Year to year, we observe a hand full of teams that seem to always be in the playoff discussions. They may not necessarily hoist the Lombardi every year, but as Macc likes to say, they are consistent playoff contenders and are in contention for the trophy most years. Everyone knows these teams (Pats, Steelers, Pack, Ravens), honorable mention (Giants, Broncos, more recently Seattle). Because of the cap, we know it's not a money thing. Coaching could be part of it, but I don't think anyone besides the Pats necessarily have a genius at HC. Pats and Pack have elite QB's but IMO the others all have flaws that prevent them from carrying a team on their back. Broncos had a very broken version of Manning, Russ is good not elite, Big Ben is gritty but not elite, Eli is eli, and Flacco turns it over a lot. With this being said, here is my take on way we have been falling short through the years. It's generally agreeable that drafting well and the ability to keep the cream of the crop on your team is the key to building sustainable success in the league. In order to do these things, it's mandatory to do two or three other things well....negotiate with current talent to sustain the roster, negotiating with other teams to trade talent that might not be needed on your roster anymore and negotiate with other teams during draft time to accumulate more pics to build the talent base annually or trade up to land premium talent for reasonable draft capital. The teams that I mentioned seem to do both of these things well consistently, they have people in charge that are shrewd negotiators in these area and can leverage resources correctly to keep the team in consistent contention. Teams that are improving (Raiders, Chiefs, might I say the Browns) are doing this and it is paying off for them. The Raiders work their in house deals in a way where they can keep the core of their talent and know how to work the draft, the Browns have been doing a sensational job of accumulating pics and only giving up spare tires....mark my words they will be different in 2-3 years. All while our beloved Jets can't seem to make value added draft day trades, unless of course you include the ones in the later rounds and those usually end up being used for players like Aboushi, Loc Edwards, Brandon Shell and injured out of position corners. When we do trade players, they are for other teams camp fodder, never attaining more value. When we attempt to trade good players, we don't know how to negotiate and we end up releasing them anyway because other teams that have pics aren't stupid. Finally, we don't know how to manage the home grown talent we do have and end up shelling out millions of dollars to players at the worst times. Tanny had solid negotiation skills and we were our best when he was at the helm, this is no surprise. He was generally good at keeping our in house talent, made some really solid player trades and made some decent stuff happen on draft day. Far from elite, but was our best in memory and it showed in the results. Just my opinion!
Which is why in the big picture, the New York Jets are irrelevant in this market and until things change in leadership, will remain so.
Agreed! Besides a change of ownership, the only other hope is if a GM from a truly successful system comes in and is given full control of the organization. No strings attached and Woody has no say in free agents, draft decisions or current player negotiations.
Great perspective & I don't disagree. It all goes back to player evaluation.If they properly understood the value of players both on the field & financially they wouldn't make bad trades & would leverage their position better in trades for better return.That said Tanny was the best negotiator followed by Idzik.Neither knew how to evaluate talent however. Even bad trades & deals can be overcome by drafting smarter...which again goes back to player evaluation
I think the successful teams, more than anything, have great coaching and, by extension, great systems. They can coach up and insert players more easily. It means they don't rely on individual talent, and thus, aren't forced to overpay certain players. The exceptional part to this conjecture is the QB. Need a good QB on top of the good system and coaching to really make it happen. But I think the rest cascades down once the system and coaching are in place.
Interesting. I think you have a good point, and it's part of the problem, but not the core or root cause of the problem. One other factor that I think is important is that those best teams you mentioned negotiate from a position of strength. They are respected, have depth, talent, and know what they're doing. The Jets are almost always trying to negotiate from a position of weakness be it because their owner is so clueless, because there is a circus surrounding the franchise, because there is always a novice HC and/or GM, and any other factors. I disagree about Tanny somewhat. He was a good negotiator for trades, probably owing to his background as both an attorney and accountant, and was able to make a great trade with Cleveland to move up for Sanchez because those running Cleveland were stupid. In general, he traded up too much, and at times he didn't need to, and in fact needed to trade down, was too aggressive, and he didn't know talent from a hole in the wall. He wasn't such a great negotiator with in-house talent, either. When he was just the cap guru, every draft pick was always signed and in camp on time. Once he became GM, that stopped. How many times did Revis rape him in negotiations and hold out? Tanny's idea of handling the cap was kicking everything down the road. We wound up overpaying and having to hold onto older players past their primes because Tanny had renegotiated their contracts and kicked big money into the last year or two of their deals, and the cap cost was prohibitive to cut them. Worse, he left the cupboard pretty bare, and Idzik finished emptying the cupboard, or at least did nothing to start re-stocking the cupboard.
