Been hearing that for almost 20 years. LOL Sorry but as long as the Pats owner is named Kraft, not Johnson, I like my chances.
Yup. What Pats board are you a member on so I can make sure to make an account and harass the fuck out of you when we are winning Super Bowls?
First off you say wining "Super Bowls", plural? LOL, the Jets haven't even gotten to a Super Bowl in almost 50 years much less wining one. On top of that it won't kill me if the Jets happen to win one, I've seen my team go to 10 and win 5, not to mention seeing them be one of the last 6 teams standing in the hunt every year for the last 18 years. So if you want to come over to Pats Planet or Patriots.com to crow about a Super Bowl that you hope to win three years from now, have at it, we always enjoy comedy.
I'm honestly excited to watch Bridgewater in Training Camp and Pre-season. I hope his knee holds up. Great kid. People keep talking about McCown starting the season, then transitioning to Darnold, but I would not mind Bridgewater beating both out. It would be great. It would give Sam time to learn, and also give the Jets a better option at QB than McCown. Welcome to TGG!
Patriots fans are really on edge these days more than ever. You can tell even the optimistic ones know the jig is almost up.
Given Darnold's inevitable growing pains, and McCown's ceiling, a healthy Bridgewater presents our best opportunity to get elite QB play in 2018.
We were 5-11 last season, with 5 more 'close games' on the box-score. We can expect improved performances from our secondary with the addition of Trumaine Johnson and the continued development of Adams and Maye. I'd put our linebackers and DL even or slightly weaker than last year - even if Shepherd smoothly replaces Wilkerson, how Avery Williamson replaces Demario Davis remains to be seen. Davis had a career year last year, but he was primarily a run-stopping linebacker - the Jets coaching staff (credit where credits due) recognized this and had him blitz a lot (2nd most blitzes at ILB of anyone in the league)- this did translate into a quite respectable 5 sacks for an ILB, but his limitations in coverage (along with being a little older) are likely why we went with Avery Williamson over him. Hopefully, Williamson will allow the LB level to be a little less predictable, but the Jets struggled to generate pressure on opposing QBs all last season - Williams was double teamed a lot and still got a respectable pressure number in, but he wasn't able to turn them into sacks and the rest of the line couldn't take advantage of their one-on-one matchups, and I don't see a reason to think that situation is going to improve significantly. Some, perhaps, but how much... TLDR: Defensively, our DBs are better, call it roughly even on LBs and DL, with an overall improvement, likely stemming from a higher takeaway number. Offensively, we're better, but this has come mostly from taking bad players (or players in their twilight) and replacing them with serviceable ones, not adding pro-bowl talent. We replaced Wesley Johnson with Ryan Jensen, Forte with Isiah Crowell, Hansen seems to be improving, and we're getting Enunwa back from injury. QB is of course the big conversation, but I'm less excited about 2018 than some others are, despite the dramatically increased talent we have on paper at that position. McCown had a career year pre-injury in 2017, so it's a natural question if he'll be able to replicate that level of performance or regress, especially as he continues to age. Bridgewater would have to not only fully recover from his injury but improve on his 2015 campaign to get to McCown's per-game numbers from last season, and Darnold, while a high draft pick, is still going to be a rookie. I do think Bridgewater or Darnold could improve on McCowns 2017 numbers, but I'm not sure about doing it this season specifically, with one a rookie and the other coming back from injury. Either of the young guys replicating something close to McCowns 2017 season statline (7.4 Y/A, 67% completions, 2:1 TD:Int) would make me very optimistic going forward, because it's much more reasonable to expect an upwards trajectory from them. TLDR: Some OL holes patched and skill position improvement; with QB performance at around the same as last season for 2018 (but moving upwards, rather than downards, for 2019 and on). So yes, we've gotten better. Now comes the bad news: Our schedule is way more nasty than it was last year. We have 7 games against playoff teams from last year (2x NE, 2x Buffalo, Jacksonville, Vikings, Titans). We're also playing several teams that didn't make the playoffs last year, but who either were playing without their starting QB for much of last year OR have significantly upgraded at QB (Dolphins 2x, Packers, Colts, Texans, Broncos, Browns). A lot of the 'easier' games on our schedule are by teams that got hit by the injury bug much harder than we did last year, or who have otherwise 'comparatively upgraded' for 2018 more than we did during the offseason. That said, our divisional schedule is one of the easier ones in football - yes, the Pats are the big bads of our division for now, but our other 4 divisional games are very much winnable, and we have split series against far superior-on-paper Pats teams in the past. I think in many ways, this season will be similar to last season, except that the initial outlook is a lot more positive, because we've got long-term hope at QB for the first time in a while. I also expect he Jets fanbase to turn nasty fast - perhaps more so because we've seen some hope this offseason! I really think people are unreasonably shifting expectations in the W-L column forward to 2018, because they're looking at our is improvement as a team in a vacuum, without looking at relative improvements in who we're playing in 2018. I don't mean to be overly negative; we have made real improvements in the offseason. But too many people are looking at our improvements in a vacuum without seeing how other teams have upgraded or changed, especially with several of the "weaker" 2017 teams on our schedule. I think we'll be something of a spoiler just because we're in a fair number of close games - beating some teams that look better than us on paper, losing to some teams that could go either way, etc. But there's just huge potential oscillation in our W-L record next year. We could be holding another top-5 draft pick as easily as competing for a wild-card spot. We'll probably end up somewhere in the middle, but I see the moves of our 2018 offseason more as long-term team-building and less as tools to compete this year.
The crazy thing is that it looks now like the jig could have continued indefinitely if it hadn't been mysteriously traded to SF for almost nothing.
I think the 2018 Jets are 100% about developing Darnold and building for him. Whatever that looks like and however it happens that's what its all about. Even if he's not on the field much.
lol, Bridgewater named the starter, plays well, Sam rides the pine for 2 yrs without taking snap and gets traded to Oakland. Only the Jets!
