By Steve Lichtenstein
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“The Jets just don’t understand what the draft is all about.”
Those words, deriding the Jets’ baffling tendency to “reach” for players before their appropriate draft-round value, were delivered by a then-relatively unknown Mel Kiper on ESPN after their 1989 selection of University of Virginia linebacker Jeff Lageman in the first round.
Those words have been haunting Jets fans ever since, and they reverberated in my head again late Friday night following Gang Green’s second-round pick of Penn State quarterback Christian Hackenberg.
Mike Maccagnan has done a lot of good in his two offseasons as Jets general manager, but he’s asking a tortured fan base to take a giant leap of faith here.