By engaging in a three-way trade with the Atlanta Falcons and Denver Broncos Tuesday, new Jets general manager Mike Tannenbaum and coach Eric Mangini laid the groundwork for a two pronged strategy for building their team. Dealing defensive end John Abraham to Atlanta shows that Mangini’s new defense will favor role players over superstars, while acquiring Denver’s first-round draft pick (the 29th overall) puts Tannenbaum in excellent position to move up in the draft and pick the Jets’ quarterback of the future.

Abraham was never the right fit for the type of defense that Mangini wants to run. Because sacks are the most commonly cited statistic for defensive players, Abraham, who had 10 or more sacks every year he stayed healthy, garnered more recognition than he deserved. A good pass rusher is always valuable, but Abraham gets hurt too often and is a liability against the run. And in the defense Mangini wants to run, pure pass rushers aren’t needed – in Mangini’s six years as an assistant in New England, no Patriot ever had 10 sacks in a season.

Mangini will import the same basic scheme he ran as the Patriots’ defensive coordinator, one that relies on three linemen and four linebackers. Abraham fits better into a four-lineman front. If he had stayed with the Jets, Mangini would have had to shoehorn Abraham into a position that didn’t suit him,or he would have been forced to run a defense that didn’t reflect his philosophy solely to match Abraham’s strengths.

The Jets got a much better defensive end for Mangini’s system last week when they signed Kimo von Oelhoffen, a 13-year veteran defensive lineman who has played most of his career in a 3-4 front. With 25.5 sacks in 174 career games, von Oelhoffen doesn’t have Abraham’s explosive pass-rushing ability, but he’s a better run defender, a better fit in the 3-4, and he’ll cost the Jets about $5 million less a year than it would have cost to keep Abraham.

Because the Jets declared Abraham their franchise player, he counted for $8.3 million against their salary cap – money that came off the books on Tuesday. Only a few weeks ago, the Jets were in terrible salary cap shape, but the combination of trading Abraham, restructuring Chad Pennington’s contract, and getting a higher salary cap thanks to the league’s new collective bargaining agreement have changed all that. Now the Jets have plenty of cap space available to make other moves.

Based on what the Jets have done so far in free agency, those other moves will most likely follow the Patriots’ model of signing mid-level players who can fill specific needs rather than breaking the bank with stars. In addition to von Oelhoffen, a case in point is linebacker Matt Chatham, who played for Mangini in New England, and who signed a three-year deal with the Jets last week. Chatham has never been a star and has rarely even been a starter, but he knows how to play both inside and outside linebacker in Mangini’s defense and he’s a solid contributor on special teams. Von Oelhoffen and Chatham combined will cost less than half of what the Falcons are paying Abraham.

So the defense appears to be coming into place without Abraham. Even so, no one can evaluate the Abraham trade without knowing how the Jets will use the 29th pick in the draft. As the owners of the fourth and 35th picks in addition to the 29th, the Jets could stockpile talent, but it seems more likely that they’ll use those picks to pull off at least one more trade before draft day.

The Houston Texans are widely expected to take USC running back Reggie Bush with the first pick, leaving the New Orleans Saints to decide among the draft’s three top quarterbacks – USC’s Matt Leinart, Texas’s Vince Young, and Vanderbilt’s Jay Cutler – at no. 2, with Leinart the most likely option. But when the Saints signed free agent Drew Brees last week, things got interesting. On the day the Saints announced they had signed Brees, they also announced they would look to trade the second pick in the draft.

That’s where the 29th pick comes into play. If the Jets combine it with the fourth pick and throw in a late-round pick as well, they could swing a trade with the Saints that would make sense for both teams: It would give the Jets the chance to take Leinart and allow the Saints to pick up an extra first round pick.

The Jets might be able to stand pat and still have Leinart fall to them at no. 4, but that would be a risky move. Even if all three of the teams picking ahead of the Jets decide they have bigger needs than quarterback, another team might entice the Saints or the Tennessee Titans, who own the third pick, to leapfrog the Jets and snatch Leinart. If the front office is confident that Leinart is a franchise quarterback, the Jets need to trade up to make sure they get him.

Why Leinart? Taking a quarterback at the top of the draft is always a gamble, but Leinart is the closest thing this year to a sure bet. Unlike Young, he played in a pro-style offense in college, and unlike Cutler he comes from a program full of players with NFL potential and coaches with NFL experience. He also has the experience of playing under a press spotlight in Los Angeles, and he has stated his desire to play for the Jets.

If they do draft Leinart, the Jets will suddenly be in the exact opposite situation they were in last season: They’ll have too many quarterbacks. Leinart’s arrival would make either Pennington or the recently acquired Patrick Ramsey expendable. The Jets could trade one of their veterans and still have the other available in place as they groom Leinart.

Until draft day, this will be known in New York as the John Abraham trade, and Jets fans will have mixed emotions about it because Abraham is only 27 and has plenty of good football left in him. But if this trade was just a precursor to another, moving Abraham will be known as the first part of the Matt Leinart trade. That would inject life into a franchise that until very recently looked lifeless.

Mr. Smith is a regular writer for FootballOutsiders.com.