With Favre a Jet, who are you going to target in the draft?

Question

I happen to have Thomas Jones as a keeper RB in one league...how about the WRs?

Answer 1

Ballsy move for you o keep Thomas Jones haha.

Favre greatly increases all of the Jet's offensive players rankings, and the only person I'd be worried about reaching for is actually Brett Favre.

The Jets have a pair of talented receivers in Coles and Cotchery. Coles has disappointed recently, but I think he's going to benefit from having Favre in the mix. I'd look for each WR to get 1100-1200ish yards and 8-10 TD's. Thomas Jones will also be able to find more running room this year, especially behind that revamped line.

Throw in a defense that's awful, and you have a team that is incredibly reliant on their offense, which means big fantasy bonuses (unless of course you for some reason draft the Jets D). They will have to score and score big in order to stay in most games (Think Browns/Bengals type of stats).

So if their offense is going to be so good, why am I worried about Favre? Well, for one, I think people will reach on him just because he's Brett Favre - taking him as the 4th or 5th QB is too early for me.

I'm not an expert on the Jet's offense (didn't watch them much the past 2 years), so I'm a little curious to see how Brett will fit in there. I mean, Chad Pennington is the anti-Favre (catious with the ball, and a noodle-arm), and he was a projected starter in the offense... Can that same offense have Favre step in with no problems? Or maybe the offense was designed for Clemens, who is more in the Favre mold, but simply isn't very good, so Pennington got thrown out there. I honestly don't know enough about it to answer those questions for sure.

In any case, Favre's been playing in GB for forever.... I think he'll be fine in NY, but I am going to be hesitant to draft him because he could struggle with a new offense simply because he's so used to Green Bay's. Combine that with a few new players along the o-line who may take awhile to adjust as well, and the opening couple of weeks could be interesting. I know I'm going to be watching closely during preseason, and holding off drafting until the end of August will definitely benefit me - if i see him struggling some, I'll drop him more.

Although he'll certainly put up numbers, I think he'll have more mistakes as well (think Carson Palmer or Derrick Anderson from last season). Unless he falls, I'd be leery. Then again, the Jets have one of the easiest schedules in the NFL this season, which could result in him having a career year. I'd say he's still a solid pick, but I just think people will jump on him too early.  

Answer 2

I was expecting better numbers from Jones even before the Favre trade. The Jets have spent a lot of money on upgrading their O Line and with D'Brickashaw (great football name) and Alan Faneca on the left side with Manigold under center they should be able to open lanes for TJ. The Jets also signed Tony Richardson, so TJ will have a true fullback and one of the best at that. With Richardson on board, TJ should be more effective in the Red Zone and score more than 1 rushing TD like he did last year. The Jets really didn't do anything to threaten TJ from being the main guy in the off season, they brought on Jesse Chatman but he is more of a change of pace back like Leon Washington and will help spell TJ to hopefully keep him healthy and ready for those goal line carries.

With Coles and Cotchery, I do see their value going up and if Coles can stay healthy he should push for around 90 catches and 1,100 yards with 10 TD's. Coles was hurt last year and out 6 games but does not have a history of injury problems, so he will be undervalued in a lot of drafts (less so with the Favre news). Cotchery used his chances last year when Coles was out and put up very good numbers. He is a great YAC guy and should see a lot of action once Favre starts.

The TE's should get a boost as well, only problem is not sure who that will be at this point. Baker seems better suited to be a blocking TE, Bubba Franks has the history with Favre but was let go from GB for a reason and Dustin Keller has a lot of talent and may have the best hands out of this bunch but is unproven as of yet.