Steelers-24
Cardinals -20
Giants – 23
Patriots-28

And so forth. (I’m at work right now.)

I think it will show that the teams that are able to keep dominate franchises draft a lot of players, put a premium on making smart draft choices, and have fair to great development programs.

In all this one of the frustrating things is that guys think I’m hating on the Jets. But if you can accept that the Jets have a strong history of losing, then you have to start to take a look at what the long term habits of this franchise has been. I think the Jets have a good foundation now. I think they have still shown to have some bad habits.

For a start, you can rule out any year before 1994 because the draft went 12 rounds back then, so no team was going to ever have an average of anywhere close to 4 picks per year.

Free agency came in at the same time, as did compensatory picks. Since that time, although teams start with 7 picks, they actually average 8 picks. So, on average, each team gets one compensatory pick per year (or three over a three year period). The Jets happened to not have any in any of them three years, so they “wasted” 8 of 21 picks, whereas another team (on average) would have to “waste” 11 picks over a three year span to get to 13. I put wasted in inverticommas because they did convert those picks into value.

In terms of compensatory picks, they did get the maximum compensation (a 3rd rounder – Eric Smith) in 2006 and they have comfortably more UFA losses than additions this year so will definitely get bonus picks in 2010. It is rare for a team that isn’t spending every year (the Jets were clearing cap room until 2008) to not have any compensatory picks.

I tried to find one anyway and I basically couldn’t (not that I looked all that hard). So, I can’t find a team that only had 13 picks in 3 years and still reached the championship game but I can’t find one that failed to either. There’s nothing to say it’s definitely a bad plan.

Having said that, I did stumble across the following facts:

- Fewest picks between 2002-2006 was the Redskins. No argument here, they have been poorly managed, although I think the differences between Snyder and Tannenbaum’s approaches have been pointed out.

- Miami was next, followed by Atlanta and Minnesota. Atlanta did go to the NFC championship game. Minnesota did win a division title.

- Tennessee had the most, followed by SF and StL. Again, three teams that didn’t go to the Superbowl in that span (but then if you’re preaching balance, perhaps you’d expect that). Tennessee did go to the AFC title game in 2002 and SF did win a division title.

- 4th fewest picks over the last 4 years is apparently the Saints…who could be on their way to a perfect season, if the media hype is to be believed.

- The closest I could find to 13 in 3 years was the 49ers from 1995-1997 who had 14 picks. In those three years, they were 36-12 in the regular season and lost to the Packers in the playoffs three straight times (twice in the divisional playoffs and then in the 1997 NFC Title game, which they probably would have won if they didn’t lose Jerry Rice and Garrison Hearst to injury). Not too shabby, although admittedly they were already the Superbowl champions before that three year period and the Jets at the end of the 2006 season, um, were not.

Using the number of picks is kind of a misnomer. Instead you would need to consider value and the Jets draft picks, in total would be as valuable as most other teams because they traded up to obtain picks of higher value. They went for quality over quantity, perhaps figuring their depth throughout the team was better than thought because of the emerging youngsters like Clowney, Devito, Pitoitua and Turner. It’s definitely a risky strategy, that I didn’t like much at the time.

It seems having so few picks over a 3 year period is pretty much unprecedented, but that doesn’t necessarily guarantee success or failure. At least the Jets (a) have some cap flexibility, (b) should have at least six picks next year, (c) do have some youthful talent on the team that they didn’t draft and (d) have a relatively high success rate with the guys they moved up for.

Lets have the Jetsblog sponsor a boxing match between me and Igs.

We can use the money raised for a charity of sorts