Weird Positive Jets Vibes: AFC Draft Assessments
The Jets make the best of the Aaron Rodgers situation, the Patriots do things The Patriots Way, the Steelers prepare for the Wilson-Fields circus, and much more.
These are the AFC Draft Performance Assessments. Looking for the NFC? You will find it here (ADD LINK WHEN PUBBED). Looking for an intro? You will also find it there. Looking for a wordy intro explaining the subheaders and the complex methodology behind the scoring criteria? You wandered into the wrong Substack, my dear friend.
AFC East
Buffalo Bills
Improved Roster: B
Used Resources Well: A-
Met Needs: C+
FINAL DPA: B
The Bills could have stayed put in the first round and drafted Xavier Worthy or only traded down once and selected Ricky Pearsall or Xavier Legette. Instead, they traded down twice and took a cross between a less reliable Pearsall and a weak-tea version of Legette.
My first impression of the polarizing Keon Coleman (Florida State) is that he ALMOST made lots of highlight catches in 2023. Coleman tracks deep balls well and has the body control to get his hands on the football, but he either has it knocked away or doesn’t quite catch it cleanly far too often. His lack of pure speed was also evident on tape. Yes, some of his Combine results match those of Puka Nacua; good luck chasing that lightning with a bottle.
On the plus side, Coleman gets open in the slot by varying his route-running speed and often came through when Jordan Travis was scrambling. He’ll also fight for every inch after the catch. I see Coleman as a WR3 drafted too early by a team that needed a WR1, and I worry about him becoming the guy who doesn’t quite catch the Josh Allen sideline miracle missile on 3rd-and-15 in a playoff game.
Things got better for the Bills once they stopped trading down.
Cole Bishop is my favorite safety in a weak class. He’s 6-foot-2, runs well, locates the ball quickly, tackles cleanly in the open field and gets involved in just about every play on his side of the field. He fills a glaring need at a long-time position of strength.
Duke’s DeWayne Carter, drafted with the pick the Bills grabbed in the Chiefs trade, is a rectangular interior defender with moves and a willingness to chase down ball carriers. He goes where his blocker wants him to go too often, but he comes with a high-character rep.
Running back Ray Davis turns 25 in November. After a juco season, he transferred from Temple to Vanderbilt to Kentucky, where he rushed for 1,129 yards, caught 33 passes and scored 21 total touchdowns in 2023. Davis may be at the crest of his athletic peak right now, but he looked great in an otherwise dreary loss to Georgia and absolutely took over a shootout against Louisville. He has burst, power, tough-catch capability, a square-shouldered style and a little bit of open-field creativity. In this running back class, he was worth a “Why Not?” selection.
Overall, I feel like the Bills took a risk by not taking a risk early at wide receiver. This draft class might keep the Super Bowl window cracked for another five years, but a bold first-round move – or at least a higher-upside or more ready-to-play selection – could have opened the window a little wider for 2024.
Miami Dolphins
Improved Roster: C+
Used Resources Well: B-
Met Needs: A-
FINAL DPA: B
No draft class would be complete without a high-upside workout-warrior edge rusher with a fun name.
Chop Robinson recorded just 11.5 career sacks at Penn State and Maryland. He only recorded 28 pressures in 2023, 18th in the B1G and third on the Nittany Lions. Robinson has the tools of a stand-up edge but lined up in a three-point stance head-up on tackles an awful lot. His combine results were sexy, and his motor appears perky.
Fellow edge-rusher Mohamed Kamara of Colorado State finished third in the nation with 61 pressures. He also drew four holding penalties. Kamara is a squatty bull rusher with fine initial quickness, plenty of hustle and some outstanding Combine results. His combination of production and hustle, combined with some rudimentary technique and a non-prototypical body type, reminds me of Boye Mafe. I like the decision to double-down on the edge, where the Dolphins are loaded with older veterans and injury cases.
Houston tackle Patrick Paul is a tall, thicc, athletic midmajor project. The technique is raw; the tools are rare. He’ll be developed behind Terron Armstead.
The fourth round is the perfect time for a stacked-to-the-rafters offense to add a fast-as-hell running back. Jaylen Wright averaged 7.4 yards per carry for Tennessee in 2023. He’s explosive when he sees a crease and can run away from defenders in the open field. Wright can be hesitant when he approaches the line and can get bottled up in the backfield, making him a feast-or-famine back who disappeared against Alabama and Missouri. He’s a rudimentary receiver.
The Dolphins traded a 2025 third-round pick to move up for Wright. That sounds a little rich, but they needed a little Win Now urgency.
Malik Washington caught 110 passes for Virginia in 2023, 67 of those passes within five yards of the line of scrimmage. He mixes the usual slot screens with short “choice” routes in front of underneath defenders, generating a few big plays with wheel concepts from bunch formations. I value him higher as a gadget guy for the Dolphins than I would for some offense that does not guarantee so much wide open space underneath.
Adding sheer talent (Chop, Paul, Wright) is not the same thing as improving the roster. At the same time, Robinson, Washington and Wright represent potential force multipliers, and the Dolphins need to leverage their strengths in 2024 more than they needed to upgrade any one position group.
New England Patriots
Improved Roster: B-
Used Resources Well: C-
Met Needs: D
FINAL DPA: D+
The “needs a redshirt year” quarterback. A collegiate WR2 at the start of the second round. The second-best lineman on a B1G also-ran at the start of the third round. Another quarterback, for chaos’ sake. Maybe Bill Belichick wasn’t the problem, folks.
You can read about Drake Maye here.
Ja’Lynn Polk tied for fifth in the nation with 40 targets of 15-plus air yards. His 21 receptions on deep throws tied for fourth in the nation, his 713 air yards seventh. Washington teammate Rome Odunze led the nation in all three categories.
Polk is a boundary specialist with ordinary measurables but a knack for all things “deep threat”: tracking, jumping, making over-the-shoulder catches and so forth. I fear the Patriots drafted a younger, less-imposing DeVante Parker.
Caeden Wallace was a dependable-but-ordinary right tackle for Penn State. GM Eliot Wolf said Wallace could be a “four-position guy” after drafting him, which is not the sort of thing that is said about a prospect like Wallace’s college teammate Olu Fashanu. Wolf also mused about the wisdom of trading down before selecting Wallace 68th overall, which suggests that the Patriots knew they were overdrafting him; Patriots fans may come to miss Belichick’s uninformative growls if Wolf plans to overshare.
Texas A&M’s Layden Robinson will be fine at guard. UCF’s Javon Baker is similar to Polk: a boundary/vertical threat with ordinary size and speed. You can never have too many of that kind of receiver! But seriously: Baker has some slipperiness in the open field, making him a fine fourth-round value.
The decision to draft big/old/speedy/flamethrowing/erratic Joe Milton was pure stupid sauce. Look at it this way: there is only a 0.5% chance that Milton develops into anything but scout team Josh Allen. There’s about a 10% chance, however, that he creates some sort of organizational confusion/friction because of his tools and mere presence. So the bad outcome is 20 times more likely than the good. And the Patriots have too many needs – and have too precarious a power structure right now – to be performing mad science at quarterback.
New York Jets
Improved Roster: B+
Used Resources Well: A-
Met Needs: A
FINAL DPA: A-
I am optimistic about what the Jets did this weekend, and it makes me feel icky and weird.