Is Joe Douglas tanking or is he inept?

[pointman]

There is no middle ground. He marched out a garbage garbage roster for this season. Gase is garbage too and not being canned. So either Joe Douglas is tanking to get Trevor Lawrence who people claim is Jesus in cleats or, Joe Douglas is inept at his job. 

What say you? It's one or the other. Dummies need not answer the poll.

[BigRy56]

Hopefully he is saving his money to massively upgrade across the board in FA next year to go on top of his draft picks

[JohnnyLV]

I won't answer because the only thing that is garbage is your post.

[pointman]

4 minutes ago, pointman said:

Dummies need not answer the poll.

 

Just now, johnnysd said:

I won't answer because the only thing that is garbage is your post.

 

Unfortunate.. for you.

[isired]

Disagree. I vote C:

He was brought into a team that had the worst roster in the league and is building a team with a finite number of draft picks each year and a salary cap.

He may be inept, but I don’t think you can decide that until next season or the season after.

[pointman]

Just now, isired said:

Disagree. I vote C:

He was brought into a team that had the worst roster in the league and is building a team with a finite number of draft picks each year and a salary cap.

He may be inept, but I don’t think you can decide that until next season or the season after.

I agree that you can't decide yet. This is more of an exploratory poll to gauge what we are thinking as of this moment.

 

I also agree he was brought into a terrible roster.. but with what he had at his disposal.. do you think he has improved this roster considerably with what he has?

[Barry McCockinner]

No one was fixing this roster in one year. 

 

[Bronx]

Dump!

[JetsFanatic]

Ridiculous thread

[Philc1]

I’m gonna love when we go 0-16 and Lawrence says he’s staying in Clemson another year

[RedBeardedSavage]

14 minutes ago, isired said:

Disagree. I vote ?

He was brought into a team that had the worst roster in the league and is building a team with a finite number of draft picks each year and a salary cap.

He may be inept, but I don’t think you can decide that until next season or the season after.

Agreed. And I’d also add that there are those rumors of the Johnsons giving him a hard cap on what he could spend this offseason. Not sure if that’s true, though.

Part of me wants to say “oh it’s a Covid year, and it didn’t make sense to spend in the Spring when we didn’t know how this season would play out”, but really the other side of that gamble was throwing Darnold to the wolves if we did play a full season... which I’d say is the worse of the two outcomes. So to me, either Joe didn’t do enough, or he was handicapped by ownership. And until we hear or see something definitive, we won’t know for sure. 

[artemusclyde]

2 minutes ago, Philc1 said:

I’m gonna love when we go 0-16 and Lawrence says he’s staying in Clemson another year

He's already said this is his last year at Clemson and he's coming out. This isn't a Herbert situation where he grew up watching the Ducks and his dream was to play for them since he was a kid. Lawrence originally wanted to go play for Georgia.

[Warfish]

1 hour ago, pointman said:

There is no middle ground.

There is ALWAYS a middle ground.  

And frankly, I don't know what JD plans.  He's stocked up on Draft Capital, but he's stuck (for now) with Gase and Darnold.  Despite being GM, he is powerless to change those two factors.

If I had to wager, I would in fact wager on a middle answer:  He tried to reload as much as possible, much of which hasn't worked out (especially WR), while also keeping much of his powder dry (cap space, draft picks) for building for the future (i.e. to some, "tanking", albeit not for Lawrence).

We also have costly Veterans (Mosely, Bell) who are producing nothing.  We have an entire WR room (injuries) producing nothing.

Hard to win in that environment, best Defender opted out, 2nd best defender traded (a good trade, but still), injuries in the LB corp, Darnold playing poorly, Gase being Gase, and all the WR's hurt?  Not a winning formula.

I presume JD is planning mostly for long-term.  As in drafting talent, and plugging holes via Free Agency.  Not for Lawrence per se, but I doubt they'd pass on him if it worked out that way.  JD doesn't strike me as the Macc-style "bet it all on 10 lucky things to get Darnold".

[UntouchableCrew]

If the question is "did Joe Douglas think the Jets would be competing for the playoffs with this roster" I think the answer is no. I suspect he was planning for a "down" year where we'd continue to accrue draft picks and assets. So I think he was "tanking" in that sense even though I doubt he intended to be the worst team in the NFL.

I think after the disastrous start and Adam Gase being Adam Gase the plan may be pivoting to an all out tank, however.

