It’s so easy to re-write history, so I’m going to point some things out here. Part I: Inheritance When Joe Douglas took over, the Jets core players based on high picks (1st, 2nd) and financial investment ($9 Million+ Per Year) was as follows: Offense: -QB Sam Darnold (1st Round) -LG Kelechi Osemele ($11.7 Million) -RB Le’Veon Bell ($13.125 Million) -WR Quincy Enunwa ($9 Million) -WR Jamison Crowder ($9.5 Million) Defense: -IDL Leonard Williams (1st Round) -IDL Quinnen Williams (1st Round) -LB Derron Lee (1st Round) -LB CJ Mosley ($17.5 Million) -S Jamal Adams (1st Round) -S Marcus Maye (2nd Round) -CB Trumaine Johnson ($14.5 Million) Maybe just looking at this list is a good enough reminder of how bad this team core was but I’ll lay it out for you all anyway. Part II: The Purge -Darron Lee —The Jets got a 6th back for the 1st round disappointment a few weeks after Mac was fired before the 2019 season. His trade left $1.408 Million in dead money. Status: Out of the League -Leonard Williams —Douglas managed to retrieve a 3rd and 5th for Williams at the 2019 trade deadline. Williams put up 1 high quality year of pass rush for the Giants in a contract year, earned a large contract, and has been quiet since. Trading Williams to the Giants left $9.388 Million in dead money. Status: Overpaid Starter -Trumaine Johnson —Johnson was cut after the 2019 season, and two horrendous years. Johnson left $12 million in total dead money with his departure. Status: Out of the League -Kelechi Osemele —Osemele was released after the 2019 season after poor play and injury. Osemele left $10.2 million in total dead money with his departure. Status: Out of the League -Quincy Enunwa —Enunwa was an injury plagued player before and after the extension. He was released after the 2019 season and left $15.479 Million in total dead money with his departure. Status: Out of the League -Jamal Adams —Douglas netted two 1sts and a 3rd for the disgruntled Safety in the 2020 off-season. Adams also had a big year in a contract year, and now is struggling mightily with the Seahawks. His dead money left after the trade was $3.582 Million. Status: Overpaid Starter -Le’Veon Bell —Bell was a complete dud, and was released part way through his second year (2020). Bell is with the Ravens now and is averaging 1.7 yards per touch after being elevated from the practice squad. Bell left $19.063 Million in dead money with his departure. Status: Practice Squad Backup -Sam Darnold —After being traded for a 2nd, 4th, and 6th it only took 6 games to see Darnold getting benched in Carolina. Dead money left was $5.02 Million. Status: Benched Starter The Core of players pre-built by Mac consisted of players who are… -Out of the League x4 -Practice Squad Backup x1 -Overpaid Starters x2 -Benched Starter x1 And left the Jets with a combined Dead Money Total of $76.14 Million just to get rid of them. This means that 20% of the 2020 AND 2021 Basic Salary Cap COMBINED has been designated exclusively to players who were not only not acquired by Joe Douglas, but also not even on the roster for the most part. The Jets were so heavily invested in these bad players that it has actually required 2 full off-seasons to purge the majority of them. And for simplicity’s sake, I haven’t even included the Brian Winters and Darryl Roberts etc. either, who fell slightly under the $9 Million marker. Part III: The Thievery Somehow, from this list of disappointment, the Jets acquired draft picks in the form of: 1st, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 6th. This more than an entire draft worth of extra picks, all from what are mostly disappointments elsewhere. The only downside is that many of these picks are for the 2021 and 2022 drafts, so the return takes some time to see in action. Part IV: The Rebuild With 20% of the basic 2020 and 2021 cap in dead money alone, almost nothing in holdover talent for Mac, and the majority of the rebuilding resources not useable until 2021 and 2022, it’s more than clear the 2022 off-season is the strike point for the team. Using the same Core Player qualifiers, the 2022 Jets look like: Offense: -QB Zach Wilson (1st Round) -LT Mekhi Becton (1st Round) -LG Alijah Vera-Tucker (1st Round) -C Connor McGovern ($9 Million) -RT George Fant ($9 Million) -WR Corey Davis ($12.5 Million) -WR Denzel Mims (2nd Round) -WR Elijah Moore (2nd Round) Defense: -IDL Quinnen Williams (1st Round) -DE Carl Lawson ($15 Million) -DE John Franklin-Myers ($13.75 Million) -LB CJ Mosley ($17.5 Million) Of course the Jets will have additional Cap Space and 4 more picks in the first two rounds of the draft as well, meaning we will see as many as 5-7 more core players added to this list. Part V: The Criticism The majority of criticism for the Team Building of Joe Douglas seems to come without the the realization (or forgotten awareness) that Summer 2019-Spring 2021 required a tremendous amount of self scouting and awareness of the state of the roster. As the major Maccagnan investments were jettisoned piece by piece, via cut or trade, they left not only the total void of good players, but the clog of unusable cap space in their wake. The only real criticism that seems to be out there is that he should have signed Jack Conklin and Robby Anderson. Is that really what would have been the difference in 2020? Or now in 2021? Would the Jets have won 4 games instead of 2 and been stuck with Darnold another year? I don’t want to hear about the drafted players yet. Go check out any GM’s total draft picks after 1.4 seasons on the job and show me a good long list of clear studs. Jason Licht (TB) Year 1: 1st: Mike Evans 2nd: Austin Sefarian-Jenkins (Bust) Chris Ballard (IND) Year 1: 1st: Malik Hooker (Bust) 2nd: Quincy Wilson (Bust) Steve Keim (ARI) Year 1: 1st: Jonathan Cooper (Bust) 2nd: Kevin Minter Eric DeCosta (BAL) Year 1: 1st: Hayden Hurst (Bust) 1st: Lamar Jackson Brandon Beane (BUF) Year 1: 1st: Josh Allen (Almost Universally declared a Bust until Year 3) 1st: Tremaine Edmunds These are widely considered some of the best GM’s in the business by those who follow closely. But if they were judged by their 1st two picks in their 1st draft after less than a year and a half the way people seem to be judging Douglas on Becton and Mims, all 3 would have probably been fired prematurely The 2021 season has been a bit disappointing so far but ultimately the 2021 class looks extremely promising, and it may yet be that both Becton and Mims are good, one is a bust, or both are busts, but even if that's the case it's not necessarily an indictment on a GM who in my opinion has made lemons out of lemonade in at least a few situations. Just some food for thought.
