Back then you had to put bulletin board comments on an actual bulletin board. You must have spent a goodly amount of money on scrap paper and push pins.
The irony of all this, is your plan is to blow up this version of the Jets, which is exactly what the Jets have done after every sign of trouble. Isn't hitting the reset button every 3-4 years exactly why we can write a list like this?
Oh come on now Champ.. I pretty much agree that if they have another dreadful season, Johnson will dump Rex - that doesn't mean its the right decision. Yeah, there was some discord in the locker room that RR wasn't aware of. It doesn't make him a bad leader or a bad manager. Its obvious some of the players keep the poison out from under his nose and no one took the initiative to bring it up to him. Teams have been to and won the Super Bowl with as many or more deficiencies as this team has now or after the rebuild in the draft & FA. GB last year had a sieve for a defense. It's only because GB's offense was able to cover it up that they won. After you work for a handful of good and bad managers, then then become one yourself, you understand what it takes to be a good leader and what separate you from the poor leaders. I'm not going to get all philosophical on your ass, but Rex lets his player be themselves. Any good manager knows that if you lock down your subordinates, there will be discord. Freedom and ruling with respect, instead of fear, gets you more productive workers. Too much freedom, and it backfires, much like Rex experienced this year. The right guy is in charge of our locker room. Don't look at the surface and some quotes from the media and think the team needs to reboot - Yet again! It will be another 3 to 5 year setback. If Johnson stays the course with Rex over the next 5 years, I am 100% positive the Jets will win a SB. I won't be worried about being 60 with the Jets never winning anything, cause if Johnson has some patience himself, we will see the mountain top. If the team is in the playoffs almost every year, they have a chance at a SuperBowl. Cowher gets credit for making Pitt a consistent playoff team, but it took 13 years to win an SB. Why shouldn't Rex get the same treatment?
I think you are mixing me up with someone else. With the exception of replacing Schotty and perhaps Holmes, I am a stay-the-course guy. I want to keep Sanchez and upgrade a few positions.
Because he allowed the players to run the asylum for starters He brought shame & embarrassment to the NYJs I hope you are right that by the time you are 60 they are on the other side of the mountain but just what if your hope is WRONG & they did not climb the mountain & you are still watching a losing FB team how would you feel at that time? Oh yes you are not taking into account that RRs contract expires after the 2013 season & if we have a dreadful 2012 you could expect Woody to expel RR from the NYJ family :sad:
There are a lot of different angles to take responding to various excellent points made in this thread, but coming to this post at the end, I did want to clarify one thing. I don't agree that there is a NECESSARY connection between pessimism and wanting to tear apart this team, on one hand, or optimism and leaving it alone. To the contrary, and I do not consider myself a darksider, although I have little patience for the rose colored glasses approach too many have here, one reason for pessimism right now is it does not look like the Jets can tear apart this team in any constructive way, due to the various contract situations it faces. For example I think despite the understandable reactions here to Holmes, that he is not going anywhere. The cap hit for cutting him is prohibitive. And no one else will want to take him. So he stays, with the likely problems that brings. See? Accepting doing nothing is in this case a cause for pessimism. And despite my own negative assessment of Sanchez, I think Tanny and Ryan have thrown their lot in with him, and are doubling down when they say he will definitely be back as the starter. I don't see them on their own changing course. And it's not a question of patience, where patience is seen as the road to certain success. Sometimes you have to be impatient when it comes to mediocrity, or to doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Having said that it is not clear right now which direction the team is presently heading in. And the Jets since 98 ARE certainly a more good than bad team, and that is to be appreciated. After all, it is better on a given Sunday during the season to have the Jets win that day rather than lose. Winning an SB is the ultimate goal, but it is not the only source of enjoyment and satisfaction. And while I completely understand the concept of saying you want to see the Jets win it all before one dies, (does anyone, even the younger posters here, disagree with that??? No real fan fails to understand that concept) I will not feel that my own life would somehow be a failure if that did not happen. I am not that much of a darksider.
