By Glenn Naughton<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
When an NFL team is in the midst of a disastrous 4-12 season, it’s no surprise\u00a0when its fan base calls for heads to roll while dismissing any and all efforts of\u00a0the sitting\u00a0regime as being a display of utter incompetence at every level. \u00a0That was the case this past season as Jets fans lambasted former general manager John Idzik, largely\u00a0for his twelve selections <\/a>in last year’s draft that failed to make a measurable impact during the course of the season.\u00a0\u00a0The GM’s\u00a0lack of\u00a0experience in player evaluation was cited as the reason he was unable to select any notable contributors beyond the first two rounds when he chose\u00a0starting\u00a0SS Calvin Pryor and TE Jace Amaro.\u00a0 So bad were Idzik’s first two drafts that many fans have given up on any player he selected, despite the fact that many of those players rarely, or in some cases, never got game day reps.\u00a0 Bust by association, I suppose.<\/p>\n In what was his biggest disservice to the organization in his final season, former head coach Rex Ryan failed to give many of the youngsters on his roster significant playing time that would have allowed the current regime to more adequately gauge their potential.\u00a0 The coach could have\u00a0chosen to \u00a0sit veterans such as Willie Colon, Calvin Pace, or Jason Babin to allow the likes of Dakota Dozier, Trevor Reilly and Ik Enemkpali\u00a0to flash any potential.\u00a0 Quincy Enunwa, a wide receiver out of the University of Nebraska faced legal problems for much of the season, but once cleared he was kept on the practice squad until the season reached its final weeks.\u00a0 Even then, he only saw action on special teams.<\/p>\n Of course it’s no surprise that any NFL head coach wouldn’t try to do his boss any favors just weeks before he was sure to be fired, or perhaps Ryan really believed that a late season surge could save his job.\u00a0 No matter the reason, the fact remains that the opportunity to develop and evaluate several young players was passed up, and the onus is on new GM Mike Maccagnan and rookie head coach Todd Bowles to decide just how right or wrong Idzik was on many of his picks.<\/p>\n Of the players mentioned, the one who made the most of his limited opportunities was Enemkpali.\u00a0 A situational pass rushing outside linebacker\u00a0from Louisiana Tech, the youngster showed terrific burst off the edge.\u00a0He managed to register five quarterback hurries despite having been on the field for just forty plays according to PFF.com.\u00a0 While that may not sound like very much, a comparison to all other 3-4 OLBers shows that Enemkpali was one of only two players to notch as many pressures while playing fewer than 100 snaps.\u00a0 Shaun Phillips of the Colts had 8 hurries on 98 snaps.\u00a0 In addition, the\u00a0other two OLBers credited with 5 hurries were Quentin Groves and Dee Ford who did so with 246 and 122 reps respectively.\u00a0\u00a0 In an interview<\/a> with JetNation.com earlier this season, second year guard Oday Aboushi who faced Enemkpali in college, referred to him as a “physical player with good burst who plays hard”.\u00a0 It’s been quite some time since the Jets had a legitimate pass rusher that opposing offenses had to game plan for, and Enemkpali has the physical tools to be the first to fill that role since the departure of John Abraham.<\/p>\n Reilly, another outside linebacker, was on the field for only 60 snaps this season, and while he didn’t make any impact plays in that time, he did hold his own when asked to give Calvin Pace a breather.\u00a0\u00a0A seventh round selection from the university of Utah, Reilly\u00a0was considered a value pick by many.\u00a0 Projected by NFL.com <\/a>as a 4th or 5th round selection, the linebacker was still available in round seven, a development that many attributed to his age.\u00a0 At\u00a026 years old, Reilly was drafted several years later than most rookies as a result of performing mission work during his college years.\u00a0 NFL.com writer Dan Greensapan<\/a>\u00a0raved about Reilly’s potential and versatility as he bounced back and forth from linebacker to defensive end in college.<\/p>\n Offensive lineman Dakota Dozier was a small school prospect out of Furman and had a great reputation as a physical run blocker with better agility than you’d\u00a0anticipate from a 300 pound lineman.\u00a0 Primarily a tackle in college, Dozier was expected to move inside for the Jets last season.\u00a0 When Ryan announced late in the\u00a0year that his young players were going to see increased playing time, many hoped Dozier would be one to benefit.\u00a0 As it turned out, the lineman didn’t see the field at all,\u00a0so like many of Idzik’s other picks, Maccagnan and Bowles will evaluate Dozier largely from pre-season and practice session film.<\/p>\n The Jets’ refusal to play Quincy Enunwa may have been their most puzzling decision of all.\u00a0\u00a0With all of the criticism\u00a0the team\u00a0took for having such a poor draft, the vast majority of it was rooted in their \u00a0failure to pick an impact wide receiver.\u00a0 It was a glaring hole for the Jets as they prepared for the draft, and they appeared to be in the driver’s seat.\u00a0 This draft class was being called “the deepest\u00a0 in years” by both professional and armchair talent evaluators. Sammy Watkins, Brandin Cooks, Odell Beckham Jr, Kelvin Benjamin, Jordan Matthews, Martavis Bryant, to name just a few.\u00a0 Despite that, the Jets came away with Jalen Saunders whom they would release early in the season, Shaq Evans who spent the season on injured reserve, and Enunwa.\u00a0 At 6′ 2”, 225 he had good size and was considered to be a\u00a0strong\u00a0fit for the west coast offense.\u00a0 Had Enunwa made even a few plays for the Jets, it may have taken some of the heat off of Idzik.\u00a0 As it turns out, Enunwa, like Dozier, didn’t see\u00a0 a single rep on offense.<\/p>\n The only positive to be drawn from all of this is that this time around, any analysis of these players will be done with a personnel department that has been assembled by Maccagnan, a life long scout with a focus on player evaluation and development.\u00a0 This isn’t to say most teams don’t have a similar plan, but the idea of having it done by a (hopefully) more competent set of eyes will tell us just how good or bad John Idzik’s\u00a0 dirty dozen really is.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Glenn Naughton When an NFL team is in the midst of a disastrous 4-12 season, it’s no surprise\u00a0when its fan base calls for heads to roll while dismissing any and all efforts of\u00a0the sitting\u00a0regime as being a display of utter incompetence at every level. \u00a0That was the case this past season as Jets […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":27519,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,1337],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-27721","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-featured-editorials","8":"category-home-slider"},"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Reilly.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peLffi-7d7","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27721"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27725,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27721\/revisions\/27725"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}