Sam Darnold and the new rookie class makes for an interesting 2018 pre-training camp player power ranking New York Jets list.
Wearing a stale black t-shirt, a no-name white hat and even bleaker maroon shorts, there he was, the golden-armed kid worth millions to an organization sporting some of the same clothes you and I could whirl up via hand-me-down. Sam Darnold entered MetLife Stadium for the first time with no flash to go along with all emotion as seen on Tuesday night as part of Facebook’s Episode 4 of “One Jets Drive: The Road to Training Camp.”
This is the kid, the third selection of the 2018 NFL Draft who so easily showcases raw emotion. He turns excited (as seen when he and his rookie colleagues checked out their new professional digs) yet always stops short of the level of overly emotional. He maintains an even-keel, a flat-line of sorts that projects perfectly unto his new professional career as a young adult.
He now joins the official fray—Sam Darnold, that is.
Darnold, along with many more young ones and veterans join the Florham Park fray this season. Much like the usual 33 percent turnover as it pertains to roster freshness each season in this specific league, the New York Jets remained pretty on par since the end of the 2017 campaign.
Now that Darnold is in the fold, the unimportant yet terribly difficult decision of where he ranks among the crop is necessary. It was only a year ago we threw Jamal Adams in the top five prior to training camp and turned up aces. It’s now officially time to take on the same challenge heading into the 2018 version of camp.
Here are the 2018 pre-training camp player power rankings:
Notables
- Trenton Cannon
- Jordan Leggett
- Clive Walford
- Eric Tomlinson
- Ben Ijalana
- Brent Qvale
- Dakoda Shepley
- Dakota Dozier
- Antonio Garcia
- ArDarius Stewart
- Charone Peake
- Thomas Rawls
- Deon Simon
- Folorunso Fatukasi
- Xavier Cooper
- Courtney Upshaw
- Josh Martin
- Neville Hewitt
- Rontez Miles
- Derrick Jones
- Kevin Perre-Louis
- Cairo Santos
- Thomas Hennessy
The notables section is pretty self-explanatory—23 individuals on top of the 40 we ranked give us 63 total Jets. That number is, obviously, nine over the 53-man roster. So we’re toiling with a realistic number of 63 that exactly equal the 53-man roster plus 10 practice squad members.
The higher upside individuals on the notables include newcomer Courtney Upshaw and rooks Trenton Cannon and Dakoda Shepley.
Now let’s move on to the big show, beginning with No. 40:
