32 years and I felt like someone ripped my heart out after this game. I made a few emotional posts. Now I have calmed down. While still upset, we can do a lot with the 2 pick. I could never leave this franchise. I love this team no matter what!
Last time I felt like this was not stopping Pittsburgh on 3rd down in the AFC Title game back in 2010 after coming all the way back
More recently, there was Kenbrell Thompkins failing to catch Fitz's Hail Mary, which cost us a playoff birth in 2015.
The difference is that was one year, and we had hopes for even the following year. This "win" probably sets up back another 10-15 years. What a remarkable opportunity wasted. We were so close.
I don't know that it sets us back 10-15 years but this franchise has never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity in the 50 years I have been rooting for them. This win gave us *nothing*. It was the emptiest victory possible and it likely set up a scenario where we are forced to trade down at least once in the 2021 draft. My plea to the ownership is to let Joe Douglas do his thing for at least 2 more drafts and