Needing to Get Faster, the Jets Act Quickly - New York Times

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. â€" The two defining plays of the Jets’ disappointing 2011 season produced more than anguish and heartbreak. They informed the team’s strategy for the N.F.L. draft.

The lasting images of Tim Tebow’s 20-yard touchdown scamper on Nov. 17 and of Victor Cruz’s 99-yard reception on Christmas Eve are of Jets defenders in frantic pursuit, arms pumping, legs churning, but unable to run down Tebow and Cruz.

Tired of chasing, the Jets have spent the off-season trying to catch up. They addressed team speed in off-season workout programs and with their top three draft picks, all of whose times in the 40-yard dash were highlighted the last two days by giddy team executives.

“We wanted to get faster,” said Joey Clinkscales, the organization’s vice president for college scouting. “The league is getting faster.”

The Jets did not select speedsters purely for the sake of vanity. Each pick satisfies a definite need, from defensive end Quinton Coples’s pass-rushing ability to the 6-foot-5 receiver Stephen Hill’s red-zone promise and superior blocking skills to inside linebacker Demario Davis’s experience covering tight ends and special-teams aptitude.

And each pick also represents a risk beyond a draft’s standard unpredictability, from Coples’s perceived need for motivation to Hill’s lack of receptions in Georgia Tech’s triple-option offense to Davis’s frame (6-2, 235 pounds), undersize for an inside linebacker.

The special-teams coordinator Mike Westhoff coveted Davis, but the Jets would not have taken him so high â€" 77th over all â€" if they held meager expectations. Just because the Jets are implementing a power-running offense under the new coordinator Tony Sparano does not mean that they do not recognize the transformation of the N.F.L. into a pass-heavy league. The Jets already have capable cornerbacks â€" or in the case of Darrelle Revis, an elite cornerback â€" and so they need quick defenders who move well in space, to clog the passing lanes in the middle of the field, where dynamic tight ends like Rob Gronkowski and Vernon Davis and Jimmy Graham often roam. In Davis, the Jets believe they have a candidate to perform immediately in obvious passing downs â€" situations in which Bart Scott was often replaced last season. Terry Bradway, the Jets’ senior personnel executive, said Davis’s speed (4.49 seconds in the 40) was an appealing attribute.

“No question,” General Manager Mike Tannenbaum added.

It was also true of Hill, who at the scouting combine told the Jets that he would run a 4.3 40. He was wrong â€" sort of. He ran 4.31.

“That was definitely routine,” Hill said.

Hill’s playmaking potential â€" he averaged 55.5 yards per touchdown catch â€" impressed Tannenbaum and his staff as much as his blocking, a requisite in a Georgia Tech offense that completed only 82 passes and an asset in the Jets’ revamped scheme, and his attire for his predraft workout, a suit and tie that he wore because, he said, “this is actually a job.”

And that job is very likely to be as their No. 2 receiver, a more viable option to draw coverage away from Santonio Holmes than Plaxico Burress, who was dynamic in the red zone but ineffective outside of it.

In evaluating the Jets’ three choices late Friday night, Tannenbaum sounded much like every other general manager at this time â€" thrilled with his haul, thankful all were available, delighted to see the pieces fit.

He called it a “good start,” and it was only a start, and not just because the Jets had five more selections, spread across the sixth and seventh rounds, on Saturday afternoon. Teams that miss the playoffs traditionally have as many flaws as draft picks, and in the first three rounds the Jets opted not to bolster their offensive line â€" specifically at right tackle, where Wayne Hunter has the job security of a substitute teacher â€" because they adhered to their draft board, taking their highest-rated player all three times.

Tannenbaum plucked their starting left guard, Matt Slauson, in the sixth round in 2009, but it is more likely that the Jets add competition for Hunter to a pool that includes the 2010 second-rounder Vlad Ducasse, a disappointment thus far, in coming weeks. The Jets will upgrade that position, as well as their running back corps, and if the last two days are any indication they will do so quickly.