Jets GM Mike Maccagnan admits team inquired about trading up for No. 1 pick – New York Daily News
Julio Cortez/APJets GM Mike Maccagnan says they asked about the No. 1 pick in the draft.
It could have been the New York Jets, and not the L.A. Rams, on the clock and staring at a potential franchise quarterback.
General manager Mike Maccagnan admitted Friday that Gang Green did inquire about trading all the way up to the No. 1 overall pick in this year’s draft with the Titans.
“The short answer is yes,” Maccagnan said Friday at his pre-draft press conference. “The short answer is we inquired.”
Ultimately the Titans dealt the pick to the Rams, who gave up a boatload of picks for the right to draft first.
While Maccagnan never revealed who the team would have wanted with the No. 1 pick, it almost certainly would have been either Jared Goff or Carson Wentz. If the Jets were considering trading all the way up from 20th overall to the top pick, they had to be trying to land a franchise quarterback.
Maccagnan would not say how far along their inquiry for the first overall pick went and also would not address whether Muhammad Wilkerson was part of the potential negotiations.
Because it’s draft season, it’s inevitably will-the-Jets-draft-a-quarterback season, too, even with the two QBs almost certainly off the board. Asked if he would consider drafting a first-round QB, Maccagnan said, “I would consider drafting a quarterback at any point in the draft.”
While Goff and Wentz will almost certainly be taken with the first two picks, Memphis QB Paxton Lynch, a potential first-rounder, could be on the board when the Jets draft at No. 20 overall.
“Paxton, I think, like a lot of the quarterbacks in this class, he has a degree of skill which is intriguing,” Maccagnan said. “He also has played in an offense that is not a traditional NFL offense. We’re actually working with Bryce (Petty), we have some familiarity with the transition you have to go from a different style of offense to an NFL style of offense, more of a pro system.”
Lynch, who is widely considered in a tier below Goff and Wentz, is seen as more of a project that could use more time to develop.
Maccagnan indicated he thought, overall, that this year’s quarterback draft class is about “average” relative to other years.
While Ryan Fitzpatrick led the Jets to a 10-win season last year, the team is unsettled at the position because it has been unable to reach an agreement with the veteran QB, who is a free agent. Even if the Jets do re-sign former Harvard QB, they could still be in the market to draft a quarterback at some point in the draft because Fitzpatrick, 33, is not a long-term solution given his age and track record. The two quarterbacks on the Jets roster currently are Geno Smith and Petty, who the team drafted in the fourth-round last year. The team recently brought free agent quarterback Brian Hoyer in for a visit, though Maccagnan said the team’s focus is still on Fitzpatrick.
Maccagnan said he gleaned part of his philosophy on quarterbacks from former Packers GM Ron Wolf, who was part of the hiring team that brought Maccagnan to Gang Green.
“He said you draft one every year,” Maccagnan said. “And I think the premise of that was, that makes sense, but the other part of it is that you have a pipeline. You have ones that are in the pipeline and that’s one thing that we feel good about with Bryce. We like Bryce Petty quite a bit, but we’ll have a better feel of where he’s at when he goes out in this year’s preseason and how he looks in the OTAs this year.”
