NY Jets: Analyzing the draft haul the team got in the Jamal Adams trade

The NY Jets may have traded away their best player in Jamal Adams, but they got an absolute haul in return.

The Jamal Adams era in New York is over as the NY Jets have traded the star safety and a 2022 fourth-round pick to the Seattle Seahawks in exchange for safety Bradley McDougald, a first-round pick in the 2021 and the 2022 NFL Draft, as well as a third-round pick in 2021.

While Jets fans will surely be disappointed to see Adams playing in another uniform, particularly one they will have to play against in the upcoming season, fans cannot deny that general manager Joe Douglas got an absolute haul in return.

When rumors about an Adams trade first came out, it was almost beyond fans’ wildest dreams that the Jets would get two first-round picks in return, let alone another day two pick and a player on top of it.

As a team that is hopefully at the back end of a rebuild, acquiring three extra picks that could turn out to be three immediate impact players could make all the difference in the world between making the playoffs and falling just short.

The Seahawks’ first-round picks over the last three years have been the 27th overall (2018), where they picked running back Rashaad Penny, 29th overall (2019), where they picked defensive end L.J. Collier, and 27th overall (2020), where they drafted linebacker Jordyn Brooks.

If history repeats itself and Seattle is once again a Super Bowl contending team, the newly acquired first-round picks will probably be in the mid-to-late 20s.

These picks, added onto the Jets’ own first-round picks, means that Gang Green will be drafting four times in the first round over the next two years.

The NY Jets should be able to find impact players with their newfound draft capital acquired in the Jamal Adams trade.

Guys like Calvin Ridley, 26th overall to the Atlanta Falcons in 2018, Lamar Jackson, 32nd overall to the Baltimore Ravens in 2018, and Marquise Brown, 25th overall to the Ravens in 2019, are just some of the notable players taken late in the first round within the last few years.

Impact players can also be found with that newly-acquired third-round pick. Impact players like Travis Kelce, Russell Wilson, and Alvin Kamara were all drafted in the third round.

When you look at this trade as a whole, there is no denying the talent that the Jets let go, but the potential in the return is undeniable. In a few years when Jets fans look back on this trade, they will look back on it fondly.

Douglas got rid of a player who had a relationship with management and the coaching staff that was beyond repair and acquired three picks that could potentially play a huge role in leading the Jets back to the promised land.

If there ever was a haul to blow Douglas away, this was it.