Do Jets have the right people in charge?

[Jet Nut]

Do Jets have the right people in charge?

Former NFL execs determine whether or not the Joe Douglas - Robert Saleh tandem will work

The last time the Jets had a truly successful marriage between a coach and general manager was the last time they had any success at all. It was a six-year span, from 2006 to 2012, that resulted in three playoff berths and two trips to the AFC Championship Game.

And it wasn’t just because of the talents of GM Mike Tannenbaum and Rex Ryan, the coach he hired. It was because they shared the same football philosophies, and they were given time to build the team they were trying to make.

It was easier back then. The Jets had some recent success when Tannenbaum and Ryan arrived, so they weren’t as starved for winning as the franchise is now. But Tannenbaum insists that the principles of a successful tandem are the same. 

So as GM Joe Douglas and head coach Robert Saleh try to restore the long-lost luster to the Jets organization, the only way they’ll actually do it is if they’re given patience and time.

“I just think that if those are the people that you believe in, then you want to let them grow,” said Tannenbaum, who is now the co-founder of The 33^rd Team. “Let them make their mistakes – which we all do. It’s not going to happen overnight. Sometimes there’s going to be some growing pains.”

The Jets, of course, know all about growing pains. They’ve experienced them a lot over the last 11 seasons – a stretch which has included eight losing seasons, seven seasons of double-digit losses, and not a single playoff berth. The Jets hired Douglas in June 2019, with the hopes that he was the man who could change all that. Then, he hand-picked Saleh back in January to run this very young, in-transition team.

The jury on both of them is still out, since their first season together has so far produced a 3-11 record. But as SNY spoke to more than a dozen current and former NFL executives and scouts in an effort to find out what has gone wrong with New York football, few were willing to pass judgment on either man yet. But almost all of them said they’d advise owner Woody Johnson to leave them alone and see what happens over the next three years, at least.

“Everybody wants to win now, but the general rule is a GM needs three years to get anything done, assuming he’s not taking over a franchise in good shape,” a current NFL general manager said. “With the Jets, it was so bad there, you might get progress after three years. But that’s a five-year rebuilding project at least.”

“Someone like Joe Douglas comes in, you’ve got to realize he’s still doing things like hiring the scouts he wants, implementing his system, his way of writing reports, his way of setting up a draft board,” added former Eagles president Joe Banner, one of the co-founders of The 33^rd Team. “So you really have to see a lot of negative stuff to think after one or two years you have to make a change.”

The Jets, of course, aren’t going to make a change after this season, and likely not even after next. By all accounts, ownership understands that Douglas and Saleh basically gutted the roster and started over with an incredibly young team. Having a 22-year-old franchise quarterback in Zach Wilson is enough on its own to buy them time. And he’s one of more than a dozen rookies and second-year players to play meaningful roles this season.

The good news, one scout said, is “They’re finding out right now if those kids can really play. You don’t always get a chance to evaluate that many rookies in one year.” And there are certainly some of them who show a ton of promise – like guard Alijah Vera-Tucker, receiver Elijah Moore, running back Michael Carterand cornerback Michael Carter II.

And there’s more good news. The Jets will have two high first-round draft picks next year, thanks to the Jamal Adams trade, and two second-round picks, thanks to the Sam Darnold trade, and nine draft picks overall. They are also projected to have about $48.2 million in salary cap space next season, according to OverTheCap.com, with the potential to create a lot more.

That’s because Douglas has been shrewdly making moves since he arrived to give the Jets “financial flexibility” and accumulate as many draft picks as he can. And it’s worked. They undoubtedly have the tools to add to their pool of talent. And ownership is seemingly ready to give them the time to do it. 

The only question is: In Douglas and Saleh, did the Jets pick the right people?

Douglas, a well-respected former VP of player personnel for the Philadelphia Eagles, got near universal support from those SNY interviewed. Almost everyone loved that he was committed to building his team from the trenches – focusing on the offensive and defensive lines. In fact, he drafted offensive linemen in the first round in each of his first two drafts, even trading up for Vera-Tucker in April. And he has spent about $70 million on free agent contracts for offensive linemen, too.

Of course, the line is still a work in progress, which is why Banner said, “Some of the indicators are a little scary to me.” A current NFL executive added “Vera-Tucker is going to be there a decade and he’s a beast, but I’m not sure any of the others are really keepers.”

