Brad, Your animosity to the importance of the Cb position is showing. Again. I would have thought you might have at least considered letting that kind of thing slide, at least for a couple of months. This year has been the equivalent of a roundhouse hit to the side of the head with a 2x4 about the importance of having good corners. Youre right about the Qb thing, though. It is a Rex trademark. But... that doesn't mean the FO is not behind it. We just don't know at this point.
I saw a few positives, first he's no Kyle Wilson - he actually looks to locate the ball and make a play on the ball. Going into next year, Jets should look to acquire some veterans at the CB position.
If you add a CB to a good team with a solid offense and defense you get better. If you add a CB to a team with a bad offense it just doesn't matter. Almost all of the CB acquisitions from this year that worked out were on teams that had people like Tom Brady and Peyton Manning and Aaron Rodgers at QB. Almost all of the ones that failed had people like Mike Glennon and rookie void (Vikings) and ancien regime (Giants) at QB. The Jets could have added Darrelle Revis this year and it wouldn't have mattered with Geno at QB. That's just what it is. You see great CB's as a huge factor in games. I see competent CB play as a necessity in games. It's just a difference in perspective. Putting a lot of money into an edge player is always going to cause problems in a capped environment. That's because the football is in the middle of the field 80%+ of the time. When it's not in the middle of the field and not near the line of scrimmage the QB is about 50/50 to screw the thing up himself before anybody else comes into play. It's just percentages. That and the fact that great CB's don't figure in the championship conversation unless a great QB is taking them along for the ride.
McElroy and Tebow? 2 guys that are out of the league now and probably should have been out of the league then. "Clamoring" might be overstating a tiny bit.
You're not remembering 2012 that well. "Is it Tebow Time yet?" was a constant refrain in the media (and on this board). Several posters were making repeated demands to see Greg McElroy in action, demands that went away immediately upon seeing Greg McElroy in action (not unlike the Matt Simms situation the last couple of seasons.) When the starting QB is subpar the backup QB(s) will always be the fan's choice. The story of the Jets since late 2011 is that the QB is subpar and the backup QB's are in demand. Remember the Tebow subforum that had to be created to try to maintain some semblance of order on the board? For an entire year we had two main forums to post in: the Sanchez is not good enough forum and the Tebow is not being given an opportunity by that evil monster Rex forum.
I think if you look back at this season, the safety play has been just as bad if not worse then the CB position - until Jarrett came along and had the game of his life last week. Hopefully Pryor picks it up after being benched. Seeing Dawan Landry out there he brings no play-making ability to this team.
The Jets probably should be playing Pryor at SS at this point but I doubt Rex will bench Landry if he's not clearly the problem, which he isn't.
He's not a coverage safety that's the problem. When you carry four strong safeties who want to play in the box, one of the 4 safeties is going to get forced to play out of their comfort zone. I don't think the Jets had a really good developmental plan for Pryor. We need Pryor at SS going forward and we'll need to find a true FS. I know we like versatile safeties but the amount of TDs we gave up this yr has been pretty crazy.
You would think with 2 safeties of marginal differences in talent/grades are there when you pick, you would go with the guy that is the more natural FS considering you already have 3 better than serviceable SS already on your roster, question marks at CB and you gave up a ton of deep pass plays the year prior. This is where BPA bites you in the ass.
I'm assuming you still watch football on sundays, however I have to wonder after your comment on the game being played in the middle of the field 80% of the time - when most teams these days play on the edges every single week. It's not 1980 anymore
Jets needed play-making ability at the 18 spot - they needed to find a way to generate more turnovers - I think that's what the Jets plan was they believed Pryor was better in this aspect then Dix. Rex wants safeties that can play both FS / SS. Prior to the draft, I didn't think Clinton Dix was all that impressive, he was decent in coverage but after watching Jalen Saunders light him up in that bowl game I came away disappointed. Then again, if it were me drafting - Pryor wouldn't be my BPA. That's another discussion though.
