Having watched Clemens in camp for two years (I was there for his very first throw), I thought I saw great potential. Honestly, he ran a great offense in camp (and I reported so here). He truly looked like somebody we could pass the torch to. Good arm, lots of poise. Great leader/organizer on the field. All looked good during those breezy, balmy, lazy days of August from my perch under those wonderfully forgiving shade trees along the fence. Life was good. We had something close to an answer for our QB dilemma. Those days are gone, and now I have severe doubts, as many others have expressed. And now we're all reminded (no one more than I) how deceiving TC impressions can be compared to real games. I'm really concerned about our QB position now. I held out hope that Clemens would at least show flashes of what he had at both TCs, but the real world is that his play has been horrible despite the lousy O-line, predictable play-calling, lousy running attack or whatever else you want to assign as an excuse. It looked like we had the answer and now we're back to Square One. So now we're in a precarious position again, but now it's worse than ever. This is a serious problem... probably the biggest challenge Tangini is going to face, because it ripples all across the board. We obviously need to address the QB situation NOW. The problem is, this is going to effect our Cap and everything else down the food chain. Keep Pennington as a backup, with his huge salary? Go out and find the best available starting quarterback in F/A and pay him too? Look for another diamond in the rough somewhere amongst an otherwise mediocre selection of QBs in the draft? Play Clemens with a totally revamped O-line and possibly live with the same disastrous results we've been watching? Or maybe go back to playing Penny again and live with the same, predictable, easy-to-game-plan-against dinks and dunks? Give Tui more camp time? Go out and sign someone else's castoff? Make all of the above lousy-option QBs "compete" for the position again? Compete against whom? All the competitors are flawed, so when all is said and done, is the winner of this so-called "competition" going to be an answer? No, it won't. But that's not the worst of it. Any way you look at it, this is probably the worst possible scenario I could have imagined. Mangini appears to want to leave decisions on this for later, possibly until August again. I'm thinking this needs to be addressed immediately this spring. It's unacceptable to leave this to another "open" camp, given the choices we have, because at best you're going to field a very unproven QB (Clemens) or return to the dink and dunk offense which didn't work previously (Chad) or bring in a castaway retread from another team. And to avoid either of those scenarios, there seems to be no way out without severe Cap implications or forfeiture of draft picks or some other such costly fix which will impact everything else we do this spring. We're in one hell of a mess with this QB situation.
I'm in the same boat with you. The difference is I was basing my expectations based on what he showed in college and you based your expectations on what you saw in training camps. After what I saw during this season, I now have huge doubts. It appears the Jets do have quite a mess on their hands now.
I suggested Brian Brohm a few months ago who is someone that I am extremely high on. But I think with the #6 pick we should take Gholston unless we were to get Suggs from Baltimore in which case drafting Brohm at #6 would work.
Remember last year when Jon Gruden went after every big(ish) name free agent QB, acquiring the rights to Jake Plummer and then getting Garcia while still having Chris Simms and Gradkowski on the roster? Everyone critcized him or mocked him for grabbing so many QBs. Well, he's laughing now - it worked out in a time when good QBs are extremely scarce in the NFL. I think we should take a page from Gruden's book and just grab every relatively cheap QB we can that has some potential.
Have you seen the list? There isn't much potential out there. After Derek Anderson (who won't come cheap) you get the likes of Rex Grossman, Daunte Culpepper, Josh McKown, and a few others I have scarcely heard of.
I don't know anything about him (Brohm) other than this: http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/player/profile?playerId=164609 He looks like a big kid (6'-4" ~ 228 lbs.), but this is my point. Here we are advocating using our #6 pick on a QB, something I hadn't imagined ever reading on this board any time soon. If you had told me we'd be thinking of doing that 2 months ago I'd have said you're out of your mind. Now I'm not so sure. I've got an ugly feeling this situation is really going to cost us.
I did suggest doing that 2 months ago (maybe it was 3) because I did not like what I saw in Clemens. Even so, I felt he needed to get some playing time so we can find out for sure what we have with him. Now that he has been given the playing time it seems my fears have been realized.
I don't think we're in that bad of shape at QB. Both guys to me can be good but you have to be able to block and run the ball, especially in the red zone. We can move the ball, but every drive bogs down because we can't run for the tough yards and opposing Ds know that. So play action doesn't work and it makes it harder for the QB to execute in the red zone. That's why we kicked so many FGs this year and got very few TDs. Look at our rushing TDs, the number is atrocious. We need to fix that, fix the O-line and get a big bruising FB to get those yards. Out in the middle of the field we've been able to convert short yardage with the QBs sneaking, but that doesn't work when points are at stake down close.