Which brings most back to the overall theme: Time is the only way to tell.

“It’s a never-ending process, just from a standpoint that you can never have enough offensive linemen,” Tannenbaum said. “I think it’s really more of a mindset, and it certainly seems like that’s an area of focus for Joe Douglas, which to me bodes well for the quarterback. One of the things I’ve learned in my experience is if you can’t secure the line of scrimmage, nothing else matters.”

If Douglas can secure those lines, he does have some promising pieces in place behind them, including many that have come out of the 2021 draft. Nearly every one of Douglas’ 10 picks has shown some indication they can play in the NFL. Even Wilson, who has struggled mightily through his rookie season, has shown flashes of why the Jets believed he was worth being picked second overall.

But while Douglas got deserved praise for that draft, several pointed out that his first draft, in 2020, doesn’t look good at all. Left tackle Mekhi Becton (first round) has missed almost the entire season with a knee injury, receiver Denzel Mims (second) is in the coach’s doghouse, safety Ashtyn Davis (third) is struggling, and defensive end Jabari Zuniga (third) and running back La’Mical Perine (fourth) can’t get on the field for a team where anyone with any ability should be able to play.

That draft has basically produced cornerback Bryce Hall (fifth) and punter Braden Mann (sixth). So far, that’s really it.

Of course, a year or two isn’t nearly enough to fairly evaluate a draft. Besides, as former Browns GM Mike Lombardi said, “There’s a difference between being a GM and picking players. And there’s a difference between picking players and building a team.”

“There’s no doubt they’ve brought in a lot of young talent,” said another former NFL executive. “But what are they going to do with it? So far, they haven’t done much.”

The real responsibility for molding that talent into a winning team falls on Saleh and his staff, and opinions seemed split on him. He received praise for his patient approach, which many thought would work well with young players. But as one scout said: “Can he coach? I don’t know. I don’t think anybody knows.”

“The hard part,” added a former GM, “is they’re trying to run the team with a coach who’s never really been a head coach before in his life.”

It’s not that anyone was against hiring Saleh, the former 49ers defensive coordinator who has never been a head coach before. It was more that they expressed concern about the combination of an inexperienced head coach with an inexperienced staff taking over a very inexperienced team. “That’s a lot of people learning on the job at the same time,” said a former NFL executive. “And right now they all look like they’re in over their heads.”

Several people questioned whether players on this young team were really getting better under Saleh and his staff. One pointed directly at Wilson and said his recent struggles have been “alarming – especially at this point in the season.” And there have been other issues, like the mystery of Mims. He hasn’t gotten much of an opportunity to play, even on an injury-depleted receiving corps.

A former GM said that’s not just about Mims’ issues, it’s about the staff’s failure to develop him into a player.

“They don’t like Mims, so they don’t play him,” the former GM said. “OK, but their job is to coach the players, not pick the players. You can’t have 12 general managers on the team. Your job is to develop them. So develop the ones you have.”

Really, though, player development takes time – certainly longer than the 14 games Saleh has been a head coach. And it’s going to take a lot more than that to evaluate his abilities for the rest of the job – like strategy, game management, and even his ability to lead.

“Players love him, but more importantly they seem to really want to play for him,” said a current NFL scout. “His team plays hard, just like his defenses did in San Francisco. They don’t just like him -- they believe in him. And that’s really important, especially when you’re trying to rebuild.”

“You see the ingredients -- the intensity, the fire, what looks like leadership – to feel that he has a real chance,” Banner added. “We just haven’t seen enough to really evaluate him.”

That’s basically where everyone is with the Douglas-Saleh tandem. Their grade so far is incomplete. There are some who believe they will be the next Tannenbaum-Ryan, and that they will give this franchise an identity and lead them back to the playoffs. But there are some who worry that they could be another version of Mike Maccagnan and Todd Bowles, a duo that spent four years together and just couldn’t get it right.

They could also be the right people making the right decisions and it still might not work out if they don’t get a few breaks along the way. Just look at how many starters they lost to injury this season, and how many impact free agents – like defensive end Carl Lawson and safety Lamarcus Joyner – were never healthy enough to help.

