Entering round one, Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders was the biggest wild card in the draft. Exiting round one, he still is.
Sanders slipped out of the first round, and it’s not clear where he’ll land.
The Browns hold the 33rd and 36th overall picks. The latter came from the trade that dropped Cleveland from No. 2 to No. 5 in the first round. They could easily justify taking Sanders at No. 33 and then addressing other needs at No. 36. Or they could dangle the 33rd pick to someone like the Saints, who might be interested in moving up from No. 40.
Or maybe neither the Browns nor the Saints will bite. If so, the slide will continue.
The Jets could be interested at No. 42. The Rams are possible at No. 46. The Seahawks aren’t out of the question at No. 50 or No. 52.
There simply aren’t many teams with a glaring need.
And Sanders isn’t the only one waiting. Alabama’s Jalen Milroe remains in the green room. Louisville’s Tyler Shough is still waiting. We’ll see whether and to what extent any of those three will end up in round two.
From 2022 through 2024, only one quarterback was taken in round two. Last year, no quarterback was taken from Bo Nix to the Broncos at No. 12 until No. 150, when the Saints took Spencer Rattler.
The Jets addressed the left side of their offensive line a year ago, selecting tackle Olu Fashanu with the 11th overall pick. Among their needs this season was some right side help for their line.
The first pick of the Darren Mougey and Aaron Glenn era wasn’t a sexy one, but they hope he will pay huge dividends.
The Jets selected Missouri offensive lineman Armand Membou, who will replace Morgan Moses at right tackle. Moses left for the Patriots in free agency.
Membou was the second offensive lineman selected, following LSU’s Will Campbell, who went to the Patriots with the fourth pick.
The Jets have seven picks remaining, with the next coming Friday at 42nd overall. They still have needs at tight end, wide receiver, edge rusher and defensive tackle.
They passed on Penn State tight end Tyler Warren to select Membou, who will protect Justin Fields’ blindside.
After word emerged that Saints quarterback Derek Carr has a shoulder injury that could cause him to miss the 2025 season, the betting odds swung toward the Saints taking quarterback Shedeur Sanders — and the question became whether someone would jump the line in front of the Saints to get him.
Now that the odds have dramatically readjusted, with the Saints penciled in for Georgia defensive end Mykel Williams, it’s fair to now ask whether someone will try to jump past the Saints to get Williams.
Here’s a team to watch: The 49ers.
The 49ers currently pick at No. 11. They could move up to No. 8 in a trade with the Panthers, or to No. 7 in a trade with the Jets, to get Williams before the Saints can take him.
If that happens, here’s a name to watch for the Saints at No. 9: Marshall defensive end Mike Green.
The guy who does our mock draft has the Steelers taking Michigan tight end Colston Loveland at No. 21. That’s not going to happen. Because they likely won’t have the chance to get him.
Teams are divided, we’re told, on whether Penn State’s Tyler Warren or Loveland is the top tight end. Some have Warren at No. 1, others have Loveland.
The slight lean is toward Warren.
The teams to watch when it comes to tight end are the Jets at No. 7, the Bears at No. 10, and the Colts at No. 14. It’s possible both Warren and Loveland will go to two of those three teams.
The Jets are specifically intriguing because, last year, they opted for tackle Olu Fashanu at No. 11, passing over superstar tight end Brock Bowers, who landed two spots later with the Raiders. This year, will they go with another tackle in lieu of Warren or Loveland?
Much of that will depend, frankly, on whether and to what extent owner Woody Johnson is telling his football people, “You know, we passed on Bowers last year.” That raises the stakes on passing on another tight end who could become an instant high-end contributor.
Last week, former Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers told the world about the way the team treated him on the way out the door. Former Jets (and now Rams) receiver Davante Adams already knew about it.
“We golfed together on a Wednesday [Feb. 5] in Vegas, at Shadow Creek, and then [Rodgers] told me he was going to [meet with the Jets] on Thursday [Feb. 6] and then come back and we’d play again Friday,” Adams recently told Mike Silver of TheAthletic.com. “And he was just in such a bad mood [after the meeting] that he hit me up and was like, ‘I’m not coming back, bro.’ He’s like, ‘This was horrible; they just disrespected me completely.’”
Adams’s first reaction was to regard it as an exaggeration.
“I thought he was being a little dramatic at first,” Adams told Silver. “I’m like, ‘Bro, don’t paraphrase it. How did he say this?’ [But] that’s how he said it. And I was shocked because I didn’t think anybody had the balls to, for lack of better words, to hit him with it like that. Just flat out — ‘Yeah, I think we’re just gonna do something different. We’re gonna move in a different direction.’ It was shocking, but right from that moment, I knew there was no chance that I’d be back there.”
Adams wouldn’t have been staying with the Jets without a drastically revised contract. His salary was due to mushroom in 2025, as part of the effort to bump up the APY on his five-year deal with the Raiders. With Rodgers leaving, there wouldn’t have been a reason to keep Rodger’s close friend.
The Jets haven’t, and won’t, engage in a pissing match with Rodgers over whether the meeting went the way he claims. There’s nothing to be gained by wrestling in the mud with Rodgers.
Besides, his whining about it helped prove their point that it’s now about the J-E-T-S, not man who used to play Q-B there.
