Here are five things you might want to know about Armand Membou, the Jets' seventh overall pick of Round 1 at the NFL Draft on Thursday night. Bon appétit!
The French Connection
Membou is the son of Suffo Membou and Annie Melong, immigrants from Cameroon whose first language is French. "If I'm outside and I need to scold him, I think I will speak more in French because I know he's going to understand that better," Annie told the Columbia Missourian in 2022, although she added that there wasn't much scolding for Armand — "He was such a good kid."
And Armand feels the same way about his parents. "I owe them the world, knowing how much they sacrificed for me, two people coming over from Cameroon and doing everything they could for me."
Size Matters
Membou comes to the Jets as a physical specimen, having dominated the OL at the NFL Combine in February. But he wasn't always sculpted to star in the pros.
At Lee's Summit North HS in Missouri, his then HC , Jamar Mozee, said: "I always loved him, always treated him with respect. ... Never in a million years did I see him becoming who he was."
Before his junior season, Membou was 6-0, not yet 6-3, and he was thin for an O-lineman, much thinner than his current 332 pounds. His smaller size helped him pursue other sports in high school, such as wrestling, soccer and even tennis.
"He used to be really skinny," said Cayden Green, Membou's high school teammate. "I guess that helped him be quick."
Kindred Spirit, No Lyin'
Player comparisons are a bigger part than ever in pre- and postdraft analysis these days, and Jets HC Aaron Glenn put on his analyst's visor for just a minute to offer a comparison from his previous life as the Detroit defensive coordinator, and that was measuring Membou's vigor and physicality in applying finishing blocks to defenders up Lions RT Penei Sewell, who just happened to also be a seventh overall pick, in 2021 after Glenn first arrived in Detroit.
"The mentality and the demeanor of the players is exactly the same," AG said. "That's what attracted me to the player first and foremost. Then to see how he moves, and then to get a chance to talk to the person — it was like a perfect storm, that guy becoming a Jet."
No Advice Necessary
Membou has come a long way from his youth to his arrival on the Jets as a 21-year-old first-round draft choice. He was asked by Caroline Hendershot, newyorkjets.com reporter, what advice he would give, if he could, to his eighth-grade self about the years ahead. Membou was articulate in stating what he wouldn't articulate anything to the young Armand.
"I wouldn't tell him nothing," Membou said, "because what he did worked. I'm here now.".
Bookends: Distant Replay
Membou will have to earn whatever position and playing time he gets as a Jet, even as the seventh overall pick of the draft. But it is a distinct possibility that, with his drafting Thursday and Olu Fashanu's arrival at No. 11 last year, the Jets have filled their OL shelf with bookend tackles in back-to-back Round 1 drafts.
Just as they did in 1977-78.
In 1977, the Jets grabbed Marvin Powell out of Southern Cal with the fourth overall pick and he moved in as the right tackle starter from his first game, at the Houston Oilers in the '77 season opener.
The next year, they held the fourth pick again. This time they snared Chris Ward from Ohio State, and he stepped right in at left tackle and started from his first game, against Miami to kick off the '78 season.
Ward and Powell, Powell and Ward. However you list them, they started together for six seasons, from 1978-83, a total of 85 starts together in the Jets' 96 games, including playoffs, in that span. Forty-seven years later, Membou and Fashanu could be starring in the remake: Round 1 Jets Bookends, Part Deux.
