The NFL draft is always something of a crapshoot, with very few ‘sure things’ ever emerging. Occasionally you have a Peyton Manning or Calvin Johnson, truly generational prospects for whom there was never a doubt that they would be great, but more often than not, NFL general managers are simply making educated guesses when they draft a player.
That’s what makes redrafts such a compelling thought exercise. With the benefit of hindsight, one can re-do the draft for every team and consider how things might have been different. That’s exactly what the folks at Pro Football Focus have done with a 2021 NFL redraft. As New York Jets fans doubtlessly recall, this was the year that the Jets drafted quarterback Zach Wilson with the second overall pick, a selection that proved disastrous.
In PFF’s redraft, however, the Jets select the most decorated superstar from that year’s draft class, pass rusher Micah Parsons. PFF justifies this choice by writing, “If you ignore the obvious surplus value provided by quarterbacks, Parsons has a good case to be the No. 1 pick in this redraft. His 2.70 cumulative PFF Wins Above Replacement is the highest mark of any non-quarterback in this class. He has recorded elite PFF pass-rush grades above 91.0 in all four of his first NFL seasons.”
Parsons has proven to be an absolute game-wrecker from Day 1, a rare talent that keeps offensive coordinators up at night. As a matter of fact, he’s the first NFL player since the great Lawrence Taylor to register 12 or more sacks in each of his first four seasons. Selecting him second overall in the 2021 NFL draft is an absolute no-brainer, even for a quarterback-needy team like the Jets.
However, the Jets could have very easily gotten adequate quarterback play from veteran Joe Flacco, who was on the roster at the time. Though he’s far past his prime, Flacco has proven that he still has enough left in the tank to serve as a steady hand until a younger franchise quarterback can be found. He certainly could have put together a more productive season than Zach Wilson did in 2021 and possibly have ended the Jets’ playoff drought.