What I like is the 2021 draft class looks has multiple contributors in year 1. At this point last year, the 2020 class did not look nearly as promising.
JD went all in on Zach Wilson. Unless Mike White is our Tom Brady that could be his downfall. Also, Leonard Williams is a very good player. We ate $10 mil of dead money and used the third overall pick in the draft to replace him. Let's not put JD in the HOF just yet. We are 2-4 and were lucky to get that call to win this game.
For sure, the point of this post is not put him on a pedestal at all, just to point out some good qualities and to bring us back to where we were in 2019. Also I put this out before the win, so it's not a reaction to that. As far as Leonard Williams, he has been pretty good since going to the Giants. He was decent with the Jets, but getting return picks at that time made a lot of sense. But Maccagnan was the one who drafted Quinnen Williams so at the time Douglas was handed both players, I'm not sure I'd say Quinnen was brought in to replace him
Enough with the BS of a lucky call crap. We have had more than our share of bad calls. The long bomb to the two yard line by the Bengals was a dropped pass, but that gave them a TD on the next play. All teams get some . Cincinnati simply didn’t play well enough to beat the Jets. Non withstanding our three turn overs.
Zuniga had his first career sack today and a forced fumble to boot , screaming off the edge and almost took out Burrow. Think he had limited snaps but to literally come out of nowhere was a good surprise.
Great, GREAT post! Post of the Year! That puts things clearly into true perspective and hopefully clears up all the BS and nonsense about what a poor job JD has done and how he deserves to be fired, and we won't see any more of that nonsense.
Good analysis. One quibble: you can’t knock Buffalo for Allen because it took three seasons for him to develop. He’s a star now, so that’s a successful pick
Becton and or Mims might be too. The whole point is not reacting too soon, even the best organizations take time to settle in
Sadly, you're probably right. I guess that's the schizophrenic nature of football fans and people today. It's sad, however, that they have forgotten just how awful things were before JD was hired. Maybe some were ignorant of how truly hopeless and awful things were, but they were, and that's fact, not opinion. As Max pointed out, this team was in cap difficulties due to the awful FA signings Mac had made and had little or no talent. To that, I would add that there was no plan for building the team, the scouts were rating players on what round they should go in rather than how they fared vs others at their position and how they fit our scheme, we had a HC that no fan wanted or believed in. That is compounded by our frustration with all the years of losing, horrible hires, bad decisions, etc., and by impatience. It has made fans' expectations and beliefs unrealistic and delusional. We DO have reason for hope and at least some optimism. Things have been far from "pretty" this season, but I believe the following: 1) the team is behind Saleh; 2) that he has the potential to become an excellent HC; 3) that we have a lot of talent on both sides of the ball; 4) compared with 3 years ago, we have relatively few holes, and the overall team depth and talent is much better; 5) both players and CS are learning this season and we will see improvement towards the end of the season, next year and going forward; 6) JD is perhaps the best GM we've ever had and is the right man for the job; 7) JD has the full support and faith of the Johnsons; 8) JD will have another excellent offseason in 2022 addressing our needs at Edge, RG, TE, LB, S; 9) barring injuries, most of JD's draft picks will be at least solid contributors and depth, if not quality starters; 10) Zach is going to be a top 10 QB in the NFL
I'm Sorry. How are you allowed to say both this.... AND this..,. In the SAME argument and not be contradicting yourself?
Some players show promise early. Alijah Vera-Tucker, Michael Carter, Michael Carter II, Elijah Moore, and even Brandin Echols have all shown something. But this Is different than a long list of clear studs, this is just showing some promise. The only one who appears to be a clear stud at this point is Alijah Vera-Tucker. You could say Michael Carter also but he hadn’t had the breakout game when I wrote this. Becton showed a lot last year as well. But you’re mistaking me giving some praise as putting on a pedestal. Chris Ballard rebounded from the 2017 class with busts in round 1+2 with one of the best of the decade in 2018, headlined by Quenton Nelson who was an obvious stud right away. But aside from him, the class showed promise half a year in but a lot of those guys developed over time. You would not have recognized Ballard’s draft success if you only watched 2017 and half of 2018. That is all I’m saying, if you build through the draft you can’t really know how the organization is doing after such a short time frame.
