The Jets selected Penn State offensive tackle Olu Fashanu after trading one pick down to No. 11 in the first round of the NFL Draft on Thursday night.
Here are some morning after thoughts.
1. This was a smart pick. The Jets need insurance on the offensive line this season with two 33-year-old tackles. Tyron Smith has not played a full season since 2015. Think about that. It’s almost 10 years. So, there is a very good chance Fashanu is going to have to play this season.
Then, there is the future to consider. Smith is only here on a one-year deal. The Jets need a long-term answer at left tackle – a premium position. They can now hope that Fashanu is that guy.
I understand the appeal of taking Brock Bowers and I would not have criticized that pick. I think there is a sound argument for drafting him to give the offense another weapon, but that does not mean that taking an offensive lineman is a bad pick.
This was choosing cauliflower over cake. In the long term, this will be better for the Jets even if it would have been more exciting to have a pass catcher taken in the first round for this season.
2. With all of that being said, Joe Douglas now needs to add a wide receiver either by trading up into round 2 or staying in round 3 on Friday night. Garrett Wilson is going to have a monster year with a healthy Aaron Rodgers. But there are questions after that. Mike Williams is coming off an ACL injury and has been inconsistent throughout his career. After Williams, there is a big drop off. Xavier Gipson and Jason Brownlee were nice stories last year, but can the Jets count on them?
The most interesting player at the position is Allen Lazard. He had a terrible first season with the Jets and the team offered him in at least one trade this offseason. The question now has to be: Can Rodgers bring Lazard back? The two had success in Green Bay and maybe having Rodgers back will bring improvement from Lazard.
Even with that, though, the Jets need to add another pass catcher to the offense. The Jets believe this is a deep wide receiver draft. It’s time to find one.
3. When I do mock drafts and try to predict who the Jets might take, I try to think like the team’s decision-makers. I kept coming back to the Jets taking a pass catcher because I thought owner Woody Johnson was going to tell Douglas that is what he wanted. Johnson kept talking about “offense, offense, offense” this offseason and to me, I expected him to want someone in the first round who can score touchdowns.
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Give Johnson credit, though. He let Douglas take an unsexy pick in Fashanu and stayed out of the way. Back in 2022, Johnson did not want the Jets taking an offensive lineman with either of their top two picks. It worked out with the Jets drafting Sauce Gardner and Garrett Wilson.
I do believe if Malik Nabers or Rome Odunze got to 10, the Jets would have drafted one of them. But with them off the board, Douglas took the smart pick and he did so with Johnson’s blessing.
4. You can’t say that Douglas has not tried to fix the offensive line. Fashanu was the fourth offensive lineman that Douglas has drafted in the first two rounds as Jets GM. He drafted Mekhi Becton in the first round in 2020, Alijah Vera-Tucker in the first round in 2021, Joe Tippmann in the second round last year and now Fashanu.
Prior to the Becton pick, the Jets had not selected an offensive lineman in the first two round since 2010 when Mike Tannenbaum took Vlad Duccasse. The last time they drafted a lineman in the first round was in 2006 when Tannenbaum took Nick Mangold and D’Brickashaw Ferguson.
For most of the decade before Douglas took over, the Jets tried to piece together the line on the cheap with later picks and bargain free agents.
The Becton pick did not work out and Vera-Tucker has struggled to stay healthy, but Douglas has been persistent in trying to build the offensive line. That counts for something.
5. I have no idea if Fashanu will be good. Neither do you. Neither does Douglas. That is what makes the draft fun. No one has any clue how these players will perform despite the resources teams devote to the draft.
But I think this will be a good situation for Fashanu to come into. There is going to be no pressure on him entering the season like there is for so many first-round picks as long as the Jets stay healthy through camp. He is going to get to learn from Smith, an all-time great, and Aaron Rodgers, another all-time great.
Fashanu should get plenty of practice reps. I would think the Jets are going to be very conservative with how much Smith practices in OTAs and training camp and even the regular season. That should lead to plenty of time on the practice field for Fashanu with the starting offense. He is only 21 years old and did not play a ton at Penn State – 21 starts.
The Jets should be able to bring him along quickly in practice without throwing him into the fire of games right away.
