To me, all this complaining is kinda weird

I could use some positivity, so, thx @bleedgreen

Disclaimer: if we shit the bed on national tv, I reserve the right to be irrational and call for the firing and the cutting of the whole team.

 

It's not about our record, it's about taking an honest look at how we got to our record.

Much like last year (when people were also saying everyone was being too negative given our record, by the way), we've won several of our games this year in ways that are not sustainable. We've benefitted from other teams collapsing and large turnover margins. We can't rely on those things happening consistently.

For what feels like the 800th season in a row, we have an offense that doesn't remotely resemble an NFL offense, in a league where the best teams are the teams with the best offenses. Our defense keeps us in games and we hope for a miracle at the end to win it. Teams that do that do not compete for Super Bowls.

Just looking at our record and going "Why's everyone upset?" is an oversimplification of the matter. We are not as good as our record indicates.

This reminds me of all the people going "Zach Wilson has a winning record as our QB!" last season. That wasn't the point. We were winning despite him, not because of him. Thinking he was a good QB because we happened to win games he played terribly in was foolish.

 

Yes. As far as what I'm seeing and thinking this year this is a platnium post right dead on target.

And what I identify as the problem for a lot of that can be pre-emptively switched out now... like this week... before its too late. I really think we ought to consider that. Trevor Siemian is not great, and we're not winning the super bowl with him, but I suspect if he were steering the offense things would look a lot more stable.

I think a sustained multi week train wreck might be coming. Maybe even starting this weekend, and thats just not good for anything except maybe a higher draft pick. And even that at this point.... fuck that.... we need to start winning some games and tasting some success. Drafting 7th instead of 17th or whatever... who cares.

 

Just off the top of my head from recent history:

• We drafted a DE with our first round pick, to never play in the deepest unit on our team, rather than one of the many good WR prospects available. We were thin at WR even before Davis retired.
• We did essentially nothing during the offseason to improve our OL other than Tippmann. He's been good, but we had glaring holes all over the line and addressed almost none of them.
• We signed an aging RB in Cook who has done nothing for us other than take up cap space, in a league where even the dumbest teams know not to sign aging RBs who have had decreased YPC each of their last 2 seasons.
• We hired an OC who has a lengthy history as a terrible OC.
• We traded up to draft a guard. He's been a good guard, but we had too many holes in the OL to trade up for any single addition to it. We should've stood pat and taken two OL instead of AVT.

And this isn't hindsight being 20/20. I was saying all of these things when each event happened.

But more than anything, I'm just saying that taking issue with people who are negative on this team is an oversimplification because we aren't as good as our record indicates. This is the exact same thing that happened last year and the same people are singing the same tune and haven't learned from what transpired after our good start then.

 

I'm not sure I'd want to start Siemian but I'm on the fence about that. I don't think Zach has been that bad. He certainly hasn't been good, but he's definitely been miles better than last year. Zach's numbers this year aren't too dissimilar from Siemian's career numbers.

 

Pretty poor take which i'm shocked because usually you are pretty reasonable.

1) yes we did. we took BPA. people said the same about when we drafted Q and already had leo. Leo wound up getting traded and Q is the cornerstone of our D. "todays luxury can be tomorrows necessity" you also draft for the future and for the CS. saleh loves his Edges. he did the same in SF when they took bosa 2nd overall on an already stacked unit. We also knew lawson was gone after this year and possibly huff. both are in contract years and cap room is tight. When we had davis we wer epretty deep at WR. also look at the offense we run alot more 2 TEs then 3 Wrs. uzo sees about the same snaps as cobb and ruckert sees more then all the other non starting Wrs combined. The idea was GW, CD, conk as the base and uzo/rucket/lazard with the rest of the snaps. thats pretty deep

2) 2 of our top 3 picks were lineman. tippman in the 2nd and warren in the 4th. (no 3rd rounder) we also added turner and schwietzer, brought back CMG on a cheap deal. and tried out several other lineman. you only take about 10 on the roster. we already had 1st rounders becton and AVT as well as top free agent LG tomlinson from last year. plus mitchell who was drafted last year and brown. thats 9 lineman right there. not much more room to add.

