Thursday, June 20, 2002

ProFootballWeekly.com asks personnel expert Joel Buchsbaum for his thoughts on the hottest topics in football. 

Jets sign first-round pick Thomas

The Jets signed DE Bryan Thomas, their first-round draft pick out of Alabama-Birmingham, to a four-year, $6.6 million contract Wednesday. The deal includes $4 million in guaranteed bonuses for Thomas, the 22nd selection in April's draft. Thomas had 14 sacks last season for the Blazers and set the school and Conference USA records with 35 career sacks. The 6-foot-4, 266-pound Thomas was timed at 4.49 in the 40-yard dash and could be a perfect complement to All-Pro DE John Abraham. The Jets ranked 22nd in the NFL last season with 33 total sacks. Thomas is just the second first-round pick from April's draft to sign, joining Houston QB David Carr.

Buchsbaum: Thomas is a tremendous athlete with outstanding quickness and speed — almost rare quickness and speed. He was drafted for his pass-rushing ability, effort, hard work and character. He improved every year in college and is a classic example of a Prop-48 who actually did the extra work to graduate so he could return to school for an extra year and went from a projected fifth-round pick in 2001 to a first-round pick in ’02. Basically, the Jets hope he can get big enough to play left defensive end. If he can’t, he’ll be the swing end behind Shaun Ellis, Steve White and John Abraham and a situational pass rusher this year.

Elway leads new Arena League team

Three years after retiring from the NFL, former Broncos QB John Elway has undertaken a new challenge in the football world. Elway announced the creation of an expansion Arena Football League team for the Denver area Tuesday. He will co-own the team with Broncos owner Pat Bowlen and Kroenke Sports, which owns the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche and NBA’s Denver Nuggets.

Buchsbaum: With Elway, Jerry Jones and other NFL people going to the Arena League, I think it just adds a more major-league presence, makes it more legitimate and makes the likelihood of the NFL buying into it next year greater.

Obviously, Elway would like to buy a team, but that opportunity will depend on the finances and availability of a team. Thus far, his business ventures have been a mixed bag. His Web site, with Joe Montana and Michael Jordan, didn’t work out. His car dealership did work out, but how much of that worked out because of the magic of the name John Elway and how much did it work out because of the businessman John Elway? Unless you start out with Rockefeller or Lamar Hunt type of money, you have to be a tremendously successful businessman and have a tremendous cushion to get the money to be more than a front man for an owner.

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2001 - 2002 Season