Vernon Gholston Was Mangini's Choice

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Many Jets fans questioned the selection of Vernon Gholston ahead of Marques Murrell for the home tie against the Miami Dolphins. Well if we are being honest I didn't hear many objections until after the loss.

The logic of the questions was valid, why select a player who does very little on defence ahead of a player who does very little on defence but a lot on special teams. It made little sense before the game and even less sense after we saw Tedd Ginn return two kicks for touchdowns.

So now on top of being the most used target in Cleveland, the decision to draft Gholston seems to fall on the stone faced coach of the Browns, and former coach of the New York Jets, Eric Mangini.

I was always confident that Gholston would at some point turn the corner and show why he was drafted sixth overall in the 2008 draft. I thought that the scouts couldn't be as wrong as they were when they have picked up players like Revis/Harris and found later round stand outs like Washington and Cotchery.

Well it seems that many of the scouts were not in favour of drafting Gholston at all.

Speaking to Rich Cimini of the daily news, one unanimous source confirmed what some had been speculating when he said of the drafting of Gholston:

"That one's on Eric,"

In fact it has been suggested that scouts were heavily favouring another player, reportedly Leodis McKelvin who was later selected 11th overall by division rival Buffalo Bills.

However as Mike Tannenbaum, GM of the New York Jets commented to Cimini:

"On all draft decisions, I have the final say. But, organizationally, we felt good about Vernon. Although his rate of improvement isn't where we want it to be, we're still happy he's here and we feel good about his future."

So what does this all mean to the New York Jets going forward, we potentially have a bust who we feel the need to keep on the active roster with his $21 million we guaranteed. It seemed he was making progress earlier this season, but once Pace returned, Vernon returned to his invisible status.

I was asked by a Jaguars fan what they can expect from Gholston this Sunday, I simply replied:

"If you hear his name once during the game, he has done more than he usually does"

I consider myself to be a patient fan, but even the most patient among us has to start looking at the big picture and recognising that it may be time to start considering what we can do with him, which may not be a whole lot.

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