3) I never liked the cook signing and didn't want him. this was a mistake, I agree with that. but no GM is 100%. at least we didn't give 15mil to OBJ like the ravens did who is pretty bad now and washed as well at double the price of cook

4) no he doesn't at all. he was rodgers OC when he won back to back MVPs in his mid 30s after only getting 2 MVPs the 1st 10+ years of his career. thats why he got a HC gig which he was bad at, but his history is that of a good OC who didn't have much to work with until rodgers was his QB and then rodgers had his best years

5) AVT is more then just a OG. he can play pretty much any position on the line and has for us (except OC) he's much better then having 2 medicore players. he's a pro bowl talent OG and a solid OT

 

In regards to #5 I think the Jets should just leave him at G. These RT experiments have ended in injury two years in a row. I’m not positive the position switch is the reason but it’s kind of suspicious. Also why convert a pro bowl talent guard into a solid OT? I know injuries were the reason but this coming off season JD needs to fix this line once and for all …

Becton is still an enigma at this point. Tomlinson needs to be replaced. You figure Tippman takes over at center. AVT at RG. Who’s at RT? Mitchell or do they improve upon him? Brown, McGovern, Tomlinson, maybe even Turner are probably goners. Which means the Jets need at least two new starters and probably at least one more dependable depth piece given the injury history of the players who will be staying….JD has his work cut out for him and this may be his last chance.

And then there’s training camp. They need to play together and form a cohesiveness. No not all 4 quarters of every game but at least some. Injuries are a part of the game you can’t coach scared because the end result is what we have seen this year. Players aren’t fully fit from lack of playing during the summer and that gets them hurt too…

 

because they wanted the 5 best on the field. at the time it was basically choosing tippman at RG and AVT at RT over AVT at RG and mitchell at RT. tippman > mitchell so I can't say it's wrong by any means

 

I think there is plenty to be optimistic about if you compartmentalize different units on the team, but when you put it all together it does not equal sustained success. It's not something I expect can continue, even through a supposed weaker part of the schedule.

Joe Douglas is a mixed bag for me. Half of his moves scream future Hall of Famer, but the other and more important half scream Terry McCagzik. He's not as consistent as I would want, but he does negotiate like a beast and knows how to pull the trigger on elite talent.

 

McDonald was not BPA, in fact he wasn't even a consensus first rounder.

Becton was always a huge question mark, as was Duane Brown given his age. I love that Becton has stayed healthy but he's just been ok, if not below average. Whatever we did in the draft, it wasn't enough.

I get that no GM hits on 100% of moves, but signing an old RB is legitimately probably the most braindead thing a GM can do. It literally almost never works out. It's common knowledge to seemingly every GM except Joe Douglas. Pointing out a dumb move by a different team doesn't make our move any less dumb.

I understand Hackett was signed because of Rodgers, but his track record as an OC is still abysmal aside from Rodgers. I ran the numbers on this and I think Hackett's offenses finished 28th or something on average without Rodgers.

I like that AVT can play different spots, but so can a lot of OL, and AVT can't play 2 spots at once so it's irrelevant given how many different question marks we had at OL and still have. Can you honestly tell me you'd rather have AVT than Christian Darrisaw and 1-2 additional 3rd round OL? There's just no way we came out on top with that trade given how many different weak spots we have on the OL. It's not like we had a stacked OL and were weak at 1 guard spot.

 

BPA is relative. every GM has a different BPA. He was ours. whether you or even I agree with it is irrelevant. JD has said and shown us how he drafts and thats how he does the 1st round.
a good example is the BPA at OC for most or consensus was JMS but JD had tippman rated higher and took him. Giants took JMS a few picks later. So far tippman has been better as a rookie but their careers are yet to be determined.
When JD was asked with the pick coming up his top 3 it was WMD, Myers, and I forgot the other one. he had WMD rated as the highest one. I mean trusbisky was the consensus top QB over mahomes and watson. So in short, really doesn't matter. all that matters is how they pan out in the long run.

Becton has been an injury question mark for sure. Brown not so much. he played well last year while injured then had offseason surgery and has been rehabbing. may have rushed himself back for week 1 which could explain his bad play. Many of lineman have played well while older. You can't say "we didn't do enough" did you want 3 o-line with our 1st 3 picks? how about nothing but o-line? maybe signed them all too? just corner the market on it? we've been ravashed with injuries but even until last week when we losses piled up to brown, schwietzer, tippman, CMG and AVT (3 starters and 2 backups) the o-line was playing pretty solid. No teams o-line is going to dominate while missing 3 starters and 2 of their backups. you can't have 4-5 starting quality lineman as backups. the financials and talent pool just doesn't work that way

as far as cook goes, i already agreed with you. it was a bad move. I was one of the few here against it and was shit on by many who thought it was great at the time and I was wrong about cook declining and being close to washed.