Too bad kids will be making fun of u as the old guy who still insists on using those archaic computers to type out thoughts while promising to continue to use their neural implants to share their thoughts even if the jets haven't won a super bowl by the time they're 60.
Sorry, didn't mean to quote you as much as using the chronological list as an example in response to the burn down the forest types.
My point is, complaining that the Tanny/Rex/Sanchez trifecta (and the 3 of them are in this together, if one goes, all 3 would/should) isn't going to bring home the Lombardi trophy, you have to realize that the 43 year drought automatically would be extended to probably 45, 46 at the earliest if you decide to blow it all up right now. Maybe that's where part of the frustrating comes from, but if you scrap this group, it's not rebuilding, it's mass demolishing that would essentially tank the next couple of seasons.
Although my positive view of Ryan took a huge beating this past year and during the current off season, I still count myself as a supporter of his. But I simply cannot understand your absolute confidence in him. Will not much depend on the approach taken with this team? What should be clear to everyone here is that the approach taken so far has brought some obvious positives, but it also has not led to a path ever onward and upward, either. It led to a third year that was a disappontment and a clear step backward. From that progression, how can anyone be absolutely confident? Ryan seems by all accounts to place a value on loyalty, and we have seen examples of players returning that loyalty. I admire loyalty. But I don't think the best approach to life is showing loyalty to people who in one way or another hurt you. Let's face it - the Jets' prospects of winning an SB in the next five years will have very much to do with what happens with Mark Sanchez. And here Ryan's loyalty is a real source of concern. And in that connection it is not enough to rely totally on patience. Ryan should be assessing Sanchez with a cold clear eye, and get rid of any notion that Mark is like a son to him or the equivalent. Now if Sanchez blossoms in a Sparano run offense, and other holes on the team are well filled, and maybe not this year but the year after, with the core of Revis, Mangold, Harris and Ferguson still in their primes, and players like Cro and Pouha and hopefully Holmes and some others also contributing, the Jets could meet your expectations and achieve that goal. Right now, though, I think that is less than likely.
But the problem is Ryan's professional wagon is already hitched to Sanchez and it has nothing to do with loyalty. Under Rex, I can't see the defense being bad enough where they'd wind up with a season putting them in a position to draft a stud QB in the first few picks. And aside from Drew Brees (and I guess you can put possibly Cutler), franchise QB's that can lead a team to a SB rarely change teams in their prime. And I don't think Rex would be given enough time to watch Sanchez flame out, then wait for the next QB to develop.
Aside from some pie in the sky scenario like Manning joining the team in a way that allows for other moves to still be made to improve the team, a scenario I am quite skeptical of, I don't think anyone here disputes that changing out Sanchez would take some doing. (And ftr I don't know why if Tanny were demoted or fired, that that would require Ryan to be, or Sanchez gotten rid of.) But the counter argument to what you are proposing is instead that staying the course now may merely be putting off the need to do so in a year or two, if and when Sanchez shows himself to be incapable of doing what is needed from the Qb. And by that point the core of the team will be that much older, and the window for them will be shutting. In terms of overall strategy, the Jets gambled that trading up to the fifth pick in the draft would yield a Qb at least adequate enough to join a team with the core group of strong players the Jets had at the time, and that this mix would be enough to win an SB. So far it has not, and most worrisome is that Sanchez is so far playing far below the hopes and i would say expectations for him. How many years does Mangold have it in him to lead the OL? He was injured this past year, and look what that did to the team. Revis will have to go through another contract negotiation. Ferguson had an off year, and as for Harris, he's part of a linebacker corps that is too slow already. If the Jets continue to show patience with Sanchez, it may lead to nothing more than a period where we get to watch the corps group of players decline as they get older, and perhaps injured. It's a real risk make no mistake about it.
