The vets were the talent and heart of the team and they aged out. The draft had been used to fill immediate holes, often via trade and often unsuccessfully. Following the 2011 season the Jets recommitted to Mark Sanchez in a big way but without allowing for the two factors above. He was left holding the bag as the team got worse and worse around him - leading to him getting worse and worse in the process. The most significant factor in the collapse was the poor drafting and draft strategy the Jets employed from 2007 to 2011. Getting players like Darrelle Revis, David Harris and Mo Wilkerson looks great on the surface but the reality is that those guys are about the only talent that came out of the draft over that 5 year period. Then you had the free agent signings in that period that often added a marquee player to the roster only to see him age out a year or two later. The Jets biggest pro player acquisitions from 2007 onwards were Calvin Pace (good player paid like a star, 30 in 2010), Thomas Jones (good player, 30 in 2008) Kris Jenkins (Bad knees already operated on twice before the Jets, 30 in 2009), Brett Favre (!), Alan Faneca (faltering pass protection skills, 33 at signing), Antonio Cromartie (best long-term acquisition in the period!, 30 in 2014), Braylon Edwards (30 in 2013), Santonio Holmes (problem child, 30 in 2014), Bart Scott (30 in 2010), Jim Leonhard (30 in 2012), Lito Sheppard (30 in 2011), Damien Woody (33 when acquired), etc. The team was constructed to collapse almost immediately and it did. The Jets got very little value in the 22-26 age range that is the lifeblood of a healthy franchise. Most of the real value came from players at or over 30 and in swift decline thereafter. The drafts blew chunks minus the 3 players listed above and so the Jets player contributions were very expensive and declining over time instead of cheap and on the rise. Basically it was a textbook case in how not to build a team and it lead directly to the 7+ seasons in the wilderness since.
May I add....Letting Snacks go and re-signing Muhammad Wilkerson. Bringing back Revis. Bringing back Sixpatrick. Passing on Dan Quinn for Gump. Hiring a beancounter (Idzik) to be the GM. Trading for Tebow. Just rattling stuff off that comes to mind right away.
The Jets were already dead by the time all of that happened. It was just a question of 8-8 or 5-11. The foundation of suck was laid in the 2007 to 2009 period and reinforced with the 2010-2011 builds that went nowhere.
Non stop draft busts, Santonio Holmes in the locker room and on the field, getting rid of Cotchery and Edwards replacing them with Derek Mason and Steven Hill, Totally screwed up Sanchez taking his receivers away. Defensive draft busts at no. 1 Idzik under Rex’s advisement, Kyle Wilson playing for 5 straight years when he couldn’t even cover someone in pop warner ball.
What went wrong is that Woody failed to understand that he had no one that knew how to run a successful operation, and he still doesn't - understand, nor have anyone who can run a successful football operation.
We let go of Cotchery and Edwards and tried to replace them with an old malcontent and a guy who shot himself.
Starting QBs: Mark Sanchez, Geno Smith, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Josh McCown Drafted QBs: Greg McElroy, Geno Smith, Tajh Boyd, Bryce Petty, Christian Hackenberg + Michael Vick They all sucked. Except 2015 Fitz and 2017 McCown. Fitz got us our only winning record since 2010, and McCown got us a 5-11 record in a season we were trying to tank. Good QBs outside of the intentional tank year, and our problems would have miraculously disappeared. See GB which is a trainwreck of a franchise, worse than us, but they have Rodgers.
Lack of drafting talent. Poor rookies couldn't replace ageing warriors and this is a cycle that has repeated itself in the 35 years that I've been watching. We had some horrible drafts in the mid-Eighties (hello 1986!) which meant that a pretty good team could never progress and slowly became a mess. Then we did the same in the mid-Nineties (hello 1995!). And then did the same in mid-00s. And the drafts 2012-15 may be the worst yet. Essentially, what I'm saying is that we are All-Pro shit at drafting and Jets fans should hibernate during the middle of each decade. Good times will be with us again soon - maybe even a Wild Card spot in 2019. Enjoy it, we'll go 2-14 in 2022 with Tajh Boyd Jnr under center - hand-picked by HC Vladimir "Defense wins Championships" Ducasse. Exotic blitzes, overdrafted linebackers, you know the drill.
I'll add Rex electing or being forced to retain Brian Schottenheimer to the list. This sabotaged your young QB's development before it got started. BTW BS just got hired by Seattle to be their new OC.
Instead of building around their franchise QB who just played in back to back championship games his first two year the Jets stripped him of his two best weapons and left him with a malcontent cancer. Then the following year bringing in a sideshow which effectively ended any chance he had, was all downhill from there.
The crazy salary cap woes came to roost, and Tanny was an abysmal failure at drafting replacements for cut and retiring veterans. Vlad Ducasse, Kyle Wilson, Quinton Coples, Kenrick Ellis, John Connor, ??? All of those picks were complete trash and it's no wonder the team fell from grace. Faneca was cut, Woody and Richardson retired, Jenkins was cut. Those are all big shoes to fill. What about the Tim Tebow fiasco.
After 2010 they screwed up by letting Braylon Edwards & Cotchery go, while overpaying Holmes, and then letting the oline go to shit with Wayne Hunter. That was the beginning of the end of Sanchez. I think they also lost Brad Smith & Weatherford that year because they were strapped for cash. It's really on Tanny. Years of backloaded contracts finally came back to bite us in the ass, and as a result high roster turnover. Special teams took a nose dive, all the things we excelled at the year before became weaknesses.