Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes wrapped up the divisional round of the playoffs over the weekend by putting on a show nobody will forget anytime soon. Both quarterbacks were surgical with their throws all game long, lighting up the scoreboard with touchdown pass after touchdown pass until Mahomes and the Chiefs finally won in overtime.
All the Jets could do was sit at home and watch as two quarterbacks they could have drafted further established themselves as elite. Gang Green’s former general manager, Mike Maccagnan, had his chance to pick Mahomes and Allen in consecutive years. Instead, he went in different directions — ones that didn’t lead to much winning.
The quarterback-needy Jets selected S Jamal Adams with the sixth pick over Mahomes, who went off the board four picks later, in 2017. Maccagnan also passed on Deshaun Watson, who was picked 12th by the Texans, that year, but Mahomes is the more glaring miss given his talent and the legal issues that have followed Watson recently.
Adams proved to be an elite-level safety before he talked his way out of town, but there’s no good reason why Maccagnan valued a player at his position over a quarterback of Mahomes’ caliber. Only the Bears messed up worse than Maccagnan by taking Mitchell Trubisky with the second pick.
Maccagnan got a chance to redeem himself the following draft. He traded up to put the Jets in a position to draft a franchise quarterback and took Sam Darnold over Allen. Darnold and Baker Mayfield were the top quarterbacks on New York’s draft board in 2018. The Jets even had Josh Rosen ranked above Allen, according to ESPN’s Rich Cimini.
Granted, Allen was very raw coming out of Wyoming. He had the best arm of any quarterback in the 2018 draft, but it was widely thought that his mechanics needed to be refined and other aspects of his game needed to be improved.
All of that has happened in Buffalo, and he is now a top-five quarterback.
It would be foolish to say that the Jets would be a top-flight team like the Bills or Chiefs if they had just drafted Allen or Mahomes. Allen landed in the perfect situation for him with Brian Daboll taking over his development and Buffalo surrounding him with weapons and a No.1 defense. Mahomes might have had the natural talent to be New York’s savior, but even he likely would have been hard-pressed to achieve what he has so far in his career playing in the Big Apple. Playing and learning under Andy Reid beats playing for any coach the Jets have employed since Mahomes entered the league.
With all of that being said, Allen and Mahomes lighting the NFL on fire is yet another indictment of Maccagnan’s inability to properly evaluate talent. Hindsight is always 20/20 and nobody could have predicted Mahomes developing into a generational talent, but Maccagnan drafted a safety over him when his team clearly needed a quarterback.
Then, when they were actively looking for a quarterback the next year, the Jets never gave Allen serious consideration.
It looks like New York finally has a general manager who knows how to draft. Joe Douglas’ 2020 class — one that had to be mostly evaluated virtually due to the pandemic — hasn’t panned out yet, but it looks like he hit a home run with his 2021 group. It’s hard not to wonder what could have been if Maccagnan had simply done the right thing with one of his two opportunities to land a franchise quarterback, though.
That seems like it’s the case for the Jets more often than not. The hope in New York is that Douglas nailed it with Zach Wilson after Maccagnan repeatedly failed.
