Woody is not what anyone would call a savvy owner, but if you look at it from his bald-headed and stupefied angle, he basically had the best crew of all of the replacement crews officiating his team for two out of the three weeks of this early part of the season. It's hard not to play hardball when your football people are telling you that the refs aren't that bad. He would have changed his tune the moment some truly stupid shit happened in a Jets game with one of the really terrible crews.
True, but Snyder has also spent out the wazoo and I don't think anyone is praising his ownership qualities, are they? I don't follow baseball any longer and even less so the Mets, so I know dick about Wilpon, but I don't buy the argument that Woody is a great or even good owner. Spending wads of cash doesn't make him a good football guy, although at least he isn't the Bidwells. And his record as owner is merely relative. The Jets under Hess were a combination of badly run and extremely unlucky at times--not to mention that the current tradition of winning that the Jets organization has DOES, in fact, go back to the Hess ownership and their hiring of BP. That is when this current run of good times begins, Woody has merely managed to maintain status quo by spending big bucks. No, I think he is a mediocrity with a shitload of money. Of course most of us would gladly trade places and be a billionaire mediocrity, but that doesn't change the fact that he isn't really a football guy and his GM isn't really a talent evaluator. That decision alone tells you he has his head up his ass.
This is not a Woody issue though. Bryan Thomas is OLD, SLOW and coming off a very tough injury to rehab from. The Jets are thin and untalented at LB. If Thomas still had stuff left in the tank they'd still have him on the roster. Football is not baseball. When you're 32 you're cooked and done in most cases. For RB's and LB's it's earlier and for QB's and WR's a bit later. Offensive and defensive linemen catch a break because straight line speed is not as important for them and technique can keep them going for a bit longer. This Jets roster has about a half a dozen ancients creaking around on it at the moment. Those guys are all going to fall out in the next year or two tops. Thomas was just the tip of the iceberg.
The Jets actually spent money between 08-10 on veteran players. But the fact that none of the players that we drafted in that same time span has become star players, the best player we drafted in that time was Keller. That's not good.
The best player we drafted from 2008 to 2010 was Mark Sanchez. You put a Christian Ponder or Blaine Gabbert on this team last year and we go 4-12 with no questions remaining.
I have to disagree with you about Sanchez being better. Keller's potential to this point hasn't been maximized by the Jets. Imagine if he had Brees, Brady, Eli, Rodgers etc throwing to him as opposed to average ass Mark Sanchez.
Dustin Keller couldn't make those teams. You have to be able to block to play TE for any of them and Keller is a weak blocker. I'm hoping the Jets re-sign Keller as a WR to give Sanchez some continuity, not to mention he'd be a very good blocker on corners and not so bad on the edge when his job was to help out not control.
Can you remind me who the starting tight end was when the Jets had the number 1 rushing attack in 09/10 era?
As much as I hate to bump a ridiculous thread FYI this was bogus. Thomas is still with the team. (The second cut)
That's irrelevant. Nobody thinks Keller's blocking was the reason the Jets had a strong running game from 2008 to 2010. The Jets had the best offensive line in the NFL for 2008 and 2009 and the guys they were playing were run grinders: Faneca-Mangold-Moore with Damien Woody outside. As soon as that group had dwindled down to just Mangold and Moore the Jets ability to run the ball at will went away also. If you have a strong offensive line and you go with the jumbo TE a lot, both things that applied to the Jets in the 08-10 timeframe, you'll be able to run the ball. The line went away and the jumbo TE became a penalty machine and since that point the Jets have been an average to below average running team. Keller stayed but the run game went away.
He had to borrow money to buy this team if I recall.... So no, this is not pocket change to him. I think you and others are confusing the Johnson and Johnson FAMILY money with just Woody's money. Yes, he is a billionaire, but even billionaires have assets that cannot easily be moved or touched or that they would lose millions on if they had to liquidate. So constantly feeding cash into the Jets may, in fact, be tremendously difficult for him to do. Hell, look at Modell! He struggled to keep his finances in order for years despite owning a team like the Browns with a rabid fan base and it eventually cost him his team (before he died he sold 99% of the Ravens).
Anyone want to bet $100 and take the Jets over on 5 wins. Shit rolls downhill fellas. It starts with Woody and the lousy job this team did this off season. I know the draft has sucked but they did nothing significant to fix this team, just patch it.
