Albert Breer: Woody Johnson stepped in on the first round pick (not Zach Wilson)

[Prodigal Syndicate]

19 minutes ago, T0mShane said:

Rodgers was Nnamdi Asomugha, Tebow, Revis II, Peyton Manning, Brett Favre, and every other shiny object that made Woody feel like a big player in the game. I can’t believe that Douglas—despite watching Wilson negatively impact every other player on his hand-hewn roster—would go Full Kamikaze with Zach even into and through Year Three. That is a suicide mission. 

Joe Douglas has penciled in Becton as a starter for 4 years in a row and shown repeatedly a propensity for being stubborn and slow to move off his mistakes. Everybody knew Mann was a terrible punter and it took Douglas years to admit it.

Him forcing Wilson makes absolute sense for who he is and his repeated behaviour.

[TuscanyTile2]

1 minute ago, Prodigal Syndicate said:

Joe Douglas has penciled in Becton as a starter for 4 years in a row and shown repeatedly a propensity for being stubborn and slow to move off his mistakes. Everybody knew Mann was a terrible punter and it took Douglas years to admit it.

Him forcing Wilson makes absolute sense for who he is and his repeated behaviour.

I still can't understand the punter thing.

JD had Morstead in here when (IIRC) Mann was injured but cut him when he was healthy again.  How was Morstead a FA at that time for us to even pick him up?

How was Morstead a FA again this past offseason?

Didn't we hear that BB absolutely loves Morstead?  So why was he not a Patriot?

 

[T0mShane]

8 minutes ago, Prodigal Syndicate said:

Joe Douglas has penciled in Becton as a starter for 4 years in a row and shown repeatedly a propensity for being stubborn and slow to move off his mistakes. Everybody knew Mann was a terrible punter and it took Douglas years to admit it.

Him forcing Wilson makes absolute sense for who he is and his repeated behaviour.

Eh. They gave Duane Brown $20 mil over two years with the intent of moving Becton off the LT1 spot. He came into camp this year at the RT2 behind JAG Max Mitchell. 

[derp]

5 minutes ago, T0mShane said:

Eh. They gave Duane Brown $20 mil over two years with the intent of moving Becton off the LT1 spot. He came into camp this year at the RT2 behind JAG Max Mitchell. 

When giving 37YO Duane Brown $20M over two years is the counter to the general idea that the GM is a poor decision maker, it’s time to take a step back and realize that the GM is a poor decision maker.

Even that signing pushed Fant, who was one of Douglas’ better signings and who had been playing well at LT, off that spot and eventually off the team. Fant’s playing well in Houston, Brown isn’t helping the team this year.

He's made some outstanding trades unloading assets that have helped cover up generally poor drafting and FA signings. In the draft he went on a two day heater in 2022. Free agency DJ Reed was a home run. Fant, McGovern, and Conklin have been fine. Otherwise it’s not great. I’m sure there are some exceptions to me painting with broad strokes here but I think no huge ones.

[Anthony Jet]

10 minutes ago, T0mShane said:

Eh. They gave Duane Brown $20 mil over two years with the intent of moving Becton off the LT1 spot. He came into camp this year at the RT2 behind JAG Max Mitchell. 

ZW came in as QB2. Toeing the line of admitting his mistake but not fully. Same pattern

 

[CanadaSteve]

1 hour ago, Warfish said:

The amount of conspiracy theorizing and navel gazing in this thread is a new record.

Sometimes a bad regime is just a bad regime.  Conspiracies and dark airline cabals not needed.

Because at the end of the day, all this "not JD's fault, not Saleh's fault, it's all Woody!" is just obvious excuse-making for JD and Saleh.

I gotta disagree here War....You can hold JD accountable for the bad decisions, but you can also suggest it isn't out of the question to think Woody wanted Zach Wilson drafted because of his connection to the family, or that he has meddled.  At the end of the day, Woody is the boss.  If he absolutely wants something, he gets it.    

I also think the Aaron Rodgers decision was a three-way deal.  I have no doubt all three wanted Rodgers.  The problem was this had only one shot at working.  If Rodgers stays healthy all year, I believe this team would be in the playoffs.  We are then talking great things about Saleh and JD.  Rodgers goes down, and we want JD and Saleh fired, and Woody to sell the team.  Such is life as a NY Jets fan - all or nothing. 

