Mike Westhoff: Jets downfall started with Mark Sanchez contract

[UntouchableCrew]

14 hours ago, NYJ1 said:

But we still had the players on the team to win it all. Yes, the drafting most certainly started the topple, but that Jets team with even a competent QB goes to the SB.

In 09-10? Sure. There was absolutely a Super Bowl window. I'm just saying that a downturn in talent acquisition began when Rex became coach. 

[Sperm Edwards]

22 hours ago, TeddEY said:

Kind of torn here... He's of course correct that that contract was an absolute disaster, but I'm struggling to see what it has to do with the fact that we traded 4 picks for Sam Darnold and passed over a future hall of fame QB and a Pro-Bowl QB for Jamal Adams.

In fairness, he didn’t say it was all due to the Sanchez contract extension; only that it began with extending Sanchez.

If the path taken otherwise would have been drafting Wilson in round 2, in response to Bradway’s famously alleged table-pounding, Westhoff might be right (at least to a large degree).

1. It would have meant taking him instead of burning not just our 2nd, but the 5th and 7th round picks used to trade up to draft (and rely upon starting) Stephen Hill;
2. plus that would have eliminated the 1st rounder and three 2nd round picks used on Darnold;
3. plus the 2nd rounder used to draft Geno;
4. plus the 2nd rounder used to draft Hackenberg;
5. plus the 4th (and 7th) rounders used to draft Petty.

There were other blunders this team made along the way - many of them - but just at the QB position alone, it’s hard to ignore the domino/butterfly effect of extending Sanchez.

[HessStation]

On 11/3/2020 at 9:24 PM, Mo Lew said:

I would hire him back in a second. 

He should have been the HC after Rex

[Waka Flocka Flacco]

7 minutes ago, Sperm Edwards said:

In fairness, he didn’t say it was all due to the Sanchez contract extension; only that it began with extending Sanchez.

If the path taken otherwise would have been drafting Wilson in round 2, in response to Bradway’s famously alleged table-pounding, Westhoff might be right (at least to a large degree).

1. It would have meant taking him instead of burning not just our 2nd, but the 5th and 7th round picks used to trade up to draft (and rely upon starting) Stephen Hill;
2. plus that would have eliminated the 1st rounder and three 2nd round picks used on Darnold;
3. plus the 2nd rounder used to draft Geno;
4. plus the 2nd rounder used to draft Hackenberg;
5. plus the 4th (and 7th) rounders used to draft Petty.

There were other blunders this team made along the way - many of them - but just at the QB position alone, it’s hard to ignore the domino/butterfly effect of extending Sanchez.

The first domino was the Pennington extension. After causing various other hilarity in the meantime (extending Bradway, scapegoating Brien), it meant that Tannenbaum and Mangini had to start an ostensible total rebuild locked into a quarterback who was expensive, injury-prone, and not good enough, followed by a few straight years of weak quarterback drafts. That was how they got to be three years into a regime never having picked a quarterback. Favre walked into a vacuum and left a vacuum. As a draft pick Sanchez was a disaster from a lewin or any other standpoint but probably the best you can realistically expect to do when your hand is forced like that. The extension was just Tannenbaum flailing, like Maccagnan was flailing his last five months, like Douglas is flailing now with this Jordan Willis fake trade nonsense.

[Sonny Werblin]

On 11/3/2020 at 9:23 PM, bostonmajet said:

Yeah, and then we drafted like 100 other QBs; Mark took us to 2 AFCC games. Then we sucked for Sam, but the jets suck because of Sanchez - blame Mike T, Idzik, and Mike M. But yeah, let's blame the last 2 years on a guy that wasn't even in the league anymore.

?? He didn't blame Sanchez. He blamed the exodus of unaffordable talent after Sanchez was overpaid in a new contract.

[rex-n-effect]

On 11/4/2020 at 6:04 AM, PCP63 said:

Was with him until he mentioned Tebow. 

So much this. If he had left out Tebow or said it was dumb to bring in a QB just to run the wildcat it would have been fine. That his big beef is Sporano didn't want to run the wildcat is wildly missing the problem. If you think Tebow was a terrible QB and Sanchez was a terrible QB then you have two terrible QBs doing I guess the decent job of one RB on a handful of plays. Not the kind of vision I'd like in a head coach.

[Jetsfan80]

8 minutes ago, rex-n-effect said:

So much this. If he had left out Tebow or said it was dumb to bring in a QB just to run the wildcat it would have been fine. That his big beef is Sporano didn't want to run the wildcat is wildly missing the problem. If you think Tebow was a terrible QB and Sanchez was a terrible QB then you have two terrible QBs doing I guess the decent job of one RB on a handful of plays. Not the kind of vision I'd like in a head coach.

He's saying if it was up to him, we would not have had Sanchez OR Tebow on the roster.  But since we were stuck with both of them, he was explaining how he would have tried to use Tebow if he were in charge of the offense.  Having Tebow slim down, not beef up, and making full use of his running abilities would have been the right call.