[jetstream23]

I like Douglas and he seems to have an approach and plan to the roster.  But he's made a couple of gross miscalculations that are not only hurting the team but also hurting his ability to assess the team.

First, let me say that Joe Douglas cannot control injuries to players.  However, he can make judgements about the injury risk profiles of players he drafts or signs.  He can also determine the mix of experience, youth, talent, reliability he wants on the team and at various positions.  For most GMs they have a mix of dependable veterans and young, up-and-coming players.  They seek to have those young guys prove themselves and push older veterans out of the lineup.  But, at the Jets WR position JD has tried to thrust younger, not-yet-proven guys into important roles without them having proven anything.  He simply took too many risks signing and drafting guys who he counted on to start and contribute immediately.

Breshad Perriman is a nice, talented player but he's never been a WR1 and has no track record of being a dependable, every week player.  JD signed him to be WR1 this year.  A cheaper, less proven version of Robby Anderson, neither Perriman nor Robby should be a WR1 in the NFL.  For WR2 he drafted Denzel Mims, another talented high-ceiling guy but he's a rookie and unproven.  (Yes, I'm ignoring Crowder for a minute in all of this).  Then we get to the depth at WR....Vyncint Smith, Braxton Berrios, developmental guys like Josh Malone, UDFAs like Lawrence Cager.  None of those players are proven, all are "interesting" and can do certain things like return punts in Berrios' case, stretch the field as a WR4 in the case of Smith, etc.  But you can't count on those guys to do the heavy lifting at the WR spot every week.

NOT A SINGLE PLAYER except for Jamison Crowder is a proven, consistent, every week player that should be counted on.  IF ALL of those guys were healthy, it's still not a good plan at the WR position because Perriman has never been a WR1 and Mims has never played a single NFL snap.  By comparison, the Dallas Cowboys drafted CeeDee Lamb, a better prospect than Mims with the idea that he'd be a WR3 this year, adding him to a team with Amari Cooper and Michael Gallup.  Not pinning the hopes of the offense on him or thrusting him into the spotlight on Day 1.

Joe Douglas took away the one consistent, if unspectacular, outside WR that Sam Darnold was comfortable with (Robby), saved a few bucks by signing a similar but unproven player in Perriman, and penciled in a rookie at WR2.  Given Joe D's approach to youth, talent, high-upside guys all over the WR depth chart I think it's very telling and an admission of poor planning that this year's panic FA signing in Camp was Chris Hogan, a solid and dependable wideout who isn't extremely talented but is a veteran who can be relied upon.  He's only the second guy like that on the whole WR depth chart besides Crowder and he joined the team in July.

Perriman, Mims, Crowder, Vyncint Smith are all hurt now....not JD's fault....UNLESS you think that after setting the NFL record for players on IR last year Joe Douglas should have made some meaningful changes to the Training staff???  All he did was demote the Head Trainer, John Mellody, to a consultant and elevate Mellody's longtime assistant to Head Trainer.  The only thing more consistent than having a Bottom 5 ranked offense for the Jets is having a Top ranked injury list for two straight years.  Something is wrong here.

OLine and WR were the two critical groups that needed to be upgraded.  The Jets could not fail two years in a row at those positions while attempting to assess Sam Darnold, the organization's most important piece and future decision.  But somehow, they have failed.

 

[Warfish]

Good post @jetstream23

A question tho: 

What "proven, consistent, every week player that should be counted on" WR's were realistically available at a reasonable cost and length this offseason that we should have signed instead of Perriman?

Is this really just a not-so-stealth "we should have paid Robby Anderson the $15 million he was asking for" argument?

[TNJet]

Couldn't vote. Horrible points. Douglas is the only thing we have going for this franchise right now. All he needs is a HC whi knows how to call a post pattern on 3rd and 8 to his fastest wr. Instead he calls a run up the gut.

[slimjasi]

If he's tanking, he should learn to play the media game a little better

https://jetswire.usatoday.com/2020/09/09/new-york-jets-angered-by-low-expectations-joe-douglas/

Whoops

[Mike135]

He wasn't trying the win the superbowl this year.

Just build the oline, save money, and give Sam a mediocre set of weapons.

Presumably to invest more draft/free agents next season.

While also seeing how Sam did with an improved oline and mediocre weapons.

But injuries have been brutal obviously.  So I think the plan is still the same.  It's just delayed now.  Until Crowder, Perriman, Mims n Bell are all playing.

I think he was stupid to not get another WR... but no one is perfect, and no one predicts losing all your starting WRs at once.