The one thing about the OL that just doesn't get considered enough is how many people have had to play on the OL in the past two years.  Duane Brown, LDT, AVT, Mekhi Becton, Dan Feeney, Nate Herbig, Grant Hermanns, Laken Tomlinson, Connor McDermott, Cedric Ogbuehi, Mike Remmers, Joe Tippman, George Fant, Max Mitchell, Chris Glaser, Xavier Newman, Wes Schweitzer, Billy Turner, Carter Warren.  I am sure I am forgetting a couple.  At least 19 starters in 2 years.  I am more amazed that the OL has played as well as it has.

I think the biggest piece of criticism JD deserves for the line is his hiring of Keith Carter.  You can't tell me it isn't a coincidence that we have had 19+ starters on the line in two years which coincides with his arrival?

As for Saleh.  I like the guy.  I think he is a great coordinator.  But here we are again with another first-year coach who was a DC.  They can't help themselves - wanting to build the next version of the 1985 Bears.  If we are so hell-bent on hiring first-time coaches, what if we try something new:  Hire one that was an OC. 

[T0mShane]

24 minutes ago, TuscanyTile2 said:

 

No Chris Johnson?

One can argue against ZW being picked in the first place (and possibly Woody/Chris did push for him), but I think the whole "33 starts over three seasons" argument is a bit silly.  He probably shouldn't have started (certainly not right away) his rookie season but, if we put that aside, the franchise really only gave him 2 seasons, which is a perfectly reasonable amount of time to give a 1.02 QB.  He was awful during that time and Woody, JD and Saleh all acknowledged that by making public statements along the lines of "we just need a QB".  JD was willing to give away a #1 and #2 for a 39 year old QB to replace him (though it ended up being 2 #2's due to injury).

I know I'm in a very small minority here by blaming ZW's struggles this year on the supporting cast (OL, WR, CS), but if all people are complaining about is the backup QB this year, that's a bit overblown to me.  Without AR8, this team had no chance at winning it all.  Could we have made the playoffs this year had we had a better backup?  It's possible but, tbh, I'm not going to get all that worked up about it.  Even ZW's haters would have to admit that he was serviceable enough to win some games (we even beat Philly and should've beaten KC, were it not for the refs).  That's really all you're looking for from your backup QB.  Backup QBs who can lead a team to a SB (e.g. Nick Foles, Jeff Hostetler) are rare.  Foles caught lightning in a bottle for a few games while Hostetler was a legit QB1 (and was one for several years with the Raiders) and played on an outstanding Giants' team.

In short, a QB2 is there to tide a team over for a few weeks, not to play an entire season.  All of these guys that everyone is going nuts about (e.g. Flacco, Minshew, Brissett) aren't going to win their teams a SB.  (Btw, we already know how bad Flacco was behind our pathetic OL.) 

 

1. Thank you for this thoughtful, well-reasoned post. You make many good points. As I lash out at those who are shaping narratives based on their allegiance to Zach Wilson, I need to be more aware of my propensity to do the same in the opposite direction. 
 

2. As much as I hated the drafting of Zach Wilson, it made sense at the time. It was a new regime with the second overall pick and you don’t expect to be picking that high again, so you have to shoot your shot while you can. Granted, Zach was never going to make it here because he sucks and has the personality of stale Nilla wafer, but he was a highly regarded prospect at the most premium position. 
 

3. My grievance with The Zach Pick is that it married Saleh and Douglas to a kid who was never going to make it and they compounded drafting this fey lightweight mush by never once challenging for the QB1 job until it was year three. Yes, as you pointed out, you’re going to give the 1.2 pick every chance to take the QB1 job, but Zach Wilson was, by every metric, among the worst QBs to ever suit up through his first year and well into his second. There used to be a rule of thumb in coaching that you know what you have in a QB after his first 18 starts. I think Saleh knew Zach was toast after 18 starts because Zach’s 18th start was the meltdown game in New England where Zach lost his job to Mike White. Alas, the trend of not challenging Zach continued into this season where was handed the QB2 job despite everyone connected to the team conceding Zach was supposedly getting a redshirt year(s) to work on his fundamentals. What had Zach done to earn that job or that benefit of the doubt? If they had brought in a viable veteran QB in camp, there was no chance Zach Wilson beats that guy out for QB2. Hell, Zach was outplayed by Tim Boyle this preseason. Tim Boyle! 

