By the time the Jets are "ready to contend" will Scheifele or Trouba be around?
When are we building for? We just signed this core to 5+ years contracts. Which clearly indicates Chevy thinks this core can do something. Will they? What is the goal here?
Soon enough Kane/Scheifele will be "declining assets". At 23, Eberle is in the MIDDLE of his prime as an offensive threat. By the time "we are ready to contend" he will already be declining offensively if unless you think Buff is going to be useless in the next two years.
Eberle is a HUGE downgrade for this team right now and a negligible if any upgrade 2-4 years from now. Unless you are thinking we it's gonna take 5+ years to contend, which at that point Ladd, Little and many others become almost irrelevant as they need to change the whole core.
Taking what we have in place now I'm anticipating our window not opening for at least 3 or 4 years. Kane, Scheifele & Trouba are between 19-22 that's who we build around. Eberle is not in the middle of his prime at 23, that would suggest a player's prime is between 21-25 which would mean all our older core have moved past their prime and then consequently all should be moved for younger assets. At this point I'll have to trust our rookies will still be around at that time since we will still control them. And I'll choose not to see them as soon to be declining assets just yet.
In terms of signing our older core we had no choice about that, if you can't sign your own players they will have no value to you soon. IMO all our older core will be moved out and replaced with younger potential core players within the next 2-4 years. Chevy is going to have to make a choice on how to build this team.