[Jets Voice of Reason]

The Sanchez deal and the David Harris contracts were just so mind-numbingly stupid that you knew they were bad at the time they signed it. God, we’ve had so many bad GMs. 

[rex-n-effect]

2 hours ago, Jetsfan80 said:

He's saying if it was up to him, we would not have had Sanchez OR Tebow on the roster.  But since we were stuck with both of them, he was explaining how he would have tried to use Tebow if he were in charge of the offense.  Having Tebow slim down, not beef up, and making full use of his running abilities would have been the right call.

That's not what he said. Maybe he wouldn't have wanted Tebow either but that isn't what he said.

[Jetsfan80]

8 minutes ago, rex-n-effect said:

That's not what he said. Maybe he wouldn't have wanted Tebow either but that isn't what he said.

Reading between the lines it seemed pretty clear he wanted neither.  

[bostonmajet]

2 hours ago, Sonny Werblin said:

?? He didn't blame Sanchez. He blamed the exodus of unaffordable talent after Sanchez was overpaid in a new contract.

Yes, but that was 3 GMs and 3 HCs ago. If it was just that, they could have righted the ship already. JD has a mess on his hands and it has more to do with Idzik and MIke's bad drafting and FAs than anything else - except for maybe Gase (sorry SAR).

[NYJ1]

7 hours ago, UntouchableCrew said:

In 09-10? Sure. There was absolutely a Super Bowl window. I'm just saying that a downturn in talent acquisition began when Rex became coach. 

No it didn't? It actually started the year prior. Remember Vernon Gholston? He was taken long before Rex had any of your perceived adverse involvement.

[UntouchableCrew]

16 hours ago, NYJ1 said:

No it didn't? It actually started the year prior. Remember Vernon Gholston? He was taken long before Rex had any of your perceived adverse involvement.

So? That's one pick.

We also acquired Alan Faneca, Damien Woody, Calvin Pace, Kris Jenkins, and Dustin Keller that offseason.

[JetPotato]

On 11/4/2020 at 1:30 AM, SAR I said:

Yeah, we would have lost 4 playoff games instead of winning them.  Stafford is the least clutch quarterback in the NFL. 

SAR I

Matt Stafford is IN the NFL.

[Philc1]

On 11/5/2020 at 5:46 PM, Jets Voice of Reason said:

The Sanchez deal and the David Harris contracts were just so mind-numbingly stupid that you knew they were bad at the time they signed it. God, we’ve had so many bad GMs. 

No we’ve had one GM during that time: Woody

[Bleedin Green]

On 11/6/2020 at 8:55 AM, UntouchableCrew said:

So? That's one pick.

We also acquired Alan Faneca, Damien Woody, Calvin Pace, Kris Jenkins, and Dustin Keller that offseason.

Jenkins was great in 2008, but had nothing to do with the teams success in future years considering his career essentially ended early in the 2009 season.  Faneca only lasted a total of 2 seasons here as well, so doesn't fit to the narrative you're trying to go with.  Meanwhile, if we're talking both draft and FA, the Jets still proceeded to bring in the likes of Edwards, Holmes, LT, Greene, Slauson, Scott, Cro, and Leonhard all of whom were key contributors to those runs.  The line some try to draw between the 2008/2009 seasons to fit a very specific agenda has absolutely no basis in reality.

[UntouchableCrew]

2 hours ago, Bleedin Green said:

Jenkins was great in 2008, but had nothing to do with the teams success in future years considering his career essentially ended early in the 2009 season.  Faneca only lasted a total of 2 seasons here as well, so doesn't fit to the narrative you're trying to go with. 

The fact that they had short tenures here doens't change the fact that they were excellent players who helped us win while they were here. They were value add players who were smart additions.

2 hours ago, Bleedin Green said:

Meanwhile, if we're talking both draft and FA, the Jets still proceeded to bring in the likes of Edwards, Holmes, LT, Greene, Slauson, Scott, Cro, and Leonhard all of whom were key contributors to those runs.  The line some try to draw between the 2008/2009 seasons to fit a very specific agenda has absolutely no basis in reality.

I'm not talking about the success of 09/10 -- I'm talking about as soon as Rex became coach we got worse at acquiring talent. On the list of guys you just provided only Edwards, LT, and Cro were meaningfully positive moves. Scott, Leonahrd, and Greene were meh, and Holmes is one of the biggest cancers ever.

Add that on to Sanchez, Ducasse, Stephen Hill, Kyle WIlson, Coples, McKnight, John Conner, etc. and the talent eval clearly went downhill.

I don't even think this is really debatable. The drafts and FA moves under Rex were unquestionably worse than those under Mangini.

[STLuLu]

He had me until he started talking about Tebow. 

On 11/3/2020 at 8:26 PM, Beerfish said:

The oline, the running game, the stout defense took us to two afc title games.