[Rich Thornburgh]

8 minutes ago, CanadaSteve said:

I gotta disagree here War....You can hold JD accountable for the bad decisions, but you can also suggest it isn't out of the question to think Woody wanted Zach Wilson drafted because of his connection to the family, or that he has meddled.  At the end of the day, Woody is the boss.  If he absolutely wants something, he gets it.    

I also think the Aaron Rodgers decision was a three-way deal.  I have no doubt all three wanted Rodgers.  The problem was this had only one shot at working.  If Rodgers stays healthy all year, I believe this team would be in the playoffs.  We are then talking great things about Saleh and JD.  Rodgers goes down, and we want JD and Saleh fired, and Woody to sell the team.  Such is life as a NY Jets fan - all or nothing. 

The one thing about the OL that just doesn't get considered enough is how many people have had to play on the OL in the past two years.  Duane Brown, LDT, AVT, Mekhi Becton, Dan Feeney, Nate Herbig, Grant Hermanns, Laken Tomlinson, Connor McDermott, Cedric Ogbuehi, Mike Remmers, Joe Tippman, George Fant, Max Mitchell, Chris Glaser, Xavier Newman, Wes Schweitzer, Billy Turner, Carter Warren.  I am sure I am forgetting a couple.  At least 19 starters in 2 years.  I am more amazed that the OL has played as well as it has.

I think the biggest piece of criticism JD deserves for the line is his hiring of Keith Carter.  You can't tell me it isn't a coincidence that we have had 19+ starters on the line in two years which coincides with his arrival?

As for Saleh.  I like the guy.  I think he is a great coordinator.  But here we are again with another first-year coach who was a DC.  They can't help themselves - wanting to build the next version of the 1985 Bears.  If we are so hell-bent on hiring first-time coaches, what if we try something new:  Hire one that was an OC. 

They hired an offensive coach,  it was an enormous whiff

[Rich Thornburgh]

13 minutes ago, Anthony Jet said:

ZW came in as QB2. Toeing the line of admitting his mistake but not fully. Same pattern

 

And ZW will be QB2 in 24

[Prodigal Syndicate]

24 minutes ago, T0mShane said:

Eh. They gave Duane Brown $20 mil over two years with the intent of moving Becton off the LT1 spot. He came into camp this year at the RT2 behind JAG Max Mitchell. 

And they brought in Aaron Rodgers to be QB1. 

They made a dog and pony show of "making Becton earn it." The same show they did for Wilson before giving them their unearned spots.

But there was never any doubt he was going going to be a starter on day 1. Max Mitchell is somehow even worse than Becton and was no real threat to win the job.

 

[T0mShane]

12 minutes ago, derp said:

When giving 37YO Duane Brown $20M over two years is the counter to the general idea that the GM is a poor decision maker, it’s time to take a step back and realize that the GM is a poor decision maker.

Even that signing pushed Fant, who was one of Douglas’ better signings and who had been playing well at LT, off that spot and eventually off the team. Fant’s playing well in Houston, Brown isn’t helping the team this year.

He's made some outstanding trades unloading assets that have helped cover up generally poor drafting and FA signings. In the draft he went on a two day heater in 2022. Free agency DJ Reed was a home run. Fant, McGovern, and Conklin have been fine. Otherwise it’s not great. I’m sure there are some exceptions to me painting with broad strokes here but I think no huge ones.

The reason I’m not as down on Douglas as most is that—broad strokes here—he’s put together an elite defense and put Breece Hall and Garrett Wilson on offense. I need to see what the offense looks like when it’s no longer consistently burdened with the 30th ranked quarterback with the 2.91 time to throw. My issue is that I’ve seen flashes of what that looks like with Mike White, Josh Johnson, and (briefly) Flacco and it’s fairly representative of competitive football. Before I get hammered with Mike White’s cumulative stats, fellas, it just proves the point that a C- QB with no mobility was able to produce more with the same supporting cast. 

