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The Jets were heavily criticized this weekend for drafting two players with violent pasts when they picked Kenrick Ellis and Bilal Powell in the third and fourth rounds, respectively.
But based on some violent, threatening words that Jets’ seventh-round pick Scotty McKnight wrote in a journal when he was in high school (nearly derailing his promising football career), you’d have thought the Jets drafted the next Charles Manson at receiver.
Some chilling, gruesome passages McKnight wrote in that journal made Ellis, a Hampton nose tackle who has a July trial date for felony assault stemming from a fight he had a year ago, and Powell, a Louisville running back who was stabbed in a gang-related incident in high school, look like choirboys.
McKnight, a former Colorado receiver and boyhood friend of Mark Sanchez, nearly got himself expelled during his senior year of high school in 2005 for penning some threatening words directed at his Tesoro (Calif.) High School English teacher in a journal that was supposed to be private, but became public.
One of the entries McKnight and Tesoro teammate Sam Smith wrote referred to gluing the teacher naked to a wall, cutting off her feet and killing her family while she watches, according to court documents.
“I am planning on coming in your room late one night while you’re still working,” read one partial entry. “I will smother you in gasoline and light your head on fire … “
McKnight, reached last night in California by The Post, doesn’t deny writing those things, but vehemently said he and his friend challenged each other in a private prank, using outrageous word images.
“It was an error in judgment that led to a huge consequence,” McKnight told The Post. “I was 17 years old and had a class assignment to do some creative writing and the teacher told us for the first five minutes of class to write whatever you want, be creative and that no one was going ever to read it.
“Me and a buddy wrote some crazy stuff, [Quentin] Tarantino-like movie type stuff and were trying to one-up each other, figuring no one was ever going to read it. It was a lack of judgment for sure, but we were 17 years old and not thinking — clearly.”
The English teacher, Alyssa Di Somma, read the journal and went to school superiors, saying she felt threatened.
McKnight was suspended by the school while an investigation ensued and he missed the last eight games of his senior football season — drastically affecting his college career.
“Here I am at 17 thinking I’m on top of the world and with one lack of judgment everything’s flipped,” McKnight said. “Everything was going great. Schools were already talking to me, I committed to Boise State and all of a sudden there was a perception of maybe this kid is not a good character.”
Boise State eventually shied away from McKnight and his best choice was to walk on at Colorado, where he became a record-setting receiver.
McKnight, who was with Sanchez when he was drafted on Sunday and was with him last night when he spoke to The Post, said he spoke about the incident with every team interested in drafting him, including the Jets.
He called it “a misunderstanding,” recalling that “someone in the school leaked the [story] to the media and it came out like ‘these kids made threats’ and made me sound like, ‘This guy is crazy.’ “
“People that know me know that’s not me. I was 17 years old and had never been in trouble. I come from a family of police officers. My father is a lieutenant in Newport Beach and my grandfather and uncle are in the LAPD.”
McKnight, who is going to participate in Sanchez’ “Jets West” camp this week in California, called the entire incident “a learning experience that ultimately helped me get to where I am today.”
“You really see how one small error in judgment can affect your whole life,” McKnight said.
mcannizzaro@nypost.com