Unless Chad beats the Bengals, Bills and Redskins, I can't see how Mangini will not make the move to Clemens. The Jets have 3 winnable games...that doesn't mean to say they will win them. It just means that these teams can be beat. If the Jets go 3-0, they move to 4-5 at the bye week. My gut tells me Pennington will then start the rest of the year. 2-1??? Not sure, depends on the loss. However, if the Jets go 1-2 or 0-3, there is no way Pennington can return as starter. I think if Pennington plays horrendously against the Bengals and the Jets lose, there is the possibility of a switch coming earlier. For those griping about Mangini, you obviously don't get it. Making the change because of an injury is easy to do. But in the NFL, you can't bench starting QBs this early in the season. Chad is still the leader of this team - it sends the wrong message and you could lose the locker room. However, if at the bye week the Jets are 2-7 or 1-8? Sure, no one would fault him at that point because it is obvious the season is over. Then you see what the young kid has got to figure out if you need to draft a QB in the draft. And for those saying Mangini is stupid...you are wrong. The easiest thing to do for Mangini is to bench Chad and start Kellen. No matter what happens - Jets just miss the playoffs or make the playoffs or go 4-12, he has a built in excuse: "Chad's play and diminishing skills put us in a hole early and we couldn't dig out." If anything, making the switch now benefits Mangini - it gives him a bye this season, especially after going 10-6 last year. BUTTTTT...if he wants to put Clemens in a position to both succeed and develop without any pressure, you make the change in Week 11. That gives him 2 weeks worth of reps as the starter and puts absolutely no pressure on him. If he makes a rookie/2nd year QB mistake, you just move on. You are 4-12 with that mistake and you are 4-12 without it. The bottomline is that we have been cursed because of last year's unexpected success. We really should have been 4-12 last year and 10-6 this year. But the schedule and the bounce of ball have come into play. Last year we really weren't that good of a 10-6 team and this year we are not really as bad as a 4-12 team. A lot of cap room next year, some high draft picks, a last place schedule, bringing in some beef on the O and D lines and hopefully an experienced 3rd year QB may work wonders...
There is no valid reason for Pennington to be the starter on this team at this point, period. Mangini is being a jackass IMO.
So far, this is probably the most sober assessment I've read yet. As much as we would all like to see Clemens put in there, its not that straight forward. Once the move is made, its go time for Clemens. None of us knows how well he has been progressing, so I still trust Mangini, though I am hoping to see Clemens at some point this year.
You are missing the point. It is Mangini's best interest to start Clemens ASAP. It gives Mangini a built in excuse no matter what happens. However, you just don't/can't do that at 1-5. Chad has played terrible, but you can point your finger to a bunch of other reasons why the Jets have lost those games. Good teams win, even when their QB isn't playing well. The Jets aren't a good team right now. Oh and by the way, the Jets finishing the season 10-6 and as wildcard may not be the best thing either. They got a lot of holes to fill and high draft picks are exactly what the need - and needed last year - that is why they traded up to draft Revis and Harris.
No it isn't. Not Long term.... You can make the argument, that keeping Chad hanging on, helps you to keep him as a backup, because what happens RIGHT NOW, if you put in Clemens, and he gets rolled up on ?????? And who backs him up next season....? Lets face it, that is what Chad is now, a GREAT backup. Which we Don't have on the roster. Chad is playing himself not only out of THIS starting job, but the rest of the NFL as well.... And that serves the purpose of the F.O. Right now, you are playing for draft position, and replacing Chad only starts moving you down the board, and considering that you want to contend for a title, is that really going to happen this year?
No I got your point and I disagree. Yes, there are plenty of things wrong with this team, but the QB position is one of the worst going for us. Good coaches make decisions based on making the team better now, and later, regardless of how the season may be perceived by the media/fans. Making a QB change this early in the season has happened in the NFL before and it will happen again. What sends the wrong message to the team is telling them one thing "the best players will play", then allowing someone who is playing consistently awful to continue to start and play the entire game.