[T0mShane]

4 minutes ago, Prodigal Syndicate said:

And they brought in Aaron Rodgers to be QB1. 

They made a dog and pony show of "making Becton earn it." The same show they did for Wilson before giving them their unearned spots.

But there was never any doubt he was going going to be a starter on day 1. Max Mitchell is somehow even worse than Becton and was no real threat to win the job.

 

I’m gonna disagree a bit here. I think if Mitchell and Brown stayed healthy, Becton is either dealt or cut. 

[varjet]

19 minutes ago, T0mShane said:

The reason I’m not as down on Douglas as most is that—broad strokes here—he’s put together an elite defense and put Breece Hall and Garrett Wilson on offense. 

My theory is that Douglas and his scouting/personnel staff were only pushing the players on the defense.  The defensive coaches were the keys to finding the defensive coaches. 

The Jets are so bad on offense because their offensive coaches are so bad.   Any of us could have picked Garrett Wilson or Breece Hall.  

Parcells came in and cleaned out the organization top to bottom.  That is what this organization needs.  The next GM will make the same bad picks with the same staff.  

Unless you get lucky, defensive HCs, who are cheaper, will not move the needle.  Saleh appeared to be a good version of one, but the lack of preparation and discipline is raising eyebrows.   The better model is an offensive HC who basically is the OC (and gets paid a premium) and a DC who basically fully runs the defense with oversight from the HC.

As a side note, sometimes these guys let comments slip out that are telling.   Saleh saying that he talks to Woody everyday about the game plan is just ridiculous.  The GM maybe, not the Owner.   Saleh obviously needs to spend more time on the players.    I can see a weekly briefing with the owner-but every day?  that seems much.  

[T0mShane]

4 minutes ago, varjet said:

My theory is that Douglas and his scouting/personnel staff were only pushing the players on the defense.  The defensive coaches were the keys to finding the defensive coaches. 

The Jets are so bad on offense because their offensive coaches are so bad.   Any of us could have picked Garrett Wilson or Breece Hall.  

Parcells came in and cleaned out the organization top to bottom.  That is what this organization needs.  The next GM will make the same bad picks with the same staff.  

Unless you get lucky, defensive HCs, who are cheaper, will not move the needle.  Saleh appeared to be a good version of one, but the lack of preparation and discipline is raising eyebrows.   The better model is an offensive HC who basically is the OC (and gets paid a premium) and a DC who basically fully runs the defense with oversight from the HC.

As a side note, sometimes these guys let comments slip out that are telling.   Saleh saying that he talks to Woody everyday about the game plan is just ridiculous.  The GM maybe, not the Owner.   Saleh obviously needs to spend more time on the players.    I can see a weekly briefing with the owner-but every day?  that seems much.  

You know, again, I think Hackett is bad and overmatched most weeks, but he’s not the OC—Rodgers is. I think Mike LaFleur did a lot of creative stuff and had a lot of receivers running open in key spots. I think Douglas could have hired Andy Reid to be the OC for Zach Wilson and Tim Boyle and we’d be talking about how the game has passed him by because the offense was DOA. A QB that bad cannot be overcome. 

[SoFlaJets]

I knew it was Barzini (Woody) all along, and I KNOW that something happened from the time Woody told the world that he cared more about Republican Presidential politics more than he did, the Jets. From that moment on, I somehow knew this team was screwed. But trying to figure out WHY they went from a .500 team with 12 playoff games that they split, to one that loses twice as many games then they win.

I thought maybe it had something to do with race, but it doesn't add up. Then when you look back and you think about when it was that we started getting screwed on every big call that the refs make, and it was right around that time. Woody has always been "a League guy" a company man as it were who trusted the NFL to help him find GM's coaches and in return he helped the NFL with it's policy of hiring African Americans as coaches (Herm was their test case).

