How much do you blame the woeful start of the 2016-2017 Jets season on General Manager Mike Maccagnan?
I voted that he takes on some blame. I say this because he re-signed Fitz. As I was thinking more and more about it I thought back to the Osweiler-Elway contract negotiation. It appears Elway had a hard number in mind and stuck to that number. Despite the possible backlash (especially Osweiler would play well for the Texans, which he hasn't done yet) he stuck to his guns and accepted that there may be possible backlash. Maccagnan set a number, and had a particular contract structure in mind and bent to acquire Fitz at the very end at a 12 million dollar salary that was more than he wanted to sign Fitz for. Macc also bent with the Darron Lee and Wilkerson negotiations and gave them more favorable terms in the dying days of negotiations. Although the Darron Lee and Wilkerson negotiations don't bother me, the fitz stuff does. We may be done with him after this year but we are on the hook for 5 million in dead cap next season. Not the greatest decision by Macc in my opinion.
If the season is a complete failure at the end of it I will put some blame on him. Right now its too early, he has on paper tried to turn the ship around and we were all happy with his moves before the team started playing like shit.
For what its worth Mac tried to market Mo but with no success Fitz was our best option to be the bridge QB till BP and Hack are "ready" Resigning Revis and those CBs obviously not smart He is the best GM we have had in awhile because his pick ups like Marshall Forte and others have worked out well I said he is pretty much not to blame Its been performance issues imo and thats on the CS He needs to stop listening to Bowles...can him and Kacy. Keep Gailey he aint bad
Signing Revis and paying Mo was terrible. Drafting Hackenberg and defense in first round every year is bad as well. 65% of this mess is on Bowles, 35% is on Mccagnan.
I will defend the Revis contract. He was coming off of a superbowl winning season, which is embarrassing given the fact that he played his best years with the Jets. The toxic relationship between Revis and Woody Johnson and the front office needed to be remedied and I think the fact that he was a free agent, and with a new coach who thrived on having lockdown cornerbacks it made sense for Macc to get Revis. It was a nice story, like Lebron going back to Cleveland kinda story. The problem is we signed Revis thinking he had a few lockdown seasons left in him and he doesn't. In hindsight it looks terrible but the deal also allows some flexibility. If I'm not mistaken, we can cut him after the season and it wouldn't kill the cap to a prohibitive extent. I think the cap savings actually outweigh the dead money in the deal.
Why was paying Mo terrible? Did you have a better alternative or did you see him playing as poorly as he has because I don't recall anybody saying that.
I'm just mentioning the dumb moves (imho) that I can remember. He's made a lot of good ones too but as with most GM's he's a mixed bag. In the 2015 draft Williams fell to Mac as a gift from above. The only other pick with any regular playing time at this point is Mauldin. If you exclude the Williams gift he gets a D- so far in that draft. In the 2016 draft Hack was a bone head pick in round 2. They could have gotten him much cheaper in round 4 and gotten an impact player in round 2. The rest of the draft picks aside from Edwards are incomplete so its tough to judge yet but its looking like a grade of C- so far. The Revis re-signing was needed given what was on the field in '14 but he vastly over-paid and used money that could have been used to get better FA's elsewhere. The Skrine contract overall isn't too bad but the bonus money was ridiculous. My bigger issue is that he didn't really fit this system before they landed him and its shown post signing. I didn't think they needed to bring back Cro along with Revis. They had plenty of bodies to throw out there and see who could stick. Waste of a FA signing. I thought the Gilchrist signing was a good one at the time but he's been awful this year. Incomplete so far in his 2 seasons here. edit.. forgot to mention Fitz.. duh.. I wasn't for re-signing him. The only difference I see between him and Geno is that Geno throws picks at the line of scrimmage whereas Fitz throws them downfield. I would have preferred to get through this year with Geno and throw the ball downfield to avoid the costly turnovers at the line of scrimmage. They could have had other guys for $4-5mm that are just as good or better than Fitz if they were adamant against Geno. Dumb signing.
Signing fitz was bad. Would have preferred hoyer for 2mill to battle geno for starter. Could have used the money saved to sign a corner to replace cromartie. Everybody wanted mo signed so cannot kill Mac for that one.
He takes his share for not having the stones to roll the young kids out there. He was afraid if the billboard crowd and now we wasted 12m that we could have carried over. Blinded by fear and fitz fools gold. He should have had the courage to do whats best for the long term benefit of the team and kept the qb search rolling.
Revis and Fitz deals were awful. Could've been farther along right now. No issues with Mo other then him being utilized.
So far...he hasn't made the right moves. If he was making the right roster moves and it was just Bowles screwing up...then sure. Not Mac's fault, but neither of them is performing particularly well. The guy at the top making the decisions is the one responsible.
Blaming Mac depends on how much Woody was involved in the signing of Revis and Fitz. If Mac was told to over pay for Revis and Fitz, even though Mac may have not wanted to, then he can't be blamed. The issue is that we will never know if he had complete control over who gets signed and who does not.
I was 100% against giving Fitz anything more than backup money to compete for his job in training camp and once it became clear that wasn't happening I didn't want him at all Sorry but when no other team out there had any interest in him and we caved in with $12 mill for a glorified backup QB, we are the fools that got played....and that's ultimately on Macc We are wasting time and cap space on a bum at the most important position A decent amount of Jets fans did not believe in Fitz based off of his whole career and easy schedule last season....how come the people running the team couldn't see it? Everything else is secondary compared to this blunder
My reason for not wanting him back this year was the youth. I wanted Petty to be given an opportunity to learn behind a decent oline and with some good receivers. If a team is going to have a bad year, it should be with the young kids playing so they can develope. This is literally a wasted year with Fitz because the young guys are not going to see time behind center. If the jets go 5-11, no one benefits.
He caved on Fitz as people said. No one else wanted him and we paid him $12 million rather than league minimum he is worth. If we are going to be terrible, we may as well do it with Geno.
My reason for not wanting him back was similar but right to the point... Fitz simply isn't good enough and never has been That being the case, it made tons of sense to let Petty and Geno battle it out for peanuts and then take it from there A losing season with Fitz taking snaps helps nobody and just pisses fans off A common misconception is that Fitz is a mediocre QB...no he is a bottom of the barrel backup caliber QB for a team with no interest in making a playoff run We get what we deserve
in terms of the bold, you have to assume Mac does have complete control over personnel. I don't see any reason to suggest otherwise, but i also don't see the need for blame yet either. He hasn't successfully addressed the QB position, but that isn't always so easy to do right away. If the Hack decision turns out to be a flop, then i could see throwing some blame his way. Signing Fitz does not prevent the Jets from playing one of the young guys. If Petty (or Hack) is anywhere near close to ready, they'll play some time this year (short of an impressive run). Fitz deal is only 1 year, we are not locked into him by any means. One thing i do find concerning though......the reports that Petty isn't really even practicing. If his shoulder is healthy enough, than the coaches should be prepping him for the possibility of starting this season. that's on the coaches if they aren't.