There was an explanation for the delay.
Joe Douglas was patient, but also wanted to see the leading backs in the draft in person before finally deciding his plans on the position. That’s why the Jets waited so long to move Sam Darnold, after quarterbacks Matthew Stafford, Jared Goff and Carson Wentz were treated before the free agency period.
‘I do not know how each team approaches a quarter [evaluation]”But I always thought it was a golden rule – you never take a quarter when you stand near or next to a guy and watch him throw the football,” Douglas told Sports Illustrated. “None of the top buyers could reach a BYU match this year. There were no all-star games, no combination. You could see Mac Jones at the Senior Bowl. But other than that, your only chance was to stand there and watch them throw on a pro day. For me, it’s big for a quarter. ‘
Douglas has seen all the leading backs – Zach Wilson of BYU, Justin Fields of Ohio State, Mac Jones of Alabama and Trey Lance of the state of North Dakota – the Jets will be able to pick with the second pick in the draft. (Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence is expected to be selected No. 1 by the Jacksonville Jaguars.)
“Almost every day I visited, I got something out of it,” Douglas said. ” A man like Trey Lance, I thought Trey Lance had a strong arm. I walked away from North Dakota State and said, ‘Wow, this guy has a better talent than I thought on the band. ‘To get a sense of it, watch the ball come out of his hand, you’re there, at field level, you see it – the ball falls smoothly at the end of the throw, does it accelerate through the man’s hands? For that, you really have a feeling that you would not normally see on tape. ‘
Eventually, the Jets traded Darnold to the Panthers this year for a sixth player and the second and fourth rounds in 2022. They almost moved him before free agency, the general manager said, but the team was not ready to pull over yet. the trigger.
“It was a strong offer,” Douglas said. “We told them, ‘Look, there’s still a lot of boxes to check. And we just do not feel comfortable, if something happens to one of the top two guys, we do not want to end up in a bad situation, like one of two guys who fail a physical person and then we do not have Sam. “So we did nothing. ”