We have to give him a full TC as the #1 guy and at least another half a season behind a hopefully revamped o-line. Hopefully by then the game will have slowed down for him. That said, a backup plan is definitely required. Penny is not the answer either. We could pickup Erik Ainge in the 3rd round or so. IMO, he's going to be the best NFL QB of this years class. He has very good pocket presence, accuracy, good enough arm, and is willing to stand in the pocket while a defender is crashing down on him. From NFL Draft Scout: 6' 6" - 223 lbs Set UT season record for completions (300), breaking previous mark of 287 by Peyton Manning in 1997 ... Stands third all-time among UT quarterbacks with 8,335 passing yards and 8,106 total offensive yards ... Owns second- (136) and fourth- (116) longest streaks of pass attempts with interception in UT history ... Vols 5-0 when passing for 300 yards or more ... Second in the SEC this year in completions per game (23.1) and third in yards (242.8). http://www.nfldraftscout.com/ratings/profile.php?pyid=33664
This really is bad, bad, bad for the Jets if Clemens doesn't take major strides next year. This will potentially set us back years. While I do not think that they should get desperate and reach for a QB with the #6 pick (it really is a lousy draft for QB's!), I do think that they should be looking to use maybe one of their 2 first rounders on a QB in the hopes that they can get lucky and find some sleeper. I'm even less excited about the 2008 F/A QB list than I am the draft class!! Oh well- at least we can't really second-guess the selection of Clemens since none of the 2006 QB's look like anything to write home about with the possible exception of Cutler. I had wanted them to pick Croyle in the 2nd round and he looks just as bad as Clemens at this point.
Yup, TC performance does not guarantee similar regular season performance. McDroppins had an outstanding camp, but look at what he did when the hitting started for real. On the other hand, the OL and DL looked like crap in the pre-season games, and they continued that way into the regular season. I hadnt detected any greatness from Clemens in TC. In 06, with an open QB competition, it was very obvious that Chad outclassed both him and Ramsey. In 07, I saw several mechanical flaws that he was working on. His footwork was sloppy, his ball handling and play action skills needed major improvement, and his accuracy wasnt so great in TC, either. But he did well in the PS games- better than Chad did. It was apparent to me that he had improved a lot from his first camp, but still had a ways to go. We wanted to see him do well and still do, but he is going to have to make a quantum leap on the learning curve by next year or this mess will continue. Right now he appears to be behind the curve, and hasnt shown great development. But he has shown some things that allow us to still have hope for him- physical toughness, a strong enough arm, decent mobility, and a good attitude. Whether he will learn to read defenses and make better decisions remains to be seen, but getting nailed by the pass rush time after time will stunt any QB's growth.
Again though, with all the needs we have, the last thing we need to be doing is trying to find a good QB amongst a field of mediocre QBs. And if other teams are in the hunt, that almost assures having to "chase" and overpay this otherwise lackluster QB. I know you were high on McFadden and now he won't be there. But even that would have been preferrable to having to use the #6 on a QB. I was leaning toward trading down and using the picks on linemen and a possible good WR actually, but here we are talking about drafting a QB now. This QB situation is a major disappointment.
They should still do that. Going the dynamic WR (see avatar) route in round 1 would be a nice move. They should take a QB in round 3 or 4 (Josh Johnson from San Diego maybe) in case Clemens blows again.
The sky isn't falling, yet. Trade Penny for a mid round pick, use maybe our 4th round pick on a QB. Let the rookie compete with Tui for the #2 spot, and keep Brad Smith as an emergency #4 option. If Tui isn't a good enough safety net, release him and grab one of the FA's as a backup. Honestly, Grossman is probably the one FA that could really improve with a change of zip codes. Like others have said, Clemens deserves a full camp and a better OL before we give up on him. I too was troubled by some of the things I saw, but I think we're being a bit hasty with our judgement.
I'm really uncomfortable with trading Penny now, something I thought was an option as little as several weeks ago. I went to the game on Sunday with my grandson and snuck down to the Lower Section on the 50-yard line for a real good look. Believe me, Clemens was as bad or worse than he probably appeared on television. It was horrible.... probably the worst game I've seen him in. So no, getting rid of Penny at this point could be pure disaster, IMO. After watching Clemens up-close for the entire game Sunday, I have to tell you I have very little confidence in him at this point. Total disarray.
Especially for a mid round pick, what's that going to do for us? People act like draft choices are gold, a lot of them don't make the team, especially mid rounders.
I highly doubt penny is going to stick around to be a backup. He wants to start and someone will pay him to start. Unless the FO has already given up on Clemens he's almost definitely going to be given the starter position going into camp. I really think Penny will force his hand here.