“Joe Douglas was supposed to be the savior of all things at GM, and I love Robert Saleh,” said ESPN’s Louis Riddick, a former director of player personnel in Washington and Philadelphia. “But man, a lot of things have to align in order to get an organization turned around. Some of it is about your ability to get it aligned.

“Some of it is about having a little luck, too.”

Time will tell if Douglas and Saleh can change the Jets’ luck, when no one else has been able to do it for the past decade. And time is exactly what they need. All the Jets can really do now is wait and hope that this time when they hired their coach and general manager, they got it right.

“These things don’t happen overnight,” Tannenbaum said. “You have to have a vision and a belief and they do. But that doesn’t always translate to wins.”

[jgb]

No.

/thread

[Saul Goodman]

Douglas blew the 2020 draft, and his handpicked quarterback, taken with the highest draft pick we’ve had in decades, looks atrocious. It won’t happen but we would lose nothing by replacing him. There are no signs, no data, no facts that indicate that he can build this franchise into a winning one. 
 

Saleh is pretty awful as well. 

[jgb]

6 minutes ago, Saul Goodman said:

Douglas blew the 2020 draft, and his handpicked quarterback, taken with the highest draft pick we’ve had in decades, looks atrocious. It won’t happen but we would lose nothing by replacing him. There are no signs, no data, no facts that indicate that he can build this franchise into a winning one. 
 

Saleh is pretty awful as well. 

@Lith posted a list of the highly drafted QBs over the last 10 years that had miserable rookie years. 2 of 9 went on to become FQBs (Allen and Stafford). The others bombed completely.

So I wouldn't say there is "no data" to indicate he can become a FQB but it is fair to say that the data does not favor that outcome as likely.

[Irish Jet]

“Everybody wants to win now, but the general rule is a GM needs three years to get anything done, assuming he’s not taking over a franchise in good shape,” a current NFL general manager said. “With the Jets, it was so bad there, you might get progress after three years. But that’s a five-year rebuilding project at least.

Found Belichick. Scumbag. 

[Embrace the Suck]

18 minutes ago, Jet Nut said:

Do Jets have the right people in charge?

I don't know... Do the people in charge inspire confidence in your opinion?

[Wit]

Great article. The jets were such a dumpster fire they needed five years to be turned around. Ouch. The rot wasn’t just the roster, but the scouting department, the internal workings of the staff. The results in the win loss record will start to show up as well. I believe. I hope. Firing and hiring a new team will just be knifing the organization in the gut and miring us into another decade if ineptitude. This franchise had to start somewhere. 

[Irish Jet]

1 minute ago, Wit said:

Great article. The jets were such a dumpster fire they needed five years to be turned around. Ouch. The rot wasn’t just the roster, but the scouting department, the internal workings of the staff. The results in the win loss record will start to show up as well. I believe. I hope. Firing and hiring a new team will just be knifing the organization in the gut and miring us into another decade if ineptitude. This franchise had to start somewhere. 

Absolutely no ******* NFL franchise takes 5 years to turn around.

What are we doing here? What are we actually suggesting? That Douglas gets another two years of league worst type performances before we can evaluate him?

This fanbase is trash. Cultists.

[jgb]

2 minutes ago, Wit said:

Great article. The jets were such a dumpster fire they needed five years to be turned around. Ouch. The rot wasn’t just the roster, but the scouting department, the internal workings of the staff. The results in the win loss record will start to show up as well. I believe. I hope. Firing and hiring a new team will just be knifing the organization in the gut and miring us into another decade if ineptitude. This franchise had to start somewhere. 

What a damning indictment of ownership. 

[jgb]

Just now, Irish Jet said:

Absolutely no ******* NFL franchise takes 5 years to turn around.

What are we doing here? What are we actually suggesting? That Douglas gets another two years of league worst type performances before we can evaluate him?

This fanbase is trash. Cultists.

This is only Year 1 of Teh Rebuild™. So he gets 4 more years, actually.

[Wit]

3 minutes ago, Irish Jet said:

Absolutely no ******* NFL franchise takes 5 years to turn around.

What are we doing here? What are we actually suggesting? That Douglas gets another two years of league worst type performances before we can evaluate him?

This fanbase is trash. Cultists.

Well the forever rebuilding Detroit lions and Cleveland browns would like to have a word with you. 

