Jets can't be tanking...because NFL commissioner Roger Goodell says so

[joewilly12]

Jets can’t be tanking... because NFL commissioner Roger Goodell says so 

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NFL commissioner Roger Goodell says teams don’t tank.

  (SETH WENIG/AP)

GARY MYERS

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Monday, July 31, 2017, 4:41 PM

Forget about Tankgate following in the great NFL tradition of Spygate, Bountygate and Deflategate.

The Jets will stink this year but Roger Goodell is not going to commission a $5 million investigation to find out if they are tanking the 2017 season to Suck For Sam or they simply gutted the roster of just about every recognizable name in order to get younger and then get better.

Or maybe it’s both. The good news for the Jets and Woody Johnson’s checkbook is Goodell is not suspicious.

“I don’t think any team tanks,” Goodell said Monday. “I really don’t.”

That sobbing just came from Ted Wells, who will not get a call from Goodell to fire up his super sleuths who did such a great job framing Tom Brady.

Jets to Goodell: Tank you very much.

Imagine if the Jets suffer the embarrassment of the first winless season in New York sports history and then Goodell fined Woody Johnson $1 million for putting together a roster that had no chance to be competitive. Just on general principle, if the 2017 Jets can be worse than Rich Kotite’s 1-15 atrocity in 1996, Johnson should be fined.

 

The Jets are going to be bad this season. They were bad last year, finishing 5-11 with Brandon Marshall, Darrelle Revis, Nick Mangold, Eric Decker, David Harris and Ryan Fitzpatrick, so Johnson and GM Mike Maccagnan tore the team apart, saved a lot of money (if they are going to be crappy, why pay big money for it?) and now the pressure is on Maccagnan to prove he’s knows his stuff and build it back through the draft.

Maccagnan saved Johnson lots of cash — the cost of living in London is astronomical, you know — with the intention of having plenty of cap space after Maccagnan constructs the foundation around Leonard Williams and Jamal Adams. Maccagnan says the 2017 Jets have the same playoff goal as every other team. Of course, it happens to be more realistic in just about every other NFL city.

Even if it looks like the Jets are tanking, and smells like the Jets are tanking, Goodell doesn’t believe the Jets are tanking.

He was at Jets camp Monday to speak to about 150 season ticket holders in the team meeting room. Afterward, by the side of the practice field, he was asked about the Jets interesting roster construction.

“I think teams, depending on where you are, go through transitions,” Goodell said. “They are looking to say, 'We need to build more talent here. We do it through the draft. Let’s let some of our veteran players go and develop some of our younger players.' That’s always been a part of football. It’s always been a part of sports. It’s part of getting the kind of system you want and kind of player you want.”

Maccagnan tried for a competitive rebuild when he got here in 2015 and the Jets were coming off a 4-12 season in the final year of Rex Ryan and John Idzik. He inherited so much money that Idzik had stored in his office safe than he had to spend more than he probably wanted just to comply with the NFL’s minimum spending rule to avoid getting fined.

Jets GM Mike Maccagnan

  (MEL EVANS/AP)

He traded for Fitz and Marshall and gave Revis $39 million guaranteed. The Jets were 10-6 in 2015 and nearly made the playoffs, then came crashing down last year.

Maccagnan’s biggest mistake was not tearing things apart when he got here two years ago. If he did, the Jets might be playoff contenders in 2017. But at least instead of trying to patchwork a bad team again, he is trusting Jets fans are smart enough to know this is really the only way to build a team.

It’s just going to be painful.

“The great news about our league is it’s so competitive, you can go from last to first and you can go from first to last pretty quick,” Goodell said.

The Jets have missed the playoffs the last six seasons after Ryan and Mark Sanchez took them to back-to-back AFC title games. Ryan is now out of football and working for ESPN. Sanchez is with his fourth team since leaving the Jets and is a backup QB with the Bears.

Maccagnan can’t come right out and say he knows his team will be awful this year. The fans who have paid good money for PSLs and season tickets don’t want to hear it. The Jets are selling the idea of building with the young guys, and hold on tight, it could be pretty bumpy before Maccagnan finds some smooth air to calm things down.

“I don’t think we’re any different than any other team in the NFL,” Maccagnan said.

