Will Rich’s & Jets Fans’ Post-NFL Draft Optimism Last Beyond Week 1 This Season?

Jets fans are convinced their team nailed the draft, and Rich, lifelong sufferer of the franchise, is letting himself believe it for a few more weeks before the schedule release tests the theory.

The conversation opened with Brockman invoking Vinny Pasquantino, the Royals first baseman and ride-or-die Jets fan who splits his year between Nashville and Kansas City and is already lobbying for the Jets schedule to land after the baseball season. "He wants to make sure it's after the baseball season," Brockman said. "I hate this team. Well, maybe not anymore. The kid's back. They nailed it. The Jets are crushing right now."

Rich reframed the optimism around the haul itself. "Four. They got four really good football players in the 50 picks, and we'll see the other ones. Really good players," he said, before naming the only variable that matters in the AFC East. "It's all up to Gino."

That, he conceded, is exactly the trap. "It has nothing to do with this year. It's literally every year. They have a new quarterback. Gino's going to find a late-career ala Stafford and Rodgers and Brady, and I know I'm naming some names. He's going to find a late-career fountain of youth and be the Darnold of this situation. Or the next quarterback is in next year's draft."

The Jets brain trust, in Rich's telling, is now leaning on Aaron Glenn and a draft class headlined by David Bailey, Kenyon Siddique, and Omar Cooper to repeat what Sauce Gardner, Garrett Wilson, and Jermaine Johnson were supposed to do. "And Sauce Gardner and Jermaine Johnson aren't there anymore," Rich said. "Neither is Quinnen. But those picks are now turning into the three I just mentioned and the three more that are next year. And if that happens, they're the first team to have three first-round picks in consecutive drafts. And if the GM's the right guy to do it and they start building this thing up the right way, then this is the finally the rebuild that ends all previous rebuilds. This is the rebuild that ends the rebuilding. This is the building."

Brockman cut him off the second the bit went too earnest. "It sound like Sixers fans. The process. Never trust the process. I'm telling you that right now." TJ Jefferson punctuated it with a Payton Pritchard reference, twisting the knife on the Celtics-Sixers history every Jets fan should heed.

Rich landed where he started, on the avatar of his own faith. "This is the reality of the situation with the Jets, but good for Vinny. Vinny Pasquantino is the avatar of Jet fans saying, they nailed it, and I'm into this rebuild."