[Anthony Jet]

What pieces do the Jets have that were on the team 2 seasons ago(Mac last season) that are worth anything?

The Jets basically started from scratch. 2 year rebuild is/was a pipe dream. 

[Matt39]

It takes a good draft and some competent coaches to make it better. The Jets leading the league in guys in the trainers room isnt going to turn this around either. Where has Joe Douglas been anyways?

[jgb]

Just now, Matt39 said:

It takes a good draft and some competent coaches to make it better. The Jets leading the league in guys in the trainers room isnt going to turn this around either. Where has Joe Douglas been anyways?

Sleeping under a tree waiting for the draft

[The Crusher]

38 minutes ago, jgb said:

No.

/thread

The discussions starts at deciding who of the two should go first in my opinion. 

[Matt39]

“Someone like Joe Douglas comes in, you’ve got to realize he’s still doing things like hiring the scouts he wants, implementing his system, his way of writing reports, his way of setting up a draft board,” added former Eagles president Joe Banner, one of the co-founders of The 33^rd Team. “So you really have to see a lot of negative stuff to think after one or two years you have to make a change.”

We're not building a ******* rocket ship here. The humps on Jetnation such as myself could handle the draft if we had to and do a better job.

[Irish Jet]

2 minutes ago, Wit said:

Well the forever rebuilding Detroit lions and Cleveland browns would like to have a word with you. 

Matt Millen was the Lions' CEO for seven full seasons, from 2001 to 2007; during that time, the club compiled a record of 31–81 (with at least nine losses each season). Detroit's .277 winning percentage was among the worst ever compiled by an NFL team over a seven-year period; only the Chicago Cardinals of 1939-45 (10-61-3, .141) and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of 1983–1989 (26–86, .234) were less successful.

[jgb]

Just now, The Crusher said:

The discussions starts at deciding who of the two should go first in my opinion. 

Thankfully I have slats sticking up for me every day in the mod lounge. Then again, Jet Nut provides a lot of entertainment....

I don't envy your decision.

[Irish Jet]

4 minutes ago, Wit said:

Well the forever rebuilding Detroit lions and Cleveland browns would like to have a word with you. 

You literally couldn’t have picked a worse example lol.

Even putting aside the fact that the Lions famously persist with awful upper management I don’t even know what point you’re even trying to make here?

The Browns - like almost every other team in the league - don’t stick by GM’s who put together 5 consecutive losing seasons, so we actually should? 

Have you no standards? This is the god damn NFL. It’s literally designed to ensure teams are competitive. The idea that anyone should be entitled to a five year project is absolutely f*cking insane. 

[T0mShane]

44 minutes ago, Jet Nut said:

It was more that they expressed concern about the combination of an inexperienced head coach with an inexperienced staff taking over a very inexperienced team.

 

[freestater]

23 minutes ago, Irish Jet said:

“Everybody wants to win now, but the general rule is a GM needs three years to get anything done, assuming he’s not taking over a franchise in good shape,” a current NFL general manager said. “With the Jets, it was so bad there, you might get progress after three years. But that’s a five-year rebuilding project at least.

Found Belichick. Scumbag. 

[Warfish]

45 minutes ago, jgb said:

No.

/thread

I don’t know. Initial results disappoint. But I’m ok with another draft and FA and season before I cut bait on GM and staff.

[Jet Nut]

 

20 minutes ago, Irish Jet said:

Absolutely no ******* NFL franchise takes 5 years to turn around.

What are we doing here? What are we actually suggesting? That Douglas gets another two years of league worst type performances before we can evaluate him?

This fanbase is trash. Cultists.

Nothing in the article says or hints that we should give JD another two years of leagues whatever type performances to evaluate him.  

But I do agree there is a large part of the fanbase that are trash.  

[UntouchableCrew]

8 minutes ago, The Crusher said:

The discussions starts at deciding who of the two should go first in my opinion. 

They're tied at the hip.

I don't see any conceivable way you could 1) fire Saleh and let Douglas pick another coach or 2) fire Douglas and saddle the new GM with Saleh.

You need to either clean house and let these two see their plan through -- the latter seems like the more likely play.