Hopefully in Nov and Dec this team is healthy enough to judge Sam.  Wins n losses are basically meaningless.

[slimjasi]

23 minutes ago, Philc1 said:

I’m gonna love when we go 0-16 and Lawrence says he’s staying in Clemson another year

He's already said he's coming to the NFL, but him pulling an Elway/Eli is not out of the question. 

He easily has enough clout to get that done. 

[slimjasi]

5 minutes ago, Mike135 said:

He wasn't trying the win the superbowl this year.

Just build the oline, save money, and give Sam a mediocre set of weapons.

Presumably to invest more draft/free agents next season.

While also seeing how Sam did with an improved oline and mediocre weapons.

But injuries have been brutal obviously.  So I think the plan is still the same.  It's just delayed now.  Until Crowder, Perriman, Mims n Bell are all playing.

I think he was stupid to not get another WR... but no one is perfect, and no one predicts losing all your starting WRs at once.

Hopefully in Nov and Dec this team is healthy enough to judge Sam.  Wins n losses are basically meaningless.

Right, but this is why it's so frustrating. 

What's going to happen is, we will somehow blow the number 1 pick (because JETS) and Sam's performance will be somewhere in-between (because JETS). Hence, there will be no clarity and there will be no obvious move (if the world thinks there are two franchise QBs in the draft, we'll get to pick the 3rd one, etc.)

Then, we'll draft two stud WRs but Becton will be out for the season on opening day 2021. Because JETS. 

[EM31]

In a different poll the defendant was asked if he had stopped beating his wife yet.

[jamesr]

What incentive did JD have to go all-in this year (big free agent spending spree etc)?

What incentive did JD have to take it steady and build a team up via the draft and supplement with sensible free agent spending where appropriate?

He's not on a short leash or a one year "prove it" deal. There is no playoff mandate. Overpaying for big names to try to paper over the huge gaps in this roster is a road to failure ... been there, done that, fired the GM. Slow and steady, building through the draft with someone who can actually select talented players? Not sure we've ever gone that route to be honest.

JD may not be the guy to do this either - but right now all we can do is cross our fingers and hope he is.

 

[Long Island Leprechaun]

59 minutes ago, pointman said:

There is no middle ground. He marched out a garbage garbage roster for this season. Gase is garbage too and not being canned. So either Joe Douglas is tanking to get Trevor Lawrence who people claim is Jesus in cleats or, Joe Douglas is inept at his job. 

What say you? It's one or the other. Dummies need not answer the poll.

I can't answer. I'm still trying to figure out how desire is not the same as incompetency.

[jetstream23]

21 minutes ago, Warfish said:

Good post @jetstream23

A question tho: 

What "proven, consistent, every week player that should be counted on" WR's were realistically available at a reasonable cost and length this offseason that we should have signed instead of Perriman?

Is this really just a not-so-stealth "we should have paid Robby Anderson the $15 million he was asking for" argument?

I don't think it's very stealth.    The Jets should have both signed Robby AND added Perriman for 1-year at his very reasonable cost.  I didn't think it would be a bad idea to pursue Emmanuel Sanders either (who signed for even less than Robby).  My argument is that regardless of injuries JD seemed to have a risky plan at WR that prioritized cost and upside rather than getting a couple of experienced, high-floor players.  Prior to signing Chris Hogan, the only guy like that on the whole team was Jamison Crowder who primarily plays the Slot.  I liked the addition of Demaryius Thomas last year, a guy past his prime but who had experience and ran consistent routes.  Those are the kinds of players we need if we want to see the offense function at a basic level.  Guys like Perriman, Mims, even Vyncint Smith are the kinds of high-upside guys you add to a team that already has two dependable, if unspectacular, veterans.

If Joe D's goal wasn't to win this year but to be able to protect and assess his QB then you don't surround him with developmental and unproven guys.  There were some decent veterans available at moderate prices but JD didn't seem interested.

[slimjasi]

5 minutes ago, jetstream23 said:

I don't think it's very stealth.    The Jets should have both signed Robby AND added Perriman for 1-year at his very reasonable cost.  I didn't think it would be a bad idea to pursue Emmanuel Sanders either (who signed for even less than Robby).  My argument is that regardless of injuries JD seemed to have a risky plan at WR that prioritized cost and upside rather than getting a couple of experienced, high-floor players.  Prior to signing Chris Hogan, the only guy like that on the whole team was Jamison Crowder who primarily plays the Slot.  I liked the addition of Demaryius Thomas last year, a guy past his prime but who had experience and ran consistent routes.  Those are the kinds of players we need if we want to see the offense function at a basic level.  Guys like Perriman, Mims, even Vyncint Smith are the kinds of high-upside guys you add to a team that already has two dependable, if unspectacular, veterans.

