At least Jets coach Todd Bowles was in the loop. But very few other people were, when it came to the Jets’ decision-making process that led them to quarterback Sam Darnold.
Via Manish Mehta of the New York Daily News, the knowledge of the top of their draft board was limited to CEO Christopher Johnson, General Manager Mike Maccagnan and Bowles, and the team went to extraordinary measures to keep it that way.
Of course, that’s largely so others in the building wouldn’t leak the information to all the nosy people like Mehta, but it worked, as there were no reports pre-draft of he Jets’ preference. And since Browns G.M. John Dorsey kept his circle small as well, there was no way to know which way they were truly leaning because they didn’t know who was left.
There are several interesting details to the lengths the Jets went.
The cards containing player names in the draft room didn’t include final grades for the top five quarterbacks, while every other player had a numerical grade. That prevented anyone outside the top three decision-makers knowing how they were stacked in Maccagnan’s head. They apparently discussed all the quarterbacks as normal, just didn’t reveal to the rest of the room how they ordered them.
They also didn’t put the names of the draftable players up on the board on the first night of the draft, since they knew they weren’t trading down, and they knew they were taking a quarterback.
Maccagnan said the night of the draft he wouldn’t reveal where he had guys ranked, and ultimately it doesn’t matter, as Darnold was clearly no worse than second, and fell into his lap when the Giants took running back Saquon Barkley.
