Since the day he took over as general manager of the Jets in 2015, Mike Maccagnan has repeated one phrase: “Build through the draft.”

Over and over, Maccagnan has said that phrase and put it at the center of his philosophy as the Jets GM.

Maccagnan will oversee his fourth draft with the Jets next week, facing the biggest decision of his tenure with the No. 3 pick. With three drafts in the books, we thought it would be a good time to take a look at Maccagnan’s drafting with the Jets to see what trends have shown themselves over that time.

Since 2015, Maccagnan has made 22 total picks. They are split almost evenly on offense and defense. He has drafted 11 defensive players, 10 offensive players and one specialist. At the top of the draft, however, he has leaned heavily toward defense. All three of his first-round picks (Leonard Williams, Darron Lee and Jamal Adams) — and one of his second-round picks (Marcus Maye) — have come on defense. That figures to change in the first round this year.

The position Maccagnan has drafted the most has been wide receiver. He has taken four receivers in three years (Devin Smith, Charone Peake, ArDarius Stewart and Chad Hansen). The next most frequent positions targeted are outside linebacker and cornerback; he has selected three of each. Maccagnan has drafted quarterbacks twice and safeties twice; both safeties coming last year with Adams and Maye in the first and second rounds, respectively.

Over the three years, Maccagnan has made his fair share of trades. He has done 13 deals involving draft picks, including his most recent, in which he sent this year’s No. 6 pick, two second-round picks this year and a second rounder next year to the Colts for the No. 3 overall pick.

Of those 13 trades, six have been trade-down scenarios, four times they have been for a player and three times he has traded up. There are some patterns in the trades that show where Maccagnan felt the roster was at the time. In his first year on the job, he traded for three players and another player was a throw-in on one deal. Those trades for Brandon Marshall, Ryan Fitzpatrick and Zac Stacy in 2015 showed that Maccagnan felt he needed players who could play immediately as he began to restock the roster with draft picks.

Contrast that with last year when he traded down five times during the draft to acquire more picks. The Jets had just purged their roster of veterans and Maccagnan clearly was in pick acquisition mode to try to add more rookies to a rebuilding roster.

When you examine the ages of the players Maccagnan drafted, an interesting pattern emerges. With his early picks, he has taken younger players. This may just be a product of players being selected high who left college a year early, but it seems to be important to Maccagnan, who has cited the ages of some of the players after they are drafted. Williams, Lee, Adams and Christian Hackenberg, taken in the second round in 2016, were all 21 at the start of their rookie seasons. Maccagnan has been more willing to take older players later in the draft. Deon Simon (2015 seventh round) and Dylan Donahue (2017 fifth round) were both 25 when their rookie year began. Bryce Petty (2015 fourth round), Brandon Shell (2016 fifth round), Lac Edwards (2016 seventh round) and Maye (2017 second round) were all 24 at the start of their rookie years. Maye is the only older early-round pick. The average age of all of Maccagnan’s draft picks is 22.8 years old.

Maccagnan has shown an affinity for players from big schools. Only four players came from outside of the Power 5 conferences, all taken in the fifth round or later.

As for how Maccagnan’s picks have worked out, 21 of the 22 picks remain on the roster. That can be viewed as him hitting on picks or as him being stubborn about moving on from them. Seven of the picks have become regular starters with three or four others developing into role players with the team.