hackett had ej emanual who was out of the league a year after hackett left, and blake bortles who was out of the league a year after hacket left. both did their best under hackett but were trash and washed out of the league at 27-28 as 1st round high pick QBs. the 1st time he had a QB in rodgers, he had his 2 best years and 2 back to back MVP seasons. he's never had a middle tier guy, but everyone he did have, did their best under him. your numbers are 100% off becuase jax had an offense under hacket with trash. bortles threw for over 4k and he had 2 1k yard WRs you can't remove rodgers from his resume but keep bortles and manual lol.

not playing 2 at once doesn't matter. his versatility is why we were able to use tippman over mitchel. the flexability allows them to field the best players and not have better players sitting behind him. the extra 3rd round OL is menaingless. we have 4th rounders we picked back to back. it didn't stop JD from drafting more lineman. evan neal was 7th overall and trash so far. you only speak hypothetical in hindsight and don't look at the actual moves in real time

 

McDonald absolutely was BPA in the Jets board and by many analysts. That is exactly what great teams do. See Eagles. You built for the future thru the draft. Next year Lawson is gone and he will step right in his shoes. There was no OL left worth our draft pick, not even close. AVT was and is a steal. I don’t know where you are going with Hack. That was part of getting AR period, no choice, which was and is a fabulous strategic move. You can’t predict injuries.
You also neglected the many undrafted free agents that thanks to JD are making spectacular contributions. It’s so easy to nit pick after the fact. Everyone has hit and misses…every freaking GM. His biggest question mark still remains Zach, that’s it. And that will set his future status.

 

One GM thinking a guy is BPA doesn't mean the guy is BPA. BPA is when most people agree that a guy is BPA and can't believe he's fallen as far as he has. That was not McDonald by any stretch.

Regardless, BPA is an asinine draft strategy. You know who drafted BPA with no regard for positional needs or importance? Maccagnan, one of the worst drafting GMs of all time.

Brown wasn't an injury question mark? Having offseason surgery and being 38 years old doesn't qualify?

Hackett's offenses with Jacksonville ranked in PPG:

25th
6th
31st

One good year, near league-worst the others.

My point with AVT was that if we had drafted 2-3 OL with the picks we traded for him, instead of just him, we probably wouldn't even have needed his versatility because we'd have more starting OL.

I do not only speak hypotheticals in hindsight. You can go through my post history and see me making all of these points when these events happened.

 

I know this sounds silly, but my thought is, so many jet fans are used to being in a rebuild and filling holes all the time because we have been for basically 2 decades, that they aren't used to being in a position and having a GM that is filling near future holes and drafting to sustain instead of drafting to fix. JDs last "fix" draft was 2022. now it's all about sustain and balancing the cap with keeping as much as we can. the roster is already pretty peak, now we just add talent anywhere. we will need a QB once a-rod retires though

 

In all honesty, I think the bold is the crux of the matter. I get exasperated with all the negativity and Zach bashing, but when I really step back and think about it, I don't think it's as much that the posters are negative/cynical people normally or that it's really that they hate Zach, I think it's 20-30 plus years of frustration boiling out and over. Zach just happens to be the catalyst. Ever since Sonny Werblin and Harry Wismer sold out and Leon Hess took over, we have had complete doofuses for owners. They have made bad GM hire after bad GM hire and have made bad HC hire after HC hire. Those incompetent individuals have in turn had horrible drafts, made horrible decisions, couldn't coach, had inept play on the field, and it's resulted in a coaching carousel, constant roster changes, incompetence, lousy play, being years behind the rest of the NFL and the laughingstock of the NFL, still trying to win with D and 3 yards and a cloud of dust, and decades of futility with no legitimate hopes of making the playoffs that has affected all of us. The few times where we got competent GMs or HCs and good teams, due to injuries or bad decisions everything quickly turned back to shit. Even young fans are aware of our sorry history, even though they didn't have to suffer through it like we old timers, and we're all fed up. We are passionate. We feel helpless to change things and that in turn creates anger and frustration. Here we are yet again with a defensive HC and trying to win with D and an offense that is perhaps closer the bumbling, stumbling days of Richie Kotite, than they are the glory days of the Chiefs', Brady Patriots, or other top teams' offenses. We have no patience left. It's unfortunate, because our lack of patience isn't going to speed anything up. We can bash the Johnsons, Zach, JD, Hackett, Saleh or whatever as long as we want and it won't change one thing. It is what it is. Like it or not, we're either going to have to just accept it and learn to be patient and hope for the best, stop watching, or drive each other crazier than we already are for still rooting for this team.