Now being a company man, he doesn't want to be seen as someone who rocks the boat so the zebras figured there is the mark, they can screw the Jets and make $$$ because Woody Johnson 1-doesn't really give a crap because he's making tons of cash and 2-he will never complain UNLIKE the scumbag in New England who got himself on the rules committee and has always been seen chewing the ears off of the officials on the sidelines. 9/30/12 to 12/24/23 Their record is 66-125 is  a .345 win/loss % BEFORE that stupid comment that lifted the floodgates to allow the crooked zebras to use the Jets as their money maker the Jets were 101-94 plus 6-6 in playoff games that added up to a 51.79 win % compared to 34.55 win % afterwards

Something is definitely going on that is very very wrong

[Warfish]

2 hours ago, T0mShane said:

Literally no one is saying this. Ironically, reducing any attempt to deconstruct the Zach Wilson Mistake as conspiracy-farming is what absolves specific parties of blame. If you guys want to say “Douglas sucks! Saleh sucks” you can certainly make that case, but at least have the self-awareness to know that you’ve been saying “[Head coach X sucks!] and [GM X sucks!] every year that Woody’s owned the team. There are three parties with any semblance of power in this franchise—Woody, Douglas, and Saleh. We can, and do, blame all three of them for Zach Wilson. What’s productive (and fun) is trying to ascertain who’s most to blame in this exercise—not just for drafting Wilson, but running him back out there for 33 starts over three seasons. No disrespect to the dude, but @football guy is a deeply committed Zach Wilson fan and he wants to propagate a narrative that Zach Wilson was victimized by heinous crimes levied against him by Joe Douglas and Robert Saleh. If you find yourself wrapping yourself in the blanket of that narrative because it makes you feel better about the stewardship of the Jets franchise under Woody, prepare yourself to be back here in another five years wondering why the next bad coach and next bad GM are struggling with the next bad QB draft pick. 

A very long-winded way to say Woody makes bad hires. 

And yes, he 100% does.

But JD and Saleh were not bad at the time, they were two of the top candidates available at that time. Very few fans here objected, most strongly agreed with those hires. I know I did.

But they failed. Woodys fail now is keeping them.

[SoFlaJets]

18 minutes ago, T0mShane said:

You know, again, I think Hackett is bad and overmatched most weeks, but he’s not the OC—Rodgers is. I think Mike LaFleur did a lot of creative stuff and had a lot of receivers running open in key spots. I think Douglas could have hired Andy Reid to be the OC for Zach Wilson and Tim Boyle and we’d be talking about how the game has passed him by because the offense was DOA. A QB that bad cannot be overcome. 

the sad part is he should have faked the head injury a lot sooner and the season might have been salvaged-yes, even WITH Trevor Siemien instead of Zach or Boyle at QB

[CanadaSteve]

1 hour ago, Rich Thornburgh said:

They hired an offensive coach,  it was an enormous whiff

First-time coach is what I am talking about.  Not Gase.

[football guy]

3 hours ago, Matt39 said:

Zach’s family and Woody have a relationship beyond football. That’s not a conspiracy. 

It’s conspiracy 101 

[varjet]

16 minutes ago, Warfish said:

A very long-winded way to say Woody makes bad hires. 

And yes, he 100% does.

But JD and Saleh were not bad at the time, they were two of the top candidates available at that time. Very few fans here objected, most strongly agreed with those hires. I know I did.

But they failed. Woodys fail now is keeping them.

Woody could have hired Mike McCarthy instead of Gase.  Mike McCarthy is doing a good job in Dallas.  Might have been on the way to the Super Bowl…..

JD was hired first.  He generally drafted like hie did for the Eagles in 2017-2019.   He drafted a QB who will likely epically fail.   Saleh had no chance.  

Using this scouting staff, when have the Jets drafted the best?  When they had guys like Mangini involved with it.  Even Terry Bradway added some sanity.  JD is not the big brain that was going to fix this operation, like Andrew Berry, with a Masters in Computer Science from Harvard, has.   When Tannenbaum, an accountant by training, was on his own with only Rex to help him, it all went down hill.  Even Barry Switzer could win a Super Bowl with JJ’s team.  

Woody made the right decision to save his money with this current Regime bringing it back with AR8, because new people here, believe it or not, will only make it worse.   Saleh does have some improving to do if he wants to be considered for another HC job.  Leading the NFL in penalties takes away from the argument that he has he has been given a bad roster, even though he has a worse W/L percentage than Bowles.  FWIW, I don’t think Bowles has changed a thing from how he coaches-he just has a decent QB and WRs, just like he did in 2015.  