Haha.. I liked what Cleveland did. Their QB had a bad game in week 1 so they traded him the next day. Now they have Anderson who was never suppose to play and he is one of the top QBs in the league. He is soooo this year's version of Kurt Warner.
But how do you know the best players aren't playing? You don't get to see practice everyday. I think the sooner Clemens plays the better as well, but you do not know what's going on behind the closed doors of practice.
You're right, but Clemens would have to be playing like Brooks Bollinger to be worse than Penny at this point.
For the record, what you are asking for as a fan - i.e. benching Chad for Clemens - is exactly what you are preaching against. You have no idea if Clemens will make the team better now. Perhaps he will, perhaps he won't. But unless you are in practice every week (which I doubt), I don't know how you can truly say Clemens would be an improvement. In fact, there is absolutely no way to determine if a rookie/2nd year QB is the answer until they play. And guess what...Mangini is in the same boat with all of us. So he will play it safe for the next few weeks and see how the team progresses. If at the bye week they are out of contention he will make the switch and have justification to do so. But at this point, he doesn't have that yet. And starting Clemens this week or next can only hurt him. IF he goes out and bombs and the Jets are 1-6 you are stuck with the guy. Once you make the switch, you can't go back to Pennington - and you still have 8-9 games to go even if it is obvious that Clemens is in over his head. But, if he stinks it up at 2-7 or 1-8, he plays out the remaining 6 games in another miserable season. BUT, he is playing with house money. Nothing is expected, so if he actually develops and performs it is a postive note to a bad year. The fact that you can't recognize this shows that you are caught up in the rabid media/fan reaction you are preaching against.
Clemens has outplayed Pennington every publicly available opportunity he's had this season. You're right I don't see what goes on behind closed doors or in practice from week to week. I don't think we can do much worse than what we have at QB right now. My opinions are based on what I see in the games, not listening to the media. I completely disagree that starting him now can only hurt him.
Klecko73, you make some excellent points in a few posts. Thanks for summing the situation up in an intelligent way without overeacting the way many here do. I agree that a change, barring injury, is very difficult to make here. Mangini is doing the wise thing in waiting. He is thinking long-term rather than short, and that's refreshing to see in today's NFL. Having said that, as a fan, of course I'm upset with some playcalling and would love to see Clemens get a shot soon, however, I understand what Mangini is doing.
I do agree with you that Clemens has outplayed Chad - in the pre-season he did and he performed well under difficult circumstances in Baltimore. We both agree that Clemens will play this year...the question isn't "if" it is "when"...and that is where we disagree. There has been a lot of discussion about benching Chad and starting Kellen. Of all of that discussion is valid. What is not valid is everyone's failure to take into account the other factors that go in to making this type of decision, short of an injury to Chad (which I am not hoping for). This is Chad's team - you see that week in and week out in the comments of the players. And that is a tribute to Chad's leadership qualities, something we all praise him for. However, you can't make the switch until it is readily apparant to all that his diminished physical skills are impacting the team. The fact that we see it means nothing. The players and even the coaching staff have 6 weeks of film to show them what we already know: That Chad's physical limitations result in teams stacking within 20 yards of the LOS. That his inability to stretch the field results in a lack of big plays and loosening up the safetys in the box. That his inability now to throw the sideline out is killing the Jets - CBs can sit on the route cause Chad can't beat them deep and doesn't have the arm strength to throw across the field. Finally, Chad can no longer throw in the middle (i.e. Chris Baker) because the safetys and LBs sit in there to clog up the run as there is no threat of a deep ball or sideline out that the CBs can't cover. The result??? An offense that relies upon check downs to the RBs, gimmicks and gadgets, and motion that fools no one after a 10-6 season a year ago. The inability to push the ball down the field is killing this team. I think as a coach, you give your starting QB 1-3 more games to right the ship. After that, and for the reasons previously posted, you make the switch.