I think I largely responded to this in my previous post that followed yours, but if you think I left something out, please say so. Again, I don't dispute your point, but there is certainly a counter argument to the be patient with Sanchez argument. Funny you mentioned Cutler. For all the problems he's had, I think if the Jets had somehow gotten him the year they instead picked Clemens, we might well have had an SB by now.
No I'm with you pretty much 100%. To me, this is Tannenbaum's 2nd head coach. As a GM, I don't think you usually get 3. We're far enough into the regime where this is his team. I don't think another 8-8 season seals everyone's fate, but a 6-10? Considering the expectations the team has said they have, I think something like that would force Woody's hand and I don't think this is an organization that a head coach would come here and accept and adopt the current culture. As far as Sanchez, you're right when you said the counter argument is if you're going to get rid of Sanchez in 2 years, why wait (paraphrasing). And that to me is the frustrating part because you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. I don't know the answer and I'm glad I'm not the one with my job on the line making the decision. But as a fan, the last thing I want is to keep plugging in veteran QB's and every year hanging your hat on the D being hopefully good enough to turn them into Trent Dilfer.
Imo a 6-10 season would almost certainly mean Ryan would be gone, and probably Sanchez, too. But while Ryan might, and I mean might, be back after an 8-8 season next year, it is hard for me to imagine one more year of Sanchez as the starter after that. I believe he would be headed into his contract year. What do you do with his contract after another 8-8 season???? Anyway, yes, damned if they do, damed if they don't. Heh. Sounds pretty darksider to me, but I am afraid in THIS case, it is all too real and realistic.
I agree with 100% of your post. I think we are in QB limbo right now. It is too soon to give up on Sanchez but the guy is clearly not earning the money we are giving him (much less the high draft pick we invested). Some teams like Manning's Colts have so much invested in their starting QB and the other assets they have surrounded him with (OL, WRs, etc. (that a solid backup QB is a luxury they can't afford. As we learned this year if Manning goes down they are screwed anyway so what's the point in wasting cap space on a backup. We on the other hand have a QB that not only could be replaced by a backup (if injured) but also could lose in a straight up competition if he fails to develop. I think it is a high priority for us to bring in a viable backup that could potentially take over the starting job. A player like Shaun Hill or Jason Campbell that has shown on the field they can play but not someone like Alex Smith or Matt Flynn who will break the bank an force us to make a decision on Sanchez before next season would be ideal. It's not like Brunell is coming back next year anyway.
Yes, now they do it in northern Mexico, but instead of 'vanish without a trace', it's 'end up as a severed head on top of a pile of other severed heads'.
If Sanchez regresses or gets injured the focus would be on him and Rex could survive a 6-10 season next year. If we lose because of bad play on the defensive side of the ball I think Rex might be in more trouble. Herm had a couple bad seasons excused because of injuries because he (and not Parcells holdovers) got us into the playoffs. Like Herm, Rex has already thrown a coordinator under the bus so that card has already been played. Rex is likeable and has had success as a coordinator and a head coach. He is also Buddy Ryan's son and would be a hot commodity as a coordinator if we fired him. I think he survives a 6-10 season next year but a 4-12 meltdown would lead to him being escorted out of the meadowlands by security.
Among the more interesting off season decisions facing the Jets (and assuming Manning is not going to happen) perhaps the most interesting will be what they do, or don't do, about replacing Brunell. Options include doing nothing, which likely means McElroy becomes the backup. That might not be the worst thing in the world (as I thought he looked very good from what we saw of him), but I think would probably be too risky and inadequate. There also as you point out are options to go with proven talents of vet Qb's who, unlike Brunell, are not one step short of retirement. Personally my choice there would be Kyle Orton. Orton was a poor fit in Denver, and I do not blame him for their relative lack of success with him before they inserted Tebow. He played well in KC, and imo is better than Sanchez. In a real competition (were one to be had) I think he would beat Sanchez. Would Orton be good enough to go to the playoffs? I think so. I am not a big fan of Campbell's. Plus, what is his health situation? Hill is a real possibility.
