New York Jets: The art of the pick block

For the New York Jets during the 2016 NFL Draft, things didn’t always go according to plan. Several teams utilized the art of the pick block against them that effectively derailed their original plans.

So you may be asking yourselves, what exactly is a pick block? Glad you asked, so let’s say you’re going out to a club and hoping to get a phone number to get to know someone better. You meet someone nice and things seem to be going great as you feel a connection forming. Then all of the sudden, you run into their older and of course, protective sibling that ensures you don’t even get to take out your cell phone to add a new contact.

Long story short, your night is pretty much over and you’re leaving the club without someone new and excited to get to know better, well, that very thing happened to the Jets way too often during this year’s draft. The Jets had six picks in the draft and had multiple opportunities to fill holes on their roster.

2016 Jets Draft: LB Darron Lee, QB Christian Hackenberg, LB Jordan Jenkins, CB Juston Burris, OL B. Shell, P Lac Edwards & WR C. Peake.

— Eric Allen (@eallenjets) April 30, 2016

The Jets had some balance in this class, they drafted three defensive players, three offensive players and a punter. Originally the Jets had six picks in this draft (no fifth due to Ryan Clady deal and no sixth Ryan Fitzpatrick deal), but the Jets traded into the fifth round to take an offensive linemen surrendering next year’s fourth round draft choice.

But the Jets’ draft class could’ve been vastly different than what is presented in that tweet. Several times a team traded with the team ahead of the Jets to make a pick. Ergo the art of the pick block, the Jets were all too familiar with it in this draft.

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In the first round the Jets got their man in Darron Lee, the consensus top linebacker on the board, no problems here.

When the Jets were getting ready to bat in the second round though, that’s where things got dicey.

Just when it appeared the Jets would finally address their offensive line issues early in round two, several teams took it upon themselves to trade ahead of the green and white and pick block them.

It happened with the 48th pick in the second round when the Green Bay Packers traded up to take the best available offensive tackle on the board in Jason Spriggs.

But that’s okay because the Jets other target was on the board and no one in front of them had an offensive line need. Until the Houston Texans literally, the pick before the Jets, entered the equation and stole offensive lineman Nick Martin out of Notre Dame right from under their noses.

Who knows how high those players were relative to the prospect they ended up choosing in quarterback Christian Hackenberg out of Penn State. That’s something we’ll never know and just when the Jets thought that was the last time someone would pick block them, it occurred yet again in the fourth round.

This time the Los Angeles Rams joined the party and took Pharoh Cooper out of the University of South Carolina. A very intriguing prospect who could’ve eventually supplanted either Eric Decker or Brandon Marshall at wide receiver when the time was right.

More jets: A true stalemate with Ryan Fitzpatrick

But that is the way of the draft, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. Every draft class requires three seasons of development before providing a final verdict. Despite the fact the Jets may have lost out on a few key prospects, they found a couple other ones and we’ll have to wait and see if they made the right decisions.

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