[varjet]

23 minutes ago, SoFlaJets said:

the sad part is he should have faked the head injury a lot sooner and the season might have been salvaged-yes, even WITH Trevor Siemien instead of Zach or Boyle at QB

With one more win the Jets are in the AFC playoff hunt.   Siemian was the right guy to bring in when Wilson unraveled.  He would have gotten us one more win.  I don’ t think they were making the playoffs, and he was just moving down the draft board.  Maybe that was the intent.  

[T0mShane]

24 minutes ago, SoFlaJets said:

the sad part is he should have faked the head injury a lot sooner and the season might have been salvaged-yes, even WITH Trevor Siemien instead of Zach or Boyle at QB

I wonder where our intrepid young beat reporters are on this very important story. How is Zach Wilson? Where is Zach Wilson? I mean, three weeks in concussion protocol is pretty alarming! 

[UntouchableCrew]

1 hour ago, T0mShane said:

The reason I’m not as down on Douglas as most is that—broad strokes here—he’s put together an elite defense and put Breece Hall and Garrett Wilson on offense. I need to see what the offense looks like when it’s no longer consistently burdened with the 30th ranked quarterback with the 2.91 time to throw. My issue is that I’ve seen flashes of what that looks like with Mike White, Josh Johnson, and (briefly) Flacco and it’s fairly representative of competitive football. Before I get hammered with Mike White’s cumulative stats, fellas, it just proves the point that a C- QB with no mobility was able to produce more with the same supporting cast. 

100% couldn’t agree more.

[T0mShane]

3 minutes ago, varjet said:

Mike McCarthy is doing a good job in Dallas.  Might have been on the way to the Super Bowl…..

 

[Augustiniak]

1 hour ago, T0mShane said:

The reason I’m not as down on Douglas as most is that—broad strokes here—he’s put together an elite defense and put Breece Hall and Garrett Wilson on offense. I need to see what the offense looks like when it’s no longer consistently burdened with the 30th ranked quarterback with the 2.91 time to throw. My issue is that I’ve seen flashes of what that looks like with Mike White, Josh Johnson, and (briefly) Flacco and it’s fairly representative of competitive football. Before I get hammered with Mike White’s cumulative stats, fellas, it just proves the point that a C- QB with no mobility was able to produce more with the same supporting cast. 

Big question for me is what they do at qb this offseason.  If they go the brissett route and throw most of the resources on OL and wr then you know they have 1 year to save jobs.  If they have the balls to invest in a day 2 qb it may show they’re still looking at beyond next year.  Yet, a qb like mccarthy could also save jobs when rodgers misses games.  

[T0mShane]

Just now, UntouchableCrew said:

100% couldn’t agree more.

I think we all agree that the team is not well coached and the offense is as bad as it gets. That they have a chance to win seven games is a testament to the talent on the roster, imo. If they got median QB play and went 10-7 this year is Joe Douglas still the worst GM in the league? 

[football guy]

2 hours ago, T0mShane said:

Literally no one is saying this. Ironically, reducing any attempt to deconstruct the Zach Wilson Mistake as conspiracy-farming is what absolves specific parties of blame. If you guys want to say “Douglas sucks! Saleh sucks” you can certainly make that case, but at least have the self-awareness to know that you’ve been saying “[Head coach X sucks!] and [GM X sucks!] every year that Woody’s owned the team. There are three parties with any semblance of power in this franchise—Woody, Douglas, and Saleh. We can, and do, blame all three of them for Zach Wilson. What’s productive (and fun) is trying to ascertain who’s most to blame in this exercise—not just for drafting Wilson, but running him back out there for 33 starts over three seasons. No disrespect to the dude, but @football guy is a deeply committed Zach Wilson fan and he wants to propagate a narrative that Zach Wilson was victimized by heinous crimes levied against him by Joe Douglas and Robert Saleh. If you find yourself wrapping yourself in the blanket of that narrative because it makes you feel better about the stewardship of the Jets franchise under Woody, prepare yourself to be back here in another five years wondering why the next bad coach and next bad GM are struggling with the next bad QB draft pick. 

