exactly! this is what frustrates me…there’s always a reason to NOT get a player…and so here we are with a worse WR group than last year, if only because we lost Crowder and Cole and haven’t replaced them with anybody. Great. We can debate on Cooper being worth $20m. We can debate about going after a Mack or a Jones not being the right time because we’re still building and they are expensive and old. Great. Meanwhile, we have no pass rush and too many questions at WR. But hey, we can feel great that we didn’t overpay Cooper or we didn’t overpay Hill or Adams or whomever. And yeah I get that Hill chose Miami and Adams chose LV…but money is a funny thing…Watson said no to Cleveland until they paid him more and then all of a sudden Cleveland looked pretty damn good to Watson. I don’t know if we realistically could have landed either guy by offering a bit more, and maybe that wouldn’t have really been the right move anyway. But to come away from this offseason so far with ZERO improvement to pass rush or WR is a concern to me. I get that we will draft them…hopefully in the first round…I want no part of a damn safety at 4…but the draft will be risky. it’s hard again because yes in a vacuum I can also agree that Hill or Adams or Mack or Jones or whomever else moved this season would be too expensive for a team in rebuild…and I like the plan that JD is working on…he filled holes well and at least the holes we have left seem to be strong in the draft. but I just come back to…this kind of thinking has resulted in us having NO stud pass rusher or receiver in a decade or more… we need to fix this because while we’ve gotten better on paper so far this offseason, we have ABSOLUTELY lost ground in the AFC. The gap between us and the playoffs has gotten much larger this year…Buffalo and Miami made themselves better…the Raiders, Broncos and Chargers are all much better. The Browns are better. The Colts are better. That’s 7 teams right there that improved a ton. And that’s not even counting the Pats, Steelers and Ravens who ALWAYS kick our ass, so that’s 10 teams better than us. Chiefs are better with or without Hill. I would put both Tennessee and Cincinnati in there as well, though we did actually manage to beat both of them last year. Realistically, the only teams worse than us are probably the Jaguars and Texans, and you can make a very real argument that Mills easily outplayed Wilson last year, and you can’t say it’s because he had a ton of talent around him. Not saying he’ll be better than Zach long term, but last year he certainly was. it’s looking pretty freaking bleak right now, despite how much better we look so far on paper. JD needs to nail this draft big time.
Did you expect that we would lose our #1 FA acquisition (Lawson) before the season started? Did you expect that we'd lose our first round 2020 draft pick (Becton) for the season in the first game? Did you expect that the seasoned vet QB coach who was supposed to guide our #2 overall 2021 pick in his rookie year would die in a car accident right before the season began? Did you expect that by the end of the season said #2 rookie QB would be playing with just 2s and 3s for OL and WR and pretty much an empty TE room due to injuries? Yes, a certain amount of injuries and back luck happens. But this team got way more than a standard share of in 2021. So, sure, before the train wreck of injuries in 2021, people had valid hope for more than 4 wins. But those expectations would not have been valid if anyone had a crystal ball that told them the extreme level of injuries/death/crap that the Jets would face in 2021. In fact, if anyone had said we would come within one play of beating the Bucs with our 2nd/3rd string OL, an empty TE room, 2nd and 3 string WRs, and no Carl Lawson to pressure Brady, you would have asked what they were smoking. The problem in 2021 was not that JD or Saleh did a bad job. The problem is that we started with an inherited weak roster and then supplemented that with a rack of season-ending injuries to the few stars we had. If we have the same level of bad luck in 2022, we're in for a rough year, as any team would be. But if the impact of any 2022 injuries is in the range of normal, then we have good reason to hope for better results than 2021.
Are you delusional? At this time last year, our top 4 WRs were Davis, Crowder, Cole, and Mims Currently our top 3 WRs are Moore, Davis, and Berrios, and Mims If you think last years WRs are worse than this years you should stop posting on NFL message boards.
I thought it was an alright hire at the time but my preference was an offensive-minded coach. I think they're better for the team in general and you also don't lose them to a HC gig down the line like you do with a good OC. I also think the more we look back at Saleh's time in SF and his first year with us, it's questionable how good of a defensive mind he even is. Above all else though I just think the team barely improved with a better roster last year so there's no one else to blame except the coaches. We did win two more games, but there was an extra game on the schedule and our point differential just went from worst in the league to 2nd worst last year. I do think LaFleur has been a bright spot but the HC and DC were awful which is tough to stomach when the HC has a reputation as a defensive guru.