Watch out with that Getting the High picks talk. The whole board attacked me last year when I suggested we take a step back to take a step forward because we had alot of holes to fill. They told me Chad the great would take us to the promised land. Six months later here we are. IT is time to take a step back and get picks to fix our Defense.
Klecko while your post is right on, to see us lose another 3 games so Clemmens will play is a no go for me. This season is over and we all know it. Even the players know it.Playing Clemmens now will give the front office a good read on whether Clemmens is the real deal or another draft day bad pick. Playing Chad so that Mangini will save face with a 6-10,7-9 record is just silly at this point. We need a reason to give up our Sunday's to see this team play!
Excellent post Klecko73. I don't agree with all of it but it's well thought out and well written. NFL head coaches tend to be very conservative when making changes at the QB position. There are many reasons that they hesitate to make changes there but the key ones are probably continuity and morale. The QB is the leader of the offense and as such he needs to command the respect of his teammates. The situations however when QB changes are made for a reason other than injury tend to be focused very heavily on performance and specifically the overall performance of the offense. A QB can have some fairly ugly stats and if the team is still scoring acceptably he can skate by anyway. The Jets situation is very different. Chad's stats look ok, although not great, but the offense is struggling miserably and the team is losing games as a result. I really think a veteran head coach who was on the ball would have replaced Chad by last weeks game. It would have been hard to replace him after the Buffalo game but the Buffalo and Giants games were just killer to this team's chances this season and by Philly Clemens should have been starting. There's no way a smart veteran head coach would be starting Chad against Cincincinnati next week after the last 3 weeks debacles. That veteran coach would know that the thing that will lose you your locker room the fastest is losing. If the Jets lose on Sunday you will have a split locker room between the Chad defenders and the "I want to win" guys. You've started to see that with Kerry Rhodes in the postgame interviews last week although he kept it under wraps for the most part. Mangini is on the verge of letting events make the choice for him and having everybody be worse off in the end as a result.
I hear what you are saying but we are out of contention now. We have to go 9-1 the rest of the way to get to the playoffs with games remaining v.s. Ne, Dallas, Pitt, Cincy, Cle, Kc, Was, Buf, Mia and Ten. Im trying to find five wins in there for us the rest of the way. If he comes in Sunday or five Sundays from now we are stuck with him. They did not draft him as high as they did to throw him away. He needs to get reps and since this is a lost season it might as well start now. If we were 3-3 with a shot then I would say use the wait and see approach. At this point we are done and it makes no sense to keep him on the bench anymore.
Here's another way of looking at it and perhaps one Mangini should consider: Ask yourself what the season might possibly look like if Clemens had been the starter since Day One. Sure, he would have made many rookie mistakes by now... possibly thrown even more INTs than Chad has thrown. And true, the QB position is only one of our problems so far this season. But is it conceivable that we'd be better than 1-5? Isn't it possible that he might have changed the face of the offense somewhat and at least limited other defenses from calling out the Army National Guard to jamb the box like they do on almost every play now? Mangini needs to ask himself what the chances of this team being 1-5 would have been had he started Kellen Clemens instead of Chad. If he does that, he'll have his answer.
You CAN do that if the backup QB is clearly better and gives you a better chance to win which is very very true in Kellen's case. In my opinion, the ONLY reason that Mangini is still starting Chad is that he does not have confidence in his ability to maintain control of the team if he makes the switch. Veteran players are really blind when it comes to a QB change, and NEVER openly accept the rookie because they always feel the veteran is better. Mangini needs to make the right call, start Kellen and find a way to keep control of his team.
Solomon Wilcots on Sirius defended Chad starting mostly on practice performance and meeting knowledge. I don't get it. First of all, I doubt Chad has been better in practice than Kellen and even Lisa Zimmerman has said that Kellen is great in practive. What matters is what is done on the field, and Chad has proved he is no longer capable ON THE FIELD, and Kellen has outplayed Chad ON THE FIELD every time this year he has had the chance.