All teams go through their ups and downs, the one constant between the ups & downs in QB. If the Jets find a QB they will become a consistent contender like some of the teams you mentioned in your OP.
I don't see this as an issue. it's very rare for a player to not go to the highest bidder. every once in a while sure. The main issue i'd say is the ability to land a good head coach. they don't want to come here so we are stuck trying to find a coordinator and hoping they can coach
Do you know that for the fact that you make it out to be? Which good HC chose not to come here that left us hiring a coordinator? Last time we hired a HC we got the hottest coaching candidate at the time, which everyone praised. Sure it's easy to look at it now and call it a bad decision but it sure looked like a good decision at the time. Fact of the matter is there are very few retread candidates and nearly every team is hiring the hottest coordinators at the time. As much as I'd like a Payton, Harbaugh, Obrien next year the likelihood is that it will be another coordinator, hopefully an offensive one this time.
when was the last time we hired a head coach? parcells? since him it's been herm, mangini, rex and bowles. all DCs except herm was was a BD coach. I'm not counting groh either because that was just a disaster of bellichick fucking us over. as far as which good head coach I can't really think off the top of my head.
A lot of the retread experienced head coaches have a hard time overcoming their previous failures within league perception & hiring owners.There are very few no brainers.It takes a hiring body/owner to look past the previous failure & show conviction. And since Woody has to bring in 3rd party consultants to tell him who's qualified & routinely demonstrates his only clue of a determining factor rests on public/media perception...chances are he's not the guy to see the feast within the fog. I think the biggest thing the RIGHT experienced head coach would bring is a sense of credibility throughout all levels of the organization.The circus perception rightly or wrongly has taken on a life of its own..that needs to be put to rest. The biggest con for an experienced head coach is that they don't always offer a long term solution.Weve been down that road w Parcells & some would argue we've never recovered
yeah it's always iffy but look at what guys like ried, coughlin, carroll, and bellichick have done for their franchises. Even harborough what he did for the niners and the dumb GM pushed him out and they sucked ever since. If we could lure a guy like harborough back to the NFL i'd give him a kings ransom.
It's more about the players than anything. The Jets have been one of the worst drafting teams in the past 7 years. Oakland was horrible until they started drafting good players. We need a GM that knows how to pick players.
This is true. My point is that shrewd owners/managers know how to structure these big deals where it puts emphasis on performance, as well as structured to where that respective team can still go out and make moves. Also the great ones tend to write the big checks at the right times, unlike how we seem to do it close to an injury, with aging vets or at non premium positions. The Pats gave Hightower a big contract, but it had team friendly flexibility, hes young and he's arguably the captain of that defense. We give Mo Wilkerson record money right after a significant injury, also didn't structure it in a way where we could still be active in other areas. Snacks was more than 40% cheaper than Mo, had no injuries, and had arguably the same impact. Just a quick example.
Didn't Tanny give Sanchez that ridiculous extension when he still had 2 years on his contract? He also locked us into cap hell by spending crazy money to acquire lots of over the hill veterans. If you want your GM to massively overpay players (including home grown talent), then he should absolutely be your guy. He also made all kinds of crazy bets on draft day resulting in the jets often having 4 or fewer draft picks (and no depth). The only one of his picks that resulted from those trades that was truly worthwhile was Mevis and he stupidly gave Mevis a covenant in his contract that he wouldn't franchise him, resulting in the team having no negotiating leverage when his contract ran out. Mac may have made some questionnable decisions, but I don't think he made any that were nearly as outright stupid as Tanny did.
1. GM who drafts well. 2. Coach who coaches well. 3. QB who plays well. 4. Owner who isn't a little woody johnson. 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = winning team. Jets are 0/4.
That's why Woody desperately needs to hire a knowledgeable, experienced football man to run the team. That guy can create the identity and culture, hire and supervise the GM, report to Woody about what he's doing, teach Woody the game, and allow the GM to do his job without interference from Woody. Woody then won't have to ask/pay consultants who owe no allegiance to Woody or the team, and for whom there are no repercussions if they give bad advice. If we get a respected football man running the team, I would trust him to hire the best GM candidate, and he in turn would hire the best HC available. I think we'd have a better chance of hiring a quality retread if they knew that there was someone qualified and intelligent running the team instead of Woody, and they knew that they didn't have to deal with Woody's meddling.
Who are these quality retreads though? I agree that Woody needs to hire a football guy who hires a GM who hires a HC but the likely hood is that HC hire would also be a hot coordinator because there just aren't many quality retread candidates available every year, if any. I am also hoping that Harbaugh, Payton or O'Brien will be hired but I can't say I think it is very likely. Honestly I could see Gruden being a possibility if the Jets have the 1st pick and Darnold has declared.
