UPDATE: Oops, our man Steiny wrote this up already below, so we’ll just add our thoughts here.

I’m not going to argue his rankings, especially when you look at some of the names that other teams have on their roster that Barnwell mentions in the article.  It seems clear that Barnwell is using age, ability, and playing time as the key ingredients in getting his stew going.  So while 26 players that the Jets have who are 24 or under, there are just 11 of those guys who the team actually drafted.  Most of the other 15 won’t make the final squad, and even some of those drafted players might have a tough time staking their claim on a roster spot.

Still, either Slauson or Ducasse will be starting on the line, both are under 25.  Joe McKnight might have a big role for the Jets before the season is out and John Conner is poised to take over for fullback Tony Richardson, maybe even as soon as this year.  But I am not going to say those guys are really all that “sexy”.

While the article is about youth, I think that the Jets really hold their own with the next age bracket up.  There are nine players who are starters for the Jets (so not even counting DeVito or Holmes) who are between 25 and 27, which I would consider prime playing years in this league. 

Even if the Jets aren’t the youngest most talented team, Jets are actually close to the league mean for age, so while they don’t have very much in the way of extremely young promising talent, I think they have it at some key positions for roleplayers for a long, long time.

So for the Jets in my mind, it comes down to two things:

Their UDFAs – This is the year that guys like Matt Kroul, Kenwin Cummings and maybe even someone from this class like a Jason Lamb or Donovan Warren needs to start paying dividends.  We’ve seen players like DeVito rise, now it’s time for the next generation do that and fill some of the gaps for the team as very young and very productive players. 

This is especially key that the Jets get as much out of UDFAs as possible in the next 2-3 years, since the team holds their rights, can basically pay them minimums, and the team is going to have to make like a python and swallow the salary bulge that will be coming for the Jets in the next season or two with so many big names up for contracts.

Drafting Deep – Before the 2010 Draft, Terry Bradway applauded Mike Tannenbaum for being aggressive in moving up often since 2007 to get targeted players.  Ironically in the drafts where the Jets limited their picks, they’ve ended up with virtually the same number of multi-year starters per draft – about 2.5.  In ‘07, ‘09 and ‘10 they’ve had four or less picks, and while they’ll likely (already or projected to) hit their targets on getting their 2-3 starters out of those classes, they’ve limited the number of young depth role players the team has been able to acquire. 

Now, I’m not complaining when you consider some of the team’s targets since ‘07 – Revis, Harris, Keller, Sanchez, Greene  … not a bad grouping.  This becomes even more interesting when you consider guys like Edwards, Holmes, Jenkins and Favre came via trades of draft picks.  But for the Jets, they are going to need to get younger along their defensive line, linebacking corps and even wide receivers sooner or later..