Jets, Giants hope to look back on '22 NFL Draft as turning point
Jets general manager Joe Douglas speaking to the media at the Atlantic Health Jets Training Center, Florham Park on Thurs. April 21, 2022. Credit: Errol Anderson
It is impossible to minimize the importance of this day in Jets and Giants history. Let it be known that Thursday, April 28 will go down as a uniquely transformative day in the New York football world.
For better, or for worse.
Two teams coming off 4-13 seasons and desperately attempting to rebuild their teams back to respectability after years of failure took significant steps toward that end with a first-round harvest they hope will infuse new life into their struggling franchises.
The decisions made by Joe Douglas of the Jets and Joe Schoen of the Giants will no doubt go a long way toward shaping the future of their teams, and how they proceed the following two days will either bolster their cases to show meaningful improvement in the years ahead.
Or lead to more heartache that this town has rarely known when it comes to the simultaneous failures of its teams.
And it wasn’t just what happened in the first round that set the stage for what comes next. Hours before the draft, Schoen made two of his biggest decisions yet, essentially telling quarterback Daniel Jones that he has one year left to prove that he can be the long-term answer and telling fellow 2019 first-rounder Dexter Lawrence that the big defensive tackle remains in the team’s future.
It's the correct call on Jones. Schoen has no allegiance to a quarterback picked by erstwhile GM Dave Gettleman, who left the roster in tatters by the time he retired in January. And even if Jones can rightly argue that he hasn’t had sufficient talent around him and he’s now on his third head coach, there has been sufficient evidence on game tape that he just doesn’t have what it takes week-in and week-out to be viewed as “the guy” for years to come. Hope he proves me wrong, just don’t think it will happen.
Draft night – with the local teams selecting four of the first 10 picks – looks like a winner. At least on paper.
With the fourth overall choice, the Jets get a terrific player in Ahmad “Sauce” Gardner, the Cincinnati cornerback who will immediately be penciled into Robert Saleh’s starting lineup and will add much-needed talent to a defense that was too often woefully overmatched last season. The Jets are desperate for an upgrade on that side of the ball, especially with the Bills and Dolphins having such explosive offenses. The Jets may have struck out on the Tyreek Hill trade, as the Kansas City speedster went to the Dolphins in a blockbuster trade. But they at least found an answer for Hill and every other elite receiver they’ll face by taking Gardner.
There’s another great cornerback Sauce will try to emulate, and if he can be anything like future Hall of Famer Darrelle Revis, then there will soon be a lot to like about this player and this defense.
You know who loves this pick? Another former cornerback who thrived under Saleh when he was the Seahawks’ defensive coordinator. “Saleh got @iamSauceGardner,” Richard Sherman tweeted. “Big time! Great Scheme fit.”
Absolutely.
And while the Jets didn’t get Hill, they did get Ohio State speedster Garrett Wilson with the 10th overall pick. He’s a burner who can take the top off an opposing defense, and he’ll give Zach Wilson another important target for an offense that must take the next step in 2022. Look for Wilson and Gardner to make each other better.
“Iron sharpens iron,” Wilson said of what he expects from their matchups in practice.
And then Douglas struck again, trading up into the first round again with the Titans to get Florida State edge rusher Jermaine Johnson II, who slid out of the top 10 where many had expected him to go. A tour de force by Douglas for staying aggressive and getting another important player for his defense. Corner, receiver and edge rusher?
Big, big night for the Jets.
As for the Giants, Schoen enjoyed what he hopes will be his transformative moment by taking one of college football’s elite pass rushers in Kayvon Thibodeaux of Oregon with the fifth pick. Like the Jets, the Giants’ defense was massively overmatched last season, and they had an embarrassingly bad pass rush. Thibodeaux figures to go a long way toward solving that problem if he can show the kind of speed and explosiveness he flashed at Oregon.
“I’m really competitive and I’m hungry,” Thibodeaux said. “And I feel like New York is the pinnacle of a dog-eat-dog world.”
No, he will not become the next Lawrence Taylor. Why? Because there is no next Lawrence Taylor. He’s in a class by himself. But Thibodeaux is the kind of player that new defensive coordinator Wink Martindale, who works wonders with pass rushers, can help thrive in the Giants’ defense.
And with their second first-round pick – courtesy of Gettleman’s trade with the Bears last year – the Giants got big-time offensive tackle Evan Neal out of Alabama to pair with second-year tackle Andrew Thomas from last year’s draft. At last, the Giants’ offensive line, for years a source of concern, may become a strength.
All in all, a very, very big day for both New York teams. A day they hope will signal the beginning of a long-awaited turnaround after too many years of failure.
Bob Glauber retired in 2022 after covering the NFL for nearly 40 years. He was selected in 2021 for the Bill Nunn Career Achievement Award by the Pro Football Writers of America, and is a three-time winner of the New York State Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association. President of the PFWA for the 2018-20 seasons, he is the author of “The Forgotten First” and “Guts and Genius.”