If Joe D's goal wasn't to win this year but to be able to protect and assess his QB then you don't surround him with developmental and unproven guys.  There were some decent veterans available at moderate prices but JD didn't seem interested.

Agree completely. And this is not a second guess on my part - after initially calling for Robby to be resigned, I spent the rest of the offseason begging Joe D to bring in at least one more veteran WR. I just felt there were too many unproven guys in the WR room for Darnold's 3rd year - and this was before all the injuries. 

[Jetsfan80]

1 hour ago, pointman said:

I agree that you can't decide yet. This is more of an exploratory poll to gauge what we are thinking as of this moment.

I also agree he was brought into a terrible roster.. but with what he had at his disposal.. do you think he has improved this roster considerably with what he has?

Absolutely.  The improvement from Kelvin Beachum to Mekhi Becton was a great start.  With his very first pick we upgraded from a JAG to a guy that already looks the part of a franchise LT, and a potentially dominant one at that.

As for the rest of the rookie class, you can certainly fault him for the Zuniga not seeing the field yet (he arrived with an injury history), but Denzel Mims didn't miss a game in college.  Let's see how they look before declaring his first draft a bust, 2 weeks into the season.

Spending big on free agency was never an option for this team.  But at least Alex Lewis has played well at G.  McGovern is a massive disappointment thus far.  Hopefully that changes, as he was graded very highly prior to his arrival.  Either way, the OL Macc built was the worst in the NFL.  It's better this year by a fairly significant margin. 

He traded Adams for a massive package of picks, which no one should be upset about (Adams didn't want to be here, Jamalbros), and Mosley opted out.  Are you going to hold those 2 things against him when it comes to the 2020 roster?

The rest of the roster is about a wash from 2019.  Can't fix everything in one offseason.  Luckily we have four 1st rounders in the next 2 drafts.

[Jetsfan80]

47 minutes ago, RedBeardedSavage said:

Part of me wants to say “oh it’s a Covid year, and it didn’t make sense to spend in the Spring when we didn’t know how this season would play out”, but really the other side of that gamble was throwing Darnold to the wolves if we did play a full season... which I’d say is the worse of the two outcomes. 

Pssst.  Joe Douglas doesn't believe in Sam Darnold.  He never did.

[joewilly12]

Something isn't right and the on field performance shows it. 

Theres enough blame to go around. 

@peebag  stick that thumb where the sun doesn't shine. 

[Jethead]

39 minutes ago, jetstream23 said:

I like Douglas and he seems to have an approach and plan to the roster.  But he's made a couple of gross miscalculations that are not only hurting the team but also hurting his ability to assess the team.

First, let me say that Joe Douglas cannot control injuries to players.  However, he can make judgements about the injury risk profiles of players he drafts or signs.  He can also determine the mix of experience, youth, talent, reliability he wants on the team and at various positions.  For most GMs they have a mix of dependable veterans and young, up-and-coming players.  They seek to have those young guys prove themselves and push older veterans out of the lineup.  But, at the Jets WR position JD has tried to thrust younger, not-yet-proven guys into important roles without them having proven anything.  He simply took too many risks signing and drafting guys who he counted on to start and contribute immediately.

Breshad Perriman is a nice, talented player but he's never been a WR1 and has no track record of being a dependable, every week player.  JD signed him to be WR1 this year.  A cheaper, less proven version of Robby Anderson, neither Perriman nor Robby should be a WR1 in the NFL.  For WR2 he drafted Denzel Mims, another talented high-ceiling guy but he's a rookie and unproven.  (Yes, I'm ignoring Crowder for a minute in all of this).  Then we get to the depth at WR....Vyncint Smith, Braxton Berrios, developmental guys like Josh Malone, UDFAs like Lawrence Cager.  None of those players are proven, all are "interesting" and can do certain things like return punts in Berrios' case, stretch the field as a WR4 in the case of Smith, etc.  But you can't count on those guys to do the heavy lifting at the WR spot every week.

