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Palladino: Jets GM Needs Draft 'Portfolio' To Pay Immediate Dividends

By Ernie Palladino
» More Ernie Palladino Columns

Mike Maccagnan summed up his draft-day dilemma perfectly to the media last week.

"It's almost like a portfolio," he said. "Do you pick one stock you think is going to get the big return, or do you pick three stocks which may not actually hit the same ceiling, but the overall value of it actually gets a higher yield?"

It's almost an exercise in risk management.

Sitting at No. 6, the Jets can stay right where they are and get a very, very good player, even if presumed target Marcus Mariota finds his way to the commissioner's podium somewhere in the five picks before them.

Or, he could trade up to grab the Oregon quarterback and, in the process, give up another piece or two of his draft to the downward moving team.

Or, he could forget the Mariota gambit entirely and move down, thus gaining one or two extra picks and maybe a helpful veteran.

For a team desperately in need of a franchise quarterback, or at least enough young, potential solutions to pretty up last year's 4-12 ugliness, the Jets are looking at quite a momentous decision Thursday. Which is sort of Maccagnan's point.

Only, he doesn't have a lot of tomorrows to get his portfolio going.

Mike Maccagnan
New York Jets general manager Mike Maccagnan (Photo by Rich Schultz /Getty Images)

If only Maccagnan had it as easy as the idle rich, whose only job is to manage those portfolios daily with an aim toward adding wealth. Take a chance on a hot stock today, and if it fails, there's always tomorrow. Grab a few mediocre stocks the next day to get even, then go for the lungs again the next.

That's where Maccagnan's analogy diverges with reality. He has three days and six picks to get it done, starting with his first-rounder Thursday. Remember, the dethroned John Idzik shipped off the sixth-rounder in the Percy Harvin trade.

Six picks. None in the fifth or sixth round (the fifth-rounder went to the Bears for Brandon Marshall), two in the seventh.

Given that, and the fact that his next tomorrow comes a year from now, he had best make prudent use of rounds 1-4.

It's a short portfolio, and the key will lie in how Maccagnan views Mariota. If he believes the Oregon quarterback is the guy to lead the Jets for the next 10 years, bet that he'll lay out his current and future portfolio, possibly some choice pieces of his roster, and tell No. 2 Tennessee to take its pick.

Maccagnan knows as well as anyone that the NFL has become a quarterback's league. The days of Trent Dilfer winning a Super Bowl went the way of the Wooly Mammoth years ago. Now, if one doesn't have something that looks like an elite quarterback, the chances of even reaching the postseason becomes that much harder.

If, then, Maccagnan sees Mariota eventually standing among the top 10 at some point in the next three years, bet that he'll go all out to get him.

If Mariota doesn't wind up holding a Jets' jersey Thursday night in Chicago, it's a certainty that Maccagnan never held the same Mariota-as-savior view that nearly everybody else in the area seems to have. If that's the case, he'll probably go with those lesser stocks and trade downward for defense -- Missouri's Shane Ray might look good at defensive end opposite Muhammad Wilkerson, or Kentucky's Bud Dupree could help as a pass-rushing linebacker -- or perhaps a sharp wide receiver like Alabama's Amari Cooper, West Virginia's Kevin White, or Louisville's Devante Parker.

One predictor even said they could trade down for offensive line help, specifically Stanford tackle Andrus Peat. But that area doesn't represent a crying need, especially for a team who could still use another skill player or two.

Maccagnan doesn't have the luxury of many tomorrows. After two years of Idzik's silliness, the heat will be on the new GM to produce immediate profits. Though a bad draft won't sink him, a good draft could raise his own stock exponentially in Woody Johnson's mind.

For rich guys like Johnson, portfolios are zero-sum games. They gain, or they lose. And Johnson's folder is steeped in red right now.

For Maccagnan's own good, he had best make some profitable decisions between Thursday's first round and the final four rounds Saturday.

He'll have to wait a year until his next tomorrow.

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