How so?

He says that means going “into the season with the idea of being competitive. That is your goal. Every team goes into training camp with the idea of trying to make the playoffs. We’re not different in that sense. I’m looking at doing things to move this team forward with the vision we have for it.”

Goodell says the NFL won’t consider a draft lottery system to prevent teams from tanking. Why? He doesn’t believe teams tank.

So much for Tankgate.

[Jet Nut]

Gary Myers blows.  Keep hinting that we're tanking and maybe some of his brain dead NTDN readers will agree with him 

[JohnJ]

Gary The Lizard Myers...ew 

 

[slats]

1 hour ago, joewilly12 said:

That sobbing just came from Ted Wells, who will not get a call from Goodell to fire up his super sleuths who did such a great job framing Tom Brady.

That's as far as I could get in that article. 

[Jet9]

Macc couldnt have torn down the roster when he got here because they HAD to spend money that year to get to the salary floor. Myers is probably the worst sports writer in the NYC area. 

[j4jets]

5 hours ago, Jet9 said:

Macc couldnt have torn down the roster when he got here because they HAD to spend money that year to get to the salary floor. Myers is probably the worst sports writer in the NYC area. 

Could not have been any wronger. 

[jamesr]

I agree that Macc's mistake was trying the "competitive rebuild" when he first got here ... we are now in Year 1 rather than Year 3 of the actual rebuild. How much of this was Macc and how much was Woody we'll never know, but between the two of them they got it wrong.

And going back in time the mistake of previous regimes was also the same, essentially - believing we were closer than we were and just needed that last guy or two to take the last step. It happens everywhere, no-one wants to be the guy to tear it down when they were "so close". But being a leader isn't about making the popular decisions, it's about making the right decisions.

Time will tell if they're now making those right decisions.

[Kleckineau]

Common sense tells us the Jets do not need to "tank" to suck.

 

[The Crusher]

I love these articles were they say " Imagine if..." That's a song Gary not a news article you Dick head. 

[EM31]

Looks like we have a pre-ruling from the judge.  No tank, Roger agrees.

[Apache 51]

Jets football, tanking since 1968.

[Jet9]

6 hours ago, j4jets said:

Could not have been any wronger. 

www.nj.com/articles/15269766/why_the_jets_are_required_to_spend_on_players_like.amp

[jamesr]

2 hours ago, Jet9 said:

www.nj.com/articles/15269766/why_the_jets_are_required_to_spend_on_players_like.amp

I think the argument is - they had to spend over the first TWO years, but Macc basically got it all out of the way in the first year. So all his spending in Year 1 wasn't strictly necessary.

Thanks for the link though - I've heard so many contradicting views around this subject, it's good to see some facts.

[j4jets]

3 hours ago, Jet9 said:

www.nj.com/articles/15269766/why_the_jets_are_required_to_spend_on_players_like.amp

That article is misleading on many different levels. 

[thadude]

He's right. The Jets aren't tanking, on purpose.

[Jet9]

37 minutes ago, j4jets said:

That article is misleading on many different levels. 

The floor is yours. 

[j4jets]

Just now, Jet9 said:

The floor is yours. 

I did my own research and came to a conclusion that we could have very easily saved about $20mil that year alone. The math is very simple. When a team reaches 99% of its salary cap over a 3 year period, the chances of that team barely spending 89% of the cap are very slim and requires some extraordinary bonuses being paid prior to that 3 year period, and hardly any during the 3 year deposit. Long story short, Mac ****ed up. 

[Jet9]

3 minutes ago, j4jets said:

I did my own research and came to a conclusion that we could have very easily saved about $20mil that year alone. The math is very simple. When a team reaches 99% of its salary cap over a 3 year period, the chances of that team barely spending 89% of the cap are very slim and requires some extraordinary bonuses being paid prior to that 3 year period, and hardly any during the 3 year deposit. Long story short, Mac ****ed up. 

You know you have to have the players and their agents agree to these deals, yes? I feel like every time this issue comes up the answers are lots of generalities and wishful thinking. As if everyone is going to sign 1-year deals. WHO would you have signed that first year and for how much and for how long? I never seem to get an answer here.