Edge rusher Jachai Polite, whom the Jets selected No. 68 overall in the third round of the NFL Draft Friday night, clearly has upside, but there's significant risk with this selection.
Polite had a disastrous NFL Combine in which he performed poorly across the board and took issue with the questions teams were asking him in interviews, publicly complaining to reporters that teams were "bashing" him for bad plays on film.
The 21-year-old out of Florida owned up to the mistep after being drafted.
"It was all my fault," Polite told reporters. "And I learned from it."
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Polite acknowledged that it's been a "bumpy" road for him to the NFL.
"It was a great learning experience going into this league," Polite said. "I learned how to take care of business. I was kind of blinded before. being young and immature. But I've accepted all my flaws and have been working on it this offseason."
According to Pro Football Focus, Polite had the fourth-best pass-rushing grade among this draft class' edge defenders.
Mike Maccagnan believes Polite has potential but said it will be up to Polite to erase any concerns and fulfill that potential while the Jets surround him with people to help. The GM said a member of the scouting department worked with Polite at Florida.
"We did quite a bit of work on him. We know some of the risk in him," Maccagnan said. "We also think there are some really good qualities about him. When we got a chance to interview him, first at the combine and then we actually brought him into our facility and spent a day with him here, I felt pretty good with our guys in terms of the background work we did on him. There's risk in every player you take, but there's also a lot of upside and potential."