False. I simply believe that drafting and developing QBs is more complex than simply throwing a guy in, seeing how he performs, then declaring them bad or good without proper context. I have no idea whether Zach Wilson is or can be good because the Jets as an organization have done a poor job of fostering an environment that promotes QB success and growth on and off the field. The same was the case for Sam Darnold, Geno Smith, and to an extent Mark Sanchez before him. 

[CanadaSteve]

49 minutes ago, varjet said:

 

The Jets are so bad on offense because their offensive coaches are so bad.   Any of us could have picked Garrett Wilson or Breece Hall.  

 

Here is the problem:  If someone is going to criticize JD for his terrible drafts (and it has been said in MULTIPLE threads his drafts have been terrible), you can't say "Well, anyone would have picked them."  

It doesn't work like that.  The obvious pick was Warren Sapp.  The obvious pick was Dan Marino.  Hell, the obvious pick was Dax Prescott instead of Hackenberg. There have been, literally, hundreds of examples across all 32 teams where the obvious pick was 'A,' and a GM has gone 'B.'  

This all/nothing thinking is great for arguing for the sake of arguing, but not when you want to deal with reality.  JD is hitting on about 40 percent of his picks (tough to judge but presuming the 2022 picks all stay good and the 2023 picks are decent).  His first draft was a flop.  His second one found some good depth and a possible OL starter.

40 percent puts you in the middle of the pack.  I have no problem with the Becton swing and a miss.  I loved his potential.  I hated the Zach pick.  Not a fan of one-year wonders who play against bad college teams.  Whether it was Woody pushing him or not, JD has to own that horrible pick. 

JD has one more draft and one more F/A period.  If this team does not go to the playoffs, he's gone.  Simple as that.  This team will have a lot more attractive pieces in place they might just be able to get someone decent to come in.

Of course, NONE of this will matter if whoever comes in to replace JD can't draft a QB.  How can a franchise in their first NFL draft knock it out of the park with Joe Namath, and then go almost 60 years without being able to draft another one?

 

[peekskill68]

1 hour ago, derp said:

When giving 37YO Duane Brown $20M over two years is the counter to the general idea that the GM is a poor decision maker, it’s time to take a step back and realize that the GM is a poor decision maker.

Even that signing pushed Fant, who was one of Douglas’ better signings and who had been playing well at LT, off that spot and eventually off the team. Fant’s playing well in Houston, Brown isn’t helping the team this year.

He's made some outstanding trades unloading assets that have helped cover up generally poor drafting and FA signings. In the draft he went on a two day heater in 2022. Free agency DJ Reed was a home run. Fant, McGovern, and Conklin have been fine. Otherwise it’s not great. I’m sure there are some exceptions to me painting with broad strokes here but I think no huge ones.

I notice on the "good" teams there's a "next man up" mentality.  With the Jets, virtually every year turns into a fire drill.  OL, QB, WR, RB all resulted in last minute "find a guy" maneuvers.  Sure, we can blame the injuries or the out of the blue retirements.  But the bottom line is Joe Douglas seems to be most comfortable living on the edge when it comes to roster building, and constantly rolls the dice he's going to get through the season without drama.  Taking Will McDonald to play 10 snaps a game was pure hubris.  Douglas never learns...

[Augustiniak]

8 minutes ago, CanadaSteve said:

Here is the problem:  If someone is going to criticize JD for his terrible drafts (and it has been said in MULTIPLE threads his drafts have been terrible), you can't say "Well, anyone would have picked them."  

It doesn't work like that.  The obvious pick was Warren Sapp.  The obvious pick was Dan Marino.  Hell, the obvious pick was Dax Prescott instead of Hackenberg. There have been, literally, hundreds of examples across all 32 teams where the obvious pick was 'A,' and a GM has gone 'B.'  

This all/nothing thinking is great for arguing for the sake of arguing, but not when you want to deal with reality.  JD is hitting on about 40 percent of his picks (tough to judge but presuming the 2022 picks all stay good and the 2023 picks are decent).  His first draft was a flop.  His second one found some good depth and a possible OL starter.

