These losses hurt, but I still feel the jets are playing better than I and the experts figured them to be playing this year. They were supposed to be historically bad and go 0-16, but the jets are showing that they can compete and be in every game, which is something that I didn't expect till next year. The attitude of the players has done a complete 180 from last year's team. They are young they have character and they play hard. I think loosing these close games is just the growing pains of a young football team. You can't expect to go from bad to good over night. I want to win as much as the next guy, but I am also realistic about the steps a rebuilding team must take to become a winner. There is a learning curve for young players especially after the house cleaning we did this year. If we can fill 2-3 holes with free agents, fill a hole or two with our #1, & 2 #2 picks, get back quincy, sign ASJ & Ealy, I think this team will be a team to be reckoned with in 2018. Then there is the X-FACTOR who will be the QB. At the very least...but not what I am hoping for we can resign Josh McCown to hold the fort until we find our Qb. I think he has played better than I ever expected. Yes I want Petty or a Draft pick to be our fQb, but I also think we can win with Josh IF WE HAD TO. God knows how this year's Draft is going to play out, and this year's qb class isn't what it was projected to be at the start of the season. I don't expect us to take a Qb in the draft, not because we don't want one, but because by the time we pick, all the Qb left on the board won't be worth the pick. Josh may just be our safety blanket in 2018. Let's hope not. Pray to the QB gods for our legit FQB! !
We will never win with Josh McCown. This year's version of McCown is his ceiling. Plus he's 38. Also, NFL rosters turn over very quickly. Even if our young players look promising, their rookie deals will expire in a couple years. Which means we'll be back to square one unless we get our QB. So unless we get our QB, we're going nowhere.
Budjet and HomeoftheJets you are both right....while the rebuild seems to be moving along slightly ahead of schedule it won't mean anything if we don't have our " franchise " QB behind center in 2018. This team needs to build a core....LT, C, EDGE, #1 CB, etc and none more important and even harder to obtain than a QB. $80 million in FA bucks and some pretty high draft picks should get us somewhere hopefully whether it's trading up, having one fall into our lap, or going the FA route... Cousins ? There really is no more 5 year rebuild in the NFL these days....
I'm not saying Josh is our future, but if we don't Draft a fqb or we don't pick up one in fa, I'm just saying Josh is always be there to hold the fort. I think he has done a good job. He isn't the reason we lost our last 2 games in fact for the most part he played well.
McCown will not always be there to hold the fort. Look at his career numbers compared to his numbers this season. 79.4 career passer rating, 91.5 passer rating through 7 games in 2017. Is he suddenly doing better because he had a breakthrough? Because we have terrific players and coaches? Or because he occasionally has a good stretch (2013 Bears) which he follows with an epic collapse. Also 38 year old QBs, regardless of how good they are, are a year or two or none away from collapsing from age.
Just as important if not more important that nailing our QB and giving exposure to our youngsters is getting a HC that has what it takes to make adjustments on the fly once the game plan changes. Neither Bowles nor the DC have that capability. It was abundantly clear this past Sunday. We get outcoached in the second half consistently, once they detect our weak links they exploit them and we do nothing to counter attack that. While the talent we have on the field is in many areas ahead of schedule the coaching clearly is not. That needs to change for us to really take flight. Sad but true.
OK so if there is no qb for us in the Draft & petty isn't the answer, & we don't sign a bigtime fa qb, who would you like to see under center. Don't get me wrong I WANT A FQB as much as you.
Draft the best QB available. We'll probably be picking around 10th so there will be a good QB there even if he isn't a "slam dunk." I put slam dunk in quotes because nobody really knows what they're talking about. So the guy we take at 10 has as good a chance of being our franchise QB as whoever we would have taken at 1, especially since there are a few hot prospects this year. If the guy we take turns out to be a bust, it won't be any worse than all the non-QB first round busts we've taken. Unless we can get our hands on Cousins for a precedented amount of money, i.e. 20-25M per season as opposed to 30-35M. But I don't think that will happen.
The Browns are proving that there's really no rebuilding in the NFL. The Jaguars too. It all comes down to culture. The Jaguars tried the analytics and let's suck for a while so then we hopefully get better. It didn't work until they changed the culture of the franchise. You need to go into every season putting together the best team you can to win now. Long term rebuilds are a hockey and baseball thing. Not an NFL thing. The Browns ended up with a billion picks for Carson Wentz. And several starters. I defended their trade. But I was wrong. They'd be much better off with Wentz than all of the picks they got for him. Further proof that you can't do anything in this league without 1)a franchise quarterback, 2) creating a winning culture, and 3) a franchise quarterback. It sucks losing draft position with McCown at the helm. But losing games sets the franchise back in creating that winning culture. Lets say we do go 7-9. That's something to build on. I don't care what anyone says.