Tim never got a chance to play. He might have been successful maybe not. Mark had so severely regressed that Rex had nothing to lose. To me this was the single worst decision Rex made. Not benching Mark. If Mark had been playing well or even just fair then no issue. But when a guy is that terrible a change has to be made.
We know he's playing a lot better than Pryor. But not sure about his entire season. Sounds like Mark's exaggerating which is common place when you're facing an opponent. To say how great they are.
What the Jets needed more was play-making on the back-end. At the very least someone with the range and coverage ability to provide an extra level of protection for our suspect CBs. Pryor being BPA is really the only way to justify the pick. I had him as my BPA at the time but the gap between he and the rest of field IMO was not wide enough to pick him there given what we already had on our roster and our needs (WR, CB, FS…etc.). Even the difference between he and the next safety, Dix, was minimal. I agree that Dix's college tape does not wow but he was sound fundamentally, ready to contribute right away and more importantly filled a big need. Dix was my fall back pick if the top WRs and CBs were off the board. It was the one where you can say "at least it was a safe pick and filled a need". I never saw the Saunders game you referenced; did Bama had him covering Saunders one on one? This is why I have growing problem with BPA. As a GM, is your goal to compile the most pro-bowlers you can or build a championship team with players that compliment each other? What's the point of being loaded at one spot if it leaves gaping holes else where. The Pryor pick is just a microcosm of why it was so frustrating to hear people defend Idzik prior to the start of the season and why the pitch forks are out now. IMO I didn't think we had a lot of holes on the roster. At the end of last season, I was thinking if we at the very least provide competition for Geno, add a "couple" of starting caliber WRs, get another CB and a FS we should be able to field complete and competitive team, well ahead of whatever rebuilding schedule we thought of initially. With the cap and picks resources we had, many were excited, I know I was. 12 draft picks and a boat load cap space later, we start the season with no QB competition, 1 starting caliber WR, no CBs, no FS. I would say it was a nightmare coming true but that would be a lie as not even in my wildest dreams did I think a GM could screw this past off-season in this fashion Idzik did. The irony of Idzik's mid-season presser was the fact he kept saying "we are close" because we "were" close before the off-season.
Stop and put the drink down as you are drunk on Hatorade right now. Tim and McElroy are out of the league for a reason, the same reason Stephen Hill has not cracked a 53 man roster since being let go. Wait for it………It's because they FUCKING SUCK! Not the kind of Sanchez suck that a lot of you guys used to like to throw around but I'm talking the good college player but better off working at Home Depot than NFL type of suck. And the suck didn't just recently creep up on them out of the blue, they sucked in 2012 too. Our roster was a safe haven for suck that year, that's why Tanny lost his job. Now with that back drop, having the unfortunately pleasure of seeing these guys in practice everyday and knowing his job was at stake, Rex chose the best of the worse in Mark and managed to squeeze 6 wins out of what was probably a 2 wins max team. I know some of you guys like to pretend Mark was holding us back from winning the Super Bowl that year but the real truth is that he played terrible, for a team that was just as terrible but the was best of a terrible QB corps. There was obvious pressure from FO to give Geno every chance this year but he did not stick it out as long as he did with Mark in 2012. Not because he learned his lesson, not because he likes Geno less but because this time he actually had a QB that was BETTER on the roster!!!
Its a fair question, and I think it depends on how much you trust your current regime and how much. Its easier to be the packers lets say with your franchise QB, good WR's and championship winning coaching staff, etc. You feel at ease building around a system and current roster because you know you have a working model. when you AREN'T sure you have a working model its harder to justify building with your current staff in mind. Its probably better to just get the best prospect you see left on the board regardless of position or need… to an extent. (obviously we're not in the market for a Dlineman)
You must be kidding. You know now the results with Mark. And you're still saying that in 2012 Mark gave the Jets their best chance to win. Tim gained over 600 yards as Denver's starting Qb in 2011. Including beating us on a last minute drive ending with an embarrassing 20 yard run to basically knock us out of the playoffs. And you still would have preferred Mark and losing over Tebow and at least a chance at winning. We don't know what the results would have been (we do know with Mark) but it would have been interesting to see how he would have done.