Yes, there were some mistakes made. JD for second year in a row didn't put out a competent WR room. That was a huge miss considering we had a rookie QB. TE was terrible too. Again, for a rookie QB, this was bad. I am a fan of JD overall, but he had to give Zach more weapons. Yes, some of it was injuries, but a better job could and should have been done to surround Zach with more talent. He shouldn't have been in position where he had far and away the most drops and some scrubs no one heard of to throw the ball to. Yes, Mims was supposed to be better, but that was JD pick too. And even now we are shallow at WR, though I am hoping JD will address it soon. Overall, there were mistakes like above, but there were some great things too, like Sam trade, draft, etc. Injuries played a role and we also underestimated the impact of not just rookie HC, but also rookie coordinators as well as many rookie players jelling on the team. It takes time. We may have underachieved a bit from expectation, but not by much. This coming year though I expect a major improvement. No more rookie coaches, QB, etc. Third draft by same GM. We need to contend for a play-off spot. So far, aside from WR, I think JD did well in free agency. If he hits the draft, we should be able to take a major step forward. Hoping Jets get Garrett Wilson and he gets 1000 yards this year!
Look at our starters from 2020, they were unbelievably bad. There is no argument that the team was not more talented in 2021 even with the injuries. 14 of our starters from 2020 were either literally out of the league or basically out of it in 2021. My point is simply just to compare the roster of 2020 with the one of 2021 along with the results from each season. Given the improvement of the roster and the lack of improvement of the team I have no choice but to blame Saleh, who JD hired.
I honestly don't think Douglas hired Saleh because he thought he was a defensive guru. I believe he hired him because he saw him as a CEO type of head coach. I won't argue the defense was atrocious. They had absolutely no pass rush and the opposing QB's had all day to pick the secondary apart. Just ugly.
You seem to have lost your brain. Try again. "Here we are now with worse WR room than last year, and last year it was horrendous." Compared to last year we lost Crowder and so far have not resigned Cole. Everything else is same, and Zach had no one to throw the ball to end of last year. Can't be in the same position again. Upgrade is in order. Oh and "Moore, Davis, and Berrios, and Mims" that's 4, not 3.
You have a very good point. Looking at the roster of 2020 compared to 2021, we should have doubled our win total. Saleh is to blame.
We have two good pass catching TEs and draft and more vet cuts will happen. I don’t think losing Crowder and Cole is gonna kill is at all. Especially since Davis had a down year and was prone to drops. I think he bounces back this year and Moore continues his good play that he ended the last 5 games. I actually think when it’s said and done we will have much better numbers from this group this year
Ohhh, my bad. I thought you were comparing last year at this time compared to this year at this time - aka “apples to apples”. I’m sorry I haven’t been reading your posts clearly, I skim past the less interesting “the sky is falling” posts.
That would have been a silly comparison. Can't say I am surprised you assumed that though. We already know how last year's improvements worked out, because we had a whole season with these. And WR room was weak where Zach had no where to go after he returned from injury. What's relevant now is how we improve from last year, where I expect to take the next step. I try to be objective, in fact, I gave JD lot of credit and I am a big fan of JD. But he did have some misses also, and some work left to do. Sorry, if this is too painful for you to read through.
I chuckled a bit but doubling from 2 to 4 means very little, it's not like we went from 5 wins to 10. Also our point differential was just about as bad last year as the year before. https://www.pleacher.com/mp/mlessons/stat/pythag.pdf As is true in other sports, we know that a team's point differential is a better indicator of future win-loss record than their actual win-loss record.
How do you get sky is falling or panicked from below? " JD had better hit WR in the draft, that's all I am going to say, because there were good options in FA/trade market, where he could have done something, and he came up emptyhanded. I am not buying the narrative that we are OK with two TEs. That was good, but we MUST upgrade WR room too." I am a fan of JD, but acknowledge he has not improved WR and has to do it in the draft. I even specifically said before it's not the end of the world. I am glad you are not worried, and I understand why he didn't do it too, but I do have some concerns. That's not the same though as "sky is falling panic".
Comparing apples to apples is never silly. Do we know how last years improvements worked out? Some say we doubled our win total and are optimistic. Others say we won 4 games and are pessimistic. It seems like the only thing everyone agrees on is that losing our top FA DE before the season started was a big hit so It seems like last years FA signings fall into the TBD department. This post wasn’t painful at all to read, in fact you said something we can all get behind, “What's relevant now is how we improve from last year”. There are many different roads to get to the destination we want, but only 1 person is actually driving the car and he luckily has the information he needs to make the right choice. A top WR would make this O pop off. A top DE would course havoc for opposing QBs A top CB would help with top flight WRs A top LB would help up contain the run A top S would help against creative offenses A top RB would solidify our RBBC You claiming that missing out on a top WR would be devastating is a bit over the top.
As someone who doesn’t like misleading information, “didn’t improve our team from last year” Jumps out. Maybe we didn’t improve enough for you but we did improve even if just “very little”. Regarding the best indicator of future wins… that’s the exact reason I thought the Panthers could be good in 2021, they weren’t. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