40 percent puts you in the middle of the pack.  I have no problem with the Becton swing and a miss.  I loved his potential.  I hated the Zach pick.  Not a fan of one-year wonders who play against bad college teams.  Whether it was Woody pushing him or not, JD has to own that horrible pick. 

JD has one more draft and one more F/A period.  If this team does not go to the playoffs, he's gone.  Simple as that.  This team will have a lot more attractive pieces in place they might just be able to get someone decent to come in.

Of course, NONE of this will matter if whoever comes in to replace JD can't draft a QB.  How can a franchise in their first NFL draft knock it out of the park with Joe Namath, and then go almost 60 years without being able to draft another one?

 

It goes beyond draft picks.  This team hasn’t invested on offense in 20 years until douglas came and tried to even it out.  Whiffed terribly on becton and wilson, but has added blue chip talent on offense we haven’t had in a long time.  The overall philosophy of this team is stuck in the 80s where you can win with any qb and a good defense.  

[Ron Rico]

[Matt39]

34 minutes ago, T0mShane said:

I wonder where our intrepid young beat reporters are on this very important story. How is Zach Wilson? Where is Zach Wilson? I mean, three weeks in concussion protocol is pretty alarming! 

Cimini asked last week and Saleh quickly said “he’s in the building” and moved right on from it 

[UntouchableCrew]

1 hour ago, T0mShane said:

I think we all agree that the team is not well coached and the offense is as bad as it gets. That they have a chance to win seven games is a testament to the talent on the roster, imo. If they got median QB play and went 10-7 this year is Joe Douglas still the worst GM in the league? 

My concern is that they’ve undermined the progress they’ve made by acquiescing to Rodgers. I really think that with average QB play the 2022 Jets were pretty darn good — but dumping MLF for Hackett, trading out Elijah Moore for Lazard, losing Corey Davis (admittedly not Rodgers related) and replacing him with Cobb… Just brutal moves that made a bad offense worse. The offensive line play is largely coaching/scheme related too, imo.

It remains painfully obvious that Hackett 100% needs to be fired (or at least demoted) but they won’t do that so it feels like we’re just flushing this young core because it’s really hard to see the current plan coming to fruition.

But relative to the pulse of Jets fans everywhere I seem to maintain a relatively favorable view of Douglas and Saleh. There’s an alternate universe where with a few key different decisions this team is doing extremely well right now. Drafting Zach Wilson just torpedoed the whole thing.

[Dunnie]

I think we all agree that the team is not well coached and the offense is as bad as it gets. That they have a chance to win seven games is a testament to the talent on the roster, imo. If they got median QB play and went 10-7 this year is Joe Douglas still the worst GM in the league? 

Valid question... I'd say that the improvement would be overvalued and cost ignored... Much like how this franchise repeatedly overvalued the talent on this roster going back to the Rex era.

Sent from my Pixel 7 using Tapatalk

[derp]

9 hours ago, T0mShane said:

The reason I’m not as down on Douglas as most is that—broad strokes here—he’s put together an elite defense and put Breece Hall and Garrett Wilson on offense. I need to see what the offense looks like when it’s no longer consistently burdened with the 30th ranked quarterback with the 2.91 time to throw. My issue is that I’ve seen flashes of what that looks like with Mike White, Josh Johnson, and (briefly) Flacco and it’s fairly representative of competitive football. Before I get hammered with Mike White’s cumulative stats, fellas, it just proves the point that a C- QB with no mobility was able to produce more with the same supporting cast. 

I think objectively when you take a step back and look at the entire group Douglas has put together on offense there are serious problems beyond who’s under center.

Honestly, and hopefully they’re healthy after next week so I can start a thread on them because I’m afraid of doing it and at least one of them blowing a knee, Wilson and Hall are probably the two best skill players the Jets have drafted in the last 20 years - and I don’t think it’s close. That they have those two players and the offense is still horrific is indicative of deep systemic issues that go way further than the quarterback. Namely that there’s a well below average offensive line and no secondary pass catcher despite both groups being seriously invested in and turned over multiple times.

I’d also argue that the defense may not be as good as it should be given what’s been invested in it. They’re like 16th in scoring defense this year. The offense doesn’t help but they also don’t give up game flow points with big leads either. I don’t know that they’re elite right now.