Jermaine Johnson, Jets, Thibodeau discussed on The Bill Simmons Podcast

Automatic TRANSCRIPT

Talk about this yet. I don't want to jinx this for him. Frankly, he's a nice guy. We've worked together. We've had some great times. He's a jets mets fan. Jet smet's nicks. Which is not the threesome you really want to be if you're a New York fan. The mets have a lot of momentum right now. Mets fans are very excited. It's there in the don't talk about this, but they're all talking about it with each other. And then the jets crush the draft. You had people leaving the draft experts who were like, that's one of the greatest drafts I've ever seen. Tell me what happened? Was it shocking? What was it like to be there for this? You have a chess board and usually the jets are the ones playing from behind and just trying to play defense and they were the aggressors and it worked out exactly how they wanted. So speaking with those guys in the weeks leading up, it was, hey, if sauce is there at four, that's the pick. And at three, the Houston Texans take a corner that isn't sauce. So already, that's a win for them. They're like, all right, they're going to take stingley. We'll take sauce. We're good. Then it was we need to get Zach Wilson a weapon. Now wait, can you hold that for one second? Yeah. Why do you think they didn't take thibodeau? When Sal has that niners DNA of like, it all starts with the pass rush. Wouldn't that have been like the classic salad pick or is he not running this? Sure, no, I think he would have been fine getting thibodeau. I'll tell you that they had Jermaine Johnson as high as thibodeau on their board. Wow. So sauce to them at that point, corner is such a deficiency for them. They have nothing at corner. They were like, let's get that guy. Bring him in. He could be the leader of our defense, who is 6 foot two, and that is their product. That's Darrell Revis to them. If you're taking them forth overall, that's how you view them. So they got him. Thibodeau wasn't there at ten. I think it would have been a conversation. Giants took him at 5, but it wasn't real debate there internally between thibodeaux and sauce. They wanted the corner. So they get him ten, they get Garrett. How much of that? How much is that we wanted the corner just like, we're not getting out of this comfort conference without a shutdown corner. I think that's 90% of it. I think that's a lot of it. I also think they looked at him as one of the true sure things in this draft. And for the jets, they can't, they can't take a swing. They can't take any variables, like sauce to them, was their guy. I'm not so certain. I think Hutchinson they would have taken if he felt a four, but I'm not so certain they would have taken sauce over Trayvon walker also. That's how high they viewed sauce going into this thing. So they get him. They get the receiver. And that's when it really gets interesting. So if they had just gone to bed and said, all right, we got sauce and Wilson, we got our top corner and one of our top receivers, great. But Jermaine Johnson, who the red flag that I only see is that his age that he's 24 and he's got a little bit more tread on the tires, they loved him. They had him as a top 8 guy on their board. So when he starts slipping out of the top ten, top 15, Joe Douglas is working the phones. He could not find a trade partner. They finally find one at 26 and I can tell you like they are way more ecstatic about getting Jermaine Johnson as a third first round pick than they were of getting the four in the ten who they expected they'd get blue chip players. They viewed this guy that they were at the senior bowl. They saw what he can do, and they love his journey because he went from Minnesota high school to community college to Georgia to then Florida state and then he bet on himself. He's like, I'm leaving Georgia where I'm not one of the top guys. I'll go to Florida state and he was the ACC's defensive player of the year. So they are thrilled about that. And then night two, they had breece hall as a first round pick as a top 32 guy. And he's a running back out of Iowa state, no running backs were taken. The rumor was that Houston was going to take him with the second pick of the second round. They call the Giants. They move around. They trade up. And they get in front of Houston and get Reese hall, one pick before Houston. So to them, it's like, all right, four first round picks, and then they get Rucker, who's a kid from Long Island. He's from Lyndon Hirst, and he's like, as Long Island as you get as their tight end, who will be their third tight end where they've got Conklin and CJ uzama. So they're very happy. If Zach Wilson sucks, none of this means anything. And that's it, Bill. They're very happy, but they're also very, very aware of the situation. And, you know, I spoke to Salah after the draft and he's like, yeah, we got great players, but we haven't done shit yet. He knows. And Zac has to be good and Makai beckton has to show up in shape because they passed on icky iguana and these other guys. There's a lot of other things that have to happen for actual wins on the field. But for a brief weekend, it's nice to celebrate that there's some competence with the jets. By the way, speaking of the paths, I was talking about the blue chippers..

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