What San Francisco 49ers blockbuster commerce means for New York Jets
Anything can happen in the next month before the Jets are on the clock in the first round of the NFL draft. However, with two blockbuster deals on Friday, it appears New York is positioning itself to bring in number 2 BYU quarterback Zach Wilson.
By early Friday afternoon, it was revealed that the 49ers had traded 3rd and sent a ton of picks to the Dolphins as Miami returned to 12th overall. The trade as first reported by Adam Schefter from ESPN contains two future first-round picks.
It’s the type of trade you make to level up and get a quarterback. Even if the 49ers are supposedly staying with Jimmy GaroppoloThe expectation is that this year’s quarterback class will get off the board early and often. This puts San Francisco in the middle of this process.
Given the connections between the 49ers and the Jets, namely New York’s new head coach Robert Saleh, imagine San Francisco trying to call Jets general manager Joe Douglas to become the second overall winner.
As much as that would make sense, it turns out that San Francisco never contacted the Jets about the number 2.
Maybe San Francisco already knows what New York is up to? The 49ers were likely one of the teams that reached out to the Jets to inquire about Sam Darnold’s availability. Maybe the number 2 was already excluded in the off-season?
As if that were enough breaking news for the day, Miami returned to the top 10 a moment later, trading a selection of picks with the Eagles in another blockbuster.
The Eagles also wanted to trade all the way to number 3, according to the NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, but Philadelphia pulled back because they didn’t think Zach Wilson would be available.
Rapoport later made it clear that this had more to do with Philadelphia’s rebuilding and internal assessments of whether it would be worth trading that high on this year’s draft.
In either case, the big advantage is that other teams act on the assumption that Wilson will no longer be available after the second choice. Any team looking to design a quarterback under Choice # 2 would work with Justin Fields of Ohio, Trey Lance of North Dakota, or Mac Jones of Alabama.
New York could have been busy on Friday if they wanted to swap number 2 away. Sure, the full story about the Jets’ involvement in negotiations and possible proposals is unclear at this point, but this was a perfect opportunity to secure a lot of value if the plan was to stick with Darnold. That opportunity came and went.
Few teams left – possibly the Denver Broncos or Carolina Panthers – could be in the market to trade in for a quarterback. Would you blow Douglas and his team away with an offer New York can’t refuse? Sounds like it has to be more than Miami got from San Francisco.
Even then, the jets couldn’t accept it.
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