The Ja'Marr Chase Thread

[CJD]

(08-30-2021, 12:38 PM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: I think the biggest things we, as fans, will regret when it comes to the Chase pick are:
1. Genuinely believing a rookie was going to come in and be an undisputed #1 WR and the marvel that he was in college.
2. Comparing him to John Ross from the second he joined the team.

I get it. We have had three top 10 WRs in the last 11 drafts. One was instantly transcendent. Another was basically a bust from the second he joined the team. He wasn't able to stay healthy and, when he was healthy, he had no impact on the game. I think it was inevitable that Chase was going to be judged on the Green-Ross binary.

So far, Chase's career is reminding fans of Ross more than Green. Is history bound to repeat itself? Did we actually draft the same stupid player twice in less than a decade? I feel like our fanbase is still kind of reeling from the Ross pick. It wasn't viewed favorably at the time and it was only natural to want to say "I told you so!" when it, predictably, didn't work out.

And now, again, a divisive pick at WR. Not for the same reasons, mind you. Ross was undeniably a reach when we picked him. He was all speed with questionable toughness, injury history and questions about the difficulty of his opposition tied in with a suspicion that he only got drafted that high because he broke the 40 yard dash record at the combine.

Chase, on the other hand, was definitively not considered a reach. The reason his selection was divisive was because we could have taken a player that we'd been primed to take for, literally over a year to that point. There were people holding Sewell signs at home games during the 2020 season. There were concerns about winning games because it would knock us out of "Sewell range." There was even rumblings of "oh shit, NYJ is now picking #2. There isn't a QB that is worth that pick, so they'll obviously take Sewell. We're screwed!"

When a fanbase builds a player up in their head like this, it's only natural that having the opportunity to draft them and passing on that opportunity will create divisiveness.

We experienced a somewhat similar sensation when we drafted Zeitler instead of DeCastro, who we had convinced ourselves would not be available at our pick in 2012. Then he was, and we traded down anyway. There was a very similar visceral reaction to Zeitler. Fortunately for him, he played well from the beginning of his career, but had he struggled, the same questions would have started to come up as well.

I hope we, as a fan base, keep in mind the differences between Chase and Ross going into the season.

Chase was not a reach. He was not a bad pick. He is not a bust waiting to happen.

If you stop comparing him to Ross, you'll feel much better about the idea that rookies are still rookies. The expectation that he'd step in and immediately be our #1 WR and that we'd have a top 3 WR corp between him, Boyd and Higgins was ALWAYS unrealistic and I'm grateful that that bubble has been popped early. That way, we won't have to suffer this same angst 8 weeks in when Chase isn't averaging 100 yards per game like so many people had come to expect during this off season.

Perhaps I spoke too soon haha. In an attempt to temper expectations, I undervalued just how elite this man is.