The football Gods are listening.. They have blessed this team with a horrendous schedule going forward ...starting with Atlanta it gets harder We had the luxury of some leads each game but thanks to Toilet and wild players we blow them...in fourth qtr This is a sad but true pattern ...sorry to report as a lot of team have moxie In short with some bad teams getting some wins we might still get a top three pick
I agree with everything you say, just don't conflate what the Browns/Jags did with analytics. Actually your post is more analytical than the Browns rebuild because even though you aren't using math, you've noticed that good teams don't tank. Which is the entire point of analytics. Figure out what works and go with that. Math plays a part because you can use math to identify the patterns (e.g. don't trade up, baseball players with high OBPs are undervalued, 3&D helps you win in basketball) and make sure your conclusions logically follow from the data. But for all the math the Browns were using, they missed the boat because the data show that good teams don't tank. So I have no idea what they were doing and I don't really want to know.
Good assessment. I was just stating the analytics method with the Browns because that's what they're trying to mask this shitty rebuild with. You can't win with numbers in football. There's way too many factors and it's the one sport where intangibles and coaching account a lot, moreso than in any other sport. Baseball is the only sport that you can really try to use hard earned numbers in and that doesn't even always work. The Oakland A's high OBP, don't sacrifice or steal methods netted them zero World Series victories. In the NFL you need to retool. Not rebuild. Imagine the Browns take Barkley? They had 25,000 fans at the stadium this past weekend. That number will plummet to 12,000 if they do not take a quarterback. They've also went with an overwhelming amount of defenders high in the draft. I hope we don't do that again as a franchise. Our defense hasn't been good this year. But I might throw my remote through the television if we take another defensive lineman this year in the first, even though we actually could use one this year. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing to net the same results, right? Let's try to build a powerhouse offense for once and not a god damn 1980's run & D roster. It's getting reeeeal frustrating.
The guy we take at 10 ??? TBH I can't see two more wins ...so a high pick may still be in the cards However, As long as we play it smart ...like Philadelphia for example and identify the BEST QB in draft put together a package to get him we will free ourselves from mediocrity
Turnover in the NFL is very rapid and the parity between teams is very small as a ton of games come down to the final few minutes of the 4th quarter. With that said, I am unsure if we will necessarily be a team to be reckoned with in 2018 but there are a lot of things that can sway that. I think most importantly is who coaches in 2018, do we still have the same GM? and do we draft a QB high, or do we try our hardest to get Cousins (which I think is unlikely because he's either staying with the Redskins or he'll go to San Fran). We cannot, under any circumstance rely on McCown to start for this team in 2018. There is a reason why he's been on 6 or 7 different teams. He is what he is, a pretty good back up QB, who if need be, can start and win you a few games. But a look at the mistakes he's made so far this season will show you that he is prone to making some bad mistakes. It's not all bad though as he has done a great job of being a mature and steady presence under center and a great locker room presence. If he wants to come back to the jets as a back up in 2018 ok, if he wants to join as a coach, that works too, but starting QB no. Jets will have about 80 mil in cap space, and assuming we dont win too many more games, we may end up with a pretty high pick. We cannot waste more time pretending an old journyeman QB is the future. When the jets get to 7 losses, or even sooner if McCown is costing the team games, Petty and Hack should both get a shot. Not because I think they're better but because this team needs to figure out what they have, or don't have. IMO jets will be picking QB in round 1 in 2018 and I am more than ok with that. Hell, if Macc or whoever is GM wants to trade up, and the deal isn't crazy expensive draft pick wise, I would be cool with that too. Don't spoil a bunch of money in free agency, and a nice young core with no future at QB.
As Neil Young sang: "Red means run, son, numbers add up to nothin'" (From "Powderfinger") There's way too much emphasis on numbers and analytics in all sports. Teams mistakenly believe they can somehow gain more control over winning and losing, and eliminate any "luck". The problem is that you can't quantify what makes an athlete a great player as opposed to a mediocre or poor one. Here's another quote that applies, one of my favorites, from Mark Twain "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damnable lies, and statistics". Metrics and analytics can be useful up to a point, but too often they're used as CYA.
Analytics will never accomplish in football what they did in baseball, but there are still a lot of things you can do in football. But just like you don't want bad coaches or bad scouts, you don't want bad analysts. And it's just like the Browns to try analytics but hire Sashi Brown, a lawyer without a math background, to oversee it. Also the A's didn't win the WS because they had a bare-bones payroll and 2 cracks at it before the rich teams started copying them.
I wouldn't say that. Analytics have transformed baseball to the point that you need a good analytics staff to survive in MLB. Look at the high OBP hitters, super bullpens, and defensive shifts in the playoffs. The Dodgers, Astros, and Cubs are run by GMs with analytics backgrounds, and Cashman swallowed his pride and started copying them a few years ago. Same in the NBA. The good teams like the Warriors, Cavs, Spurs, and Rockets all play a small-ball 3&D style, which analysts realized makes you more efficient. It's just that NFL analytics are much harder, and people who don't have a good technical background (an undergrad degree in econ or business doesn't cut it) are flooding the market with crappy work.
I stand by my assertion. BTW: I hate the "shift" used in baseball as much as it is. Especially in the playoffs - when you're facing better hitters, they will often beat your shift. And really, if you want that much perceived control in a game, which is by definition subject to chance, get rid of all the players and coaches and replace them with video and CG.
