Jets Have Poor History With First-Round Picks

The New York Jets have four first-round picks over the next two drafts. If you include the six Day 2 picks, the franchise has quite a bit of ammunition to rebuild. But if Joe Douglas wants to get the Jets out of the gutter, he'll need to have a better hit rate than his predecessors.

Rich Cimini, an ESPN reporter who covers the Jets, highlighted some of the first-round mistakes made by previous general managers. His recent tweet included every Day 1 guy selected by New York from 2011-18. Check it out.

To be fair, not everything is as it seems in the above tweet.

Muhammad Wilkerson was really good for most of his seven seasons with the team. His play didn't start to fall off until a broken leg in 2015 was followed by a mega five-year contract extension in 2016. It would be hard to consider that a bust.

Sheldon Richardson also had a few good seasons in New York before being traded to the Seahawks in 2017. He wasn't quite as good as Jamal Adams, another rock-solid player traded to Seattle, but he was still effective.

Other than that, the list stands.

Sam Darnold failed to live up to expectations, Darron Lee never became much of anything and the DB duo of Calvin Pryor and Dee Milliner were busts. And let's just try to avoid talking about former defensive lineman Quinton Coples.

The first-round hit rate over the last several years has been poor, but Douglas might be the one to change that. He's had only two first-round picks in his two seasons as general manager, but Quinnen Williams and Mekhi Becton look like future building blocks in the trenches.

Now imagine what he'll be able to do with four Day 1 picks.

Follow Clint Lamb on Twitter @ClintRLamb.