“You know me by now. O-line, Dline, the more the merrier,” Saleh said. “You can never have enough.” The coach added that having recently acquired veteran tackles Tyron Smith and Morgan Moses helps with Fashanu’s transition to the pro game. “They have so much wealth of experience, not only in technique but in also how to be a pro and prepare at this level. The young man’s only 21 years old. He hasn’t even scratched the surface yet.”
Fashanu sees many benefits to putting on the green and white as soon as next week’s rookie minicamp. And three of those reasons are three of the players he watched video of when he first started playing football at his Washington, DC, high school: QB Aaron Rodgers and fellow tackles Tyron Smith and Morgan Moses.
“Aaron Rodgers, just growing up watching him and all the gereat things he’s done throughout his career, to have that opportunity to be on the same team and just ask him any bits and tips and advice as to what made his career so successful, that’s just the best opportunity,” he said.
As for Smith, Fashanu said, “I feel like I’m living a fairytale. He was the first player I ever watched when I started watching film as a tackle. At the time, he was the absolute standard at left tackle.” Similarly for Moses: “He’s a guy I’ve watched a lot of film on from the past. To have the opportunity to learn under two veteran tackles, I’m just truly blessed.”
Besides the 10th overall pick, the Jets also sent their sixth-round selection, 203rd pick to the Vikings, and they received in return the Vikes’ 11th pick as well as their fourth-round choice (129th) and their fifth-rounder (157th).
“The added ammo is great. It gives us more flexibility,” Douglas said. “We’ll assess how the rest of this round goes, we’ll put our board together for tomorrow night, and there are going to be five or six scenarios as far as moving up, moving back. Having those extra picks gives us a lot of flexibility to do different things.”
The Jets have gone to the Happy Valley well often over the years, with Fashanu the 28th Nittany Lion to be drafted by the Green & White. Many of the noteworthy Penn State Jets draftees played on the defensive side of the ball, beginning with LB Ralph Baker (43rd, 1964), followed by DE John Ebersole (98th, 1970), LB Greg Buttle (67th, 1976), LB Lance Mehl (69th, 1980), S Harry Hamilton (176th, 1984) and DT Lou Benfatti (94th, 1994).