and be better prepared to succeed.

The quarterback they got was Baker Mayfield, and the long-term investment made the Browns a winner.

Joe Douglas has more courage than I do if he takes this approach. That would be a total no-starter for an angry fan base in a high-pressure market that hasn’t seen the Playoffs in a decade. It’s also worth noting that while the Cleveland front office that used this approach was vindicated by the team’s subsequent success, the people behind the plan were fired because of all the losses.

The options include: Ryan Fitzpatrick, Jameis Winston, Mac Jones, Jamie Newman, Kellen Mond

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