[Jet Nut]

6 minutes ago, Irish Jet said:

The Browns - like almost every other team in the league - don’t stick by GM’s who put together 5 consecutive losing seasons, so we actually should? 

Have you no standards? This is the god damn NFL. It’s literally designed to ensure teams are competitive. The idea that anyone should be entitled to a five year project is absolutely f*cking insane. 

Instead of playing the angry man maybe you should take the time to read, no one has said we need to stick with a GM who puts together 5 consecutive losing seasons.  

 

[Jet Nut]

10 minutes ago, UntouchableCrew said:

They're tied at the hip.

I don't see any conceivable way you could 1) fire Saleh and let Douglas pick another coach or 2) fire Douglas and saddle the new GM with Saleh.

You need to either clean house and let these two see their plan through -- the latter seems like the more likely play.

If JD drafts well and signs the right FAs but Saleh cant coach them into winners, I could see Saleh getting let go and JD sticking 

[Prodigal Syndicate]

3 straight losing seasons.

 

If we arent competing for a wildcard next season this whole regime needs to be shown the door.

[Jet Nut]

12 minutes ago, jgb said:

Thankfully I have slats sticking up for me every day in the mod lounge. Then again, Jet Nut provides a lot of entertainment....

I don't envy your decision.

Hey, I'm minding my own business.

 

 

[jgb]

8 minutes ago, Warfish said:

I don’t know. Initial results disappoint. But I’m ok with another draft and FA and season before I cut bait on GM and staff.

It's ownership I'm talking about.

[Jet Nut]

On 12/21/2021 at 3:19 PM, Matt39 said:

We're not building a ******* rocket ship here. The humps on Jetnation such as myself could handle the draft if we had to and do a better job.

Its amazing to me also.  After the draft, all the picks I've made in my mind become all pros.  All of them.  Funny how that works

[UntouchableCrew]

So here's the question.

Do you buy the idea that the roster was so bad that it will take multiple years to rebuild it? Do you believe that essentially have bare minimum NFL talent from whiffing in the draft for a decade can't be overcome in two years?

Because in reality Douglas has had two off-seasons during which he's gutted the roster and began to rebuild it and thus far it clearly hasn't been good enough. What is the right amount of time to know?

What is easy to like about Douglas is his "process" -- he likes to acquire draft picks, be smart in FA, keep contracts short, and seems to win almost every trade he makes. He values premium positions. He has a worthy pedigree. At a minimum, he's not some completely unqualified goof like Maccganan who seems to have no discernable plan. 

The biggest knock on him at this point is that the 2020 draft does look like a dog -- but if you believed in him when he was hired I think you need to give him more time to see if he can stack drafts more effectively. Disregarding the elephant in the room for a second (the QB position) I like the early returns on the 2021 draft and I want to see what he can do in 2022.

I'm far less confident in Saleh. Liked the hire but it's tough to watch a team whose coach built his reputation on defense, teaching, and motivation get just bulldozed and smoked on defense. He too deserves more time for sure. Needs more talent, more guys to fit his system. But I'm worried the Cover 3 Seattle defense he wants to run requires elite players and has been "figured out" by the league's top offenses. If that's the case I'm not sure how much value he's adding.

Ironically I feel better about LaFleur that I did before the season. As awful as Wilson has been I feel like at its core this offense works. From a scheme standpoint the defense worries me more which hasn't been the case... In my entire life as a Jets fan.

[jgb]

4 minutes ago, Prodigal Syndicate said:

3 straight losing seasons.

 

If we arent competing for a wildcard next season this whole regime needs to be shown the door.

I cannot see that happening unless... wrong thread to bring up the unless.

[jago]

job-seeking execs advising on the performance of job-holding execs,
fyi catch Rex's opening and closing comments on Urban Meyer rant? lol
"I've spent my whole life in the game"
"You need a guy who's spent his whole life in the game"

[UntouchableCrew]

7 minutes ago, jgb said:

I cannot see that happening unless... wrong thread to bring up the unless.

They need to have a backup option. If they go into 2022 with Zach and nobody else it's likely going to be trouble.

[jgb]

8 minutes ago, UntouchableCrew said:

They need to have a backup option. If they go into 2022 with Zach and nobody else it's likely going to be trouble.

I defer my thoughts for a designated thread where negative opinions about the QB are allowed.