The jets in those two years should not have been wild card teams only.

Especially in 2010. They lost to a few bad teams because of Sanchez and they still finished 11-5. 

[LIJetsFan]

IMHO the Sanchez contract extension is as good a place to start as any.  Tied up both cap that could have been used better elsewhere, and the QB roster spot.  

We all know that success begins with a good/very good OL.  The whys and wherefores that we lost ours is 100% on the GMs.  Hell, Woody hired a guy who said the OL wasn't a priority and that he'd draft OL day 2 or day 3.         

[Sperm Edwards]

On 11/5/2020 at 10:39 AM, Waka Flocka Flacco said:

The first domino was the Pennington extension. After causing various other hilarity in the meantime (extending Bradway, scapegoating Brien), it meant that Tannenbaum and Mangini had to start an ostensible total rebuild locked into a quarterback who was expensive, injury-prone, and not good enough, followed by a few straight years of weak quarterback drafts. That was how they got to be three years into a regime never having picked a quarterback. Favre walked into a vacuum and left a vacuum. As a draft pick Sanchez was a disaster from a lewin or any other standpoint but probably the best you can realistically expect to do when your hand is forced like that. The extension was just Tannenbaum flailing, like Maccagnan was flailing his last five months, like Douglas is flailing now with this Jordan Willis fake trade nonsense.

I was no fan of making Pennington the 2nd highest-paid QB in NFL history (or if someone else had a deal with more fluff, he had the 2nd-most cash up front) on a contract that should have been reserved for top 3 QBs -- reliably healthy ones, at that).

That said, the Jets didn't get to the AFCCG with Pennington, and his contract was long off the books before the Sanchez extension Westhoff's (correctly) complaining about.

Of course if you really want to keep going back with bad contracts, both of the ridiculous contracts for Martin also hurt the franchise badly, for all those who think he was worth it just because this franchise has so little to hang its hat upon. That first one was for like $6MM/year when a team's salary cap limit was barely $40MM, plus the cheap 1st + 3rd round contracts forked over to a division rival. That Parcells probably would have blown those picks anyway is the only saving grace lol. 

[rangerous]

1 hour ago, Sperm Edwards said:

I was no fan of making Pennington the 2nd highest-paid QB in NFL history (or if someone else had a deal with more fluff, he had the 2nd-most cash up front) on a contract that should have been reserved for top 3 QBs -- reliably healthy ones, at that).

That said, the Jets didn't get to the AFCCG with Pennington, and his contract was long off the books before the Sanchez extension Westhoff's (correctly) complaining about.

Of course if you really want to keep going back with bad contracts, both of the ridiculous contracts for Martin also hurt the franchise badly, for all those who think he was worth it just because this franchise has so little to hang its hat upon. That first one was for like $6MM/year when a team's salary cap limit was barely $40MM, plus the cheap 1st + 3rd round contracts forked over to a division rival. That Parcells probably would have blown those picks anyway is the only saving grace lol. 

Yep. I didn’t mind getting Martin because he was a good player but just how much better debatable.

[nyjunc]

On 11/3/2020 at 10:34 PM, Jetsfan80 said:

 

Fantastic! 

I'm sure @nyjunc will stroll in here and explain to us why Westhoff is wrong and he's right about Sanchez.  Can't wait.

He is wrong because they started going downhill long before mark got that extension which was an easy out after only 2 years and those 2 years eyes retooling years with some cap issues.  The downfall began in the offseason after 2010, it went off a cliff when Tannenbaum was fired and Idzik hired.  

[Jetsfan80]

1 hour ago, nyjunc said:

He is wrong because they started going downhill long before mark got that extension which was an easy out after only 2 years and those 2 years eyes retooling years with some cap issues.  The downfall began in the offseason after 2010, it went off a cliff when Tannenbaum was fired and Idzik hired.  

 

Wow.  A very reasonable take!  I'm impressed!

[nyjunc]

2 hours ago, Jetsfan80 said:

 

Wow.  A very reasonable take!  I'm impressed!

Thank you, I've been working really hard to get better ?

[Jets86]

Sanchez wasn't terrible by any stretch.

But the defense played a critical role in our success. RB was awesome. Special teams was great. And dare I say the coach was outcoaching other great coaches. (Honestly the 2010 Pats whip our arse nine times out of ten. But we got them on a bad day. Ryan outcoached Belichick).

Sanchez never had to do much.

But at some point, your QB is going to have to throw the ball and make plays to win. And in the end, Sanchez wasn't able to outduel Manning & Roethlisberger. No shame in that. The teams with the superior QB's (And teams) won.

 

[Jetsfan80]

16 hours ago, Jets86 said:

Sanchez wasn't terrible by any stretch.

By every available metric he was terrible.  

[jetophile]

It's The Chimp's birthday today (34). Happy Veteran's Day to all those who have served past and present, btw. Thank you for your service.