 

BPA is essentially a myth. it's all based on the opinion of a group. there is no standard or defacto it's all for clicks and entertainment. all 32 teams have a group that makes their own BPAs, maybe if all of them pooled theirs together and made one then maybe it could be called a defacto but that will obviously never happen. most people agreed tom brady was a mid tier player, he only became a 6 time SB champion, guess they were all wrong lol. if some team had brady as their BPA and took him in the 1st they would have been shit on, then in hindsight been lauded as a genius. those same BPA experts didn't think huff was draftable, look at him now. BPA simply means "Best player available" and everyone has a different opinion on who that is. the other factor is BPA is dependent on your system. for example a true NT in a 3-4 is much more valuable to a 3-4 defense then it is to a 4-3 defense. a man cover corner is more important to a blitz heavy team then to a zone heavy team. so there cna't be a true BPA regardless since teams have different schemes.

also BPA is not asinine. it's the most proven strategy out there. the same one the steelers, ravens, eagles etc all use. JD came from the ravens and eagles. thats how he builds the team. both those teams won SBs while he was on their staff. It's pretty arrogant to say his philosophy is wrong when it's won Sbs for multiple franchises even if you don't personally like it. The idea is there are only so many "blue chip" players in a draft and if you have a chance for one, you take it. then use later picks to fill holes and get depth. for example last year CB wasn't a need at all. we needed a WR, RB, Edge but not a CB. echols was playing very well, bryce was solid, we added reed, and MC2 was one of the top Ni backs. yet we took sauce 4th overall. then added in GW, JJ, and breece after. I'd say it's panned out pretty well. drafting for need is how we got zach, drafted BPA is how we got sauce.

38 isn't awful for a lineman and lots of players have offseason surgery.

as far as the rankings go, 1st off he had shit talent. the fact he somehow posted a top 6 offense with that is crazy. the QB in that system was out of the league after his rookie contract expired. 2ndly yards is how offenses are technically ranked, not points.
anyway with GB he was 15, 1, and 10 in his 3 years. he posted 2 top 10 scoring offenses including top overall. you can't go "well he had rodgers so no credit" but then ding him for having bortles at QB lol you have to be fair across the board. this is also why I say all stats are relevant and need context. What it does show is that even with subpar talent he can succeed at times and with really good talent and he run an elite offense.

my point with AVT is who were we drafting? you yourself just said we should draft for need, now you contradict it. darrrisaw is an OT, at the time we had becton who looked promising as a rookie before a freak injury, morgan moses and fant IIRC. we didn't have shit at OG. IIRC it was GVR and feeny penciled to be the starters at the time of the draft. even with becton eventually not making it, the combo of fant/moses turned out to be solid but GVR and feeny were trash so thankfully AVT was there to take feenys spot. I looked at the picks we gave up (66 and 86) and nothing for IOL stands out that we could have taken really.

the problem with your theorys is it's just random complaining about how something in your eyes didn't make sense but offer no insight as to what we should have done and even then it's in hindsight so not even fair really and there isn't consistency. it's just complaning to complain which becomes lazy. I would go through these posts you claim you made but sure enough private profile lol. who does that on a message board with 10 people unless they want to make stuff up

edit: even funnier, Minn took an OG with 86, one of the picks we traded to move up for AVT. he lasted 1 year with the team and was cut. then in 2022 was cut from 3 teams, then in 2023 signed and placed on IR. he hasn't played a single snap and has been cut 4 times as a 3rd rounder

 

I don't know how you think Siemian can be better. Look at his career. Look at how he was when he was with the Jets before. He has no timing, no work with our OL or WRs. He doesn't have the arm or athletic ability that Zach has. He would be a sitting duck in the pocket, and would be on IR within a game. Even if he somehow survived the first game, his play would be so much worse, probably 2-3 interceptions, that Zach would be back on the field the following week. Zach isn't holding this team back. It's the OL, the dumb penalties, running wrong routes, not getting open, and dropping passes. Zach is still making mistakes, but not enough to keep us from scoring more points. That's on every single player on offense. Not one single player on offense is without blame.