For both Jets and Giants, future is now with this NFL Draft
The time is now for Jets GM Darren Mougey, coach Aaron Glenn, Giants GM Joe Schoen and coach Brian Daboll. Credit: Corey Sipkin; Brad Penner
Conventional wisdom in the NFL says it takes three years to truly and accurately judge a draft class. That’s long enough for players to enter the league, establish themselves, and give the world a pretty good idea on what kind of ceiling (or floor) they might have. Calling anyone a star or a bust before then is premature.
By that standard, we’ll know what to make of the kids selected over the next few days by the Giants and Jets — and the 30 other teams — at some point in 2028.
Too bad the sport doesn’t tick to the same tock.
In reality, football has become much more urgent. The need to make big and fast hits on picks has never been more immediate. Three years to evaluate whether a selection is successful? General managers and coaches may not stick around long enough to even see what they got right.
That’s certainly the case for the Giants where Joe Schoen and Brian Daboll are picking for their jobs. They barely held onto them after last season’s miserable showing and ownership’s patience is quickly dwindling. If they can’t find players who can step in and help the team win in 2025, neither of them will be here to see 2028.
Over at the Jets, Darren Mougey and Aaron Glenn are on a slightly different timeline with this being their first draft together, but they need to make picks who can pay immediate dividends too. The Jets’ playoff drought has become an embarrassment for the franchise and the sooner it ends the better off everyone will be.
Plenty of other teams have used one or two picks — usually at quarterback, but not always — to steer themselves toward success. There are too many examples in recent years of organizations morphing over the course of a single offseason, of a single draft, for the two local squads who have been mired in more than a decade of simultaneous subpar play to remain there.
Which is why Thursday night’s first round, and to some extent Friday’s second and third rounds, need to be better than good for these teams. They need to be transformative. They need to alter the landscapes, the attitudes, the preconceptions and the trajectories.
They need to be game-changers . . . or those in charge will be the ones changed.
It’s happened before around here. Maybe not recently, but Lawrence Taylor is the best example of a non-quarterback whose selection became a pivot point for an organization. Go back a bit further and Joe Namath brought the same kind of freshness and swagger to the Jets.
Are there even such players available in this draft class? Measurable against Hall of Famers?
There can be. The Giants and Jets have to find them. Must find them.
The tops of Schoen’s drafts so far with the Giants have not been great. He came out of the gate with two first-rounders and took Kayvon Thibodeaux and Evan Neal. They looked like no-brainer winners at the time but Neal quickly petered into a disappointment and Thibodeaux has been OK even if he hasn’t produced at the level a fifth overall selection should be by now. The following year brought Deonte Banks, John Michael Schmitz and Jalin Hyatt as the top three picks. None of them have secured places on the team and all of them are in positions where the Giants can stand to use an upgrade.
Last year’s first-rounder, Malik Nabers, appears to be a budding star. Unless the Giants can find someone to throw the ball to him with accuracy and regularity, though, his selection will always be remembered as the one the Giants made while passing on quarterbacks who have so far found success elsewhere.
As for the Jets, they had a tremendous draft in 2022 when they added Sauce Gardner, Garrett Wilson, Jermaine Johnson and Breece Hall. Even with that haul, though, the winning never came. Joe Douglas, who made those picks, didn’t last long enough to even exercise the fifth-year options on those players this spring. Mougey did that. Of course, Douglas also had Mekhi Becton and Zach Wilson on his resume.
In 2028 we’ll look back on this draft class and have a much better idea of what Schoen and Mougey have given us. Whether those two are even around to join us for that evaluation will more likely be decided by how their picks flourish three months from now, not three years.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