NOT A SINGLE PLAYER except for Jamison Crowder is a proven, consistent, every week player that should be counted on.  IF ALL of those guys were healthy, it's still not a good plan at the WR position because Perriman has never been a WR1 and Mims has never played a single NFL snap.  By comparison, the Dallas Cowboys drafted CeeDee Lamb, a better prospect than Mims with the idea that he'd be a WR3 this year, adding him to a team with Amari Cooper and Michael Gallup.  Not pinning the hopes of the offense on him or thrusting him into the spotlight on Day 1.

Joe Douglas took away the one consistent, if unspectacular, outside WR that Sam Darnold was comfortable with (Robby), saved a few bucks by signing a similar but unproven player in Perriman, and penciled in a rookie at WR2.  Given Joe D's approach to youth, talent, high-upside guys all over the WR depth chart I think it's very telling and an admission of poor planning that this year's panic FA signing in Camp was Chris Hogan, a solid and dependable wideout who isn't extremely talented but is a veteran who can be relied upon.  He's only the second guy like that on the whole WR depth chart besides Crowder and he joined the team in July.

Perriman, Mims, Crowder, Vyncint Smith are all hurt now....not JD's fault....UNLESS you think that after setting the NFL record for players on IR last year Joe Douglas should have made some meaningful changes to the Training staff???  All he did was demote the Head Trainer, John Mellody, to a consultant and elevate Mellody's longtime assistant to Head Trainer.  The only thing more consistent than having a Bottom 5 ranked offense for the Jets is having a Top ranked injury list for two straight years.  Something is wrong here.

OLine and WR were the two critical groups that needed to be upgraded.  The Jets could not fail two years in a row at those positions while attempting to assess Sam Darnold, the organization's most important piece and future decision.  But somehow, they have failed.

 

Agree, JD's master plan had a few holes in it. But, it's his rookie year and compared to Gase he's a genius.

[Jethead]

19 minutes ago, jetstream23 said:

I don't think it's very stealth.    The Jets should have both signed Robby AND added Perriman for 1-year at his very reasonable cost.  I didn't think it would be a bad idea to pursue Emmanuel Sanders either (who signed for even less than Robby).  My argument is that regardless of injuries JD seemed to have a risky plan at WR that prioritized cost and upside rather than getting a couple of experienced, high-floor players.  Prior to signing Chris Hogan, the only guy like that on the whole team was Jamison Crowder who primarily plays the Slot.  I liked the addition of Demaryius Thomas last year, a guy past his prime but who had experience and ran consistent routes.  Those are the kinds of players we need if we want to see the offense function at a basic level.  Guys like Perriman, Mims, even Vyncint Smith are the kinds of high-upside guys you add to a team that already has two dependable, if unspectacular, veterans.

If Joe D's goal wasn't to win this year but to be able to protect and assess his QB then you don't surround him with developmental and unproven guys.  There were some decent veterans available at moderate prices but JD didn't seem interested.

And all it would have cost was Woody's money. Wouldn't have had to waste any of his draft picks.

[kmnj]

His job is to put together a roster that wins football games-so far he gets a F -he has made the roster worse not better -his coach gets a F too so that is on him too. He signed some terrible contracts as well. 

I am not impressed with his draft so far(clearly early)but when the smoke clears I believe he will end up with one good player which is nothing to be excited about as a five year old should  be able to find a good player round one-our history is though we will get rid of that player in 2-3 years if he is any good or he will just disappear

Now clearly it  is VERY EARLY and my assessment is harsh and unfair  but to me he will be judged on his draft next year with the extra picks and who he signs in the offseason

 

[jetstream23]

3 minutes ago, Jethead said:

And all it would have cost was Woody's money. Wouldn't have had to waste any of his draft picks.

I believe the Jets are currently expected to have the MOST money under the Cap next year.

How on earth did this team not spend a few $$$ on 1-2 year deals to move the dial from bad to mediocre at the WR spot?

[Beerfish]

As much as people howl and wince at this, right now Joe Douglas is John Idzik.  He has a plan  and is sticking to it.  As with Idzik his success or failure will depend on his draft picks.

Douglas has made some very good moves (Great pick in Becton, the Adams trade)  but also a lot of his other picks have done nothing so far.  And I'll keep complaining about him not drafting at least two Wrs. (which is biting us right now)

[Jetsfan80]

Just now, jetstream23 said:

I believe the Jets are currently expected to have the MOST money under the Cap next year.

How on earth did this team not spend a few $$$ on 1-2 year deals to move the dial from bad to mediocre at the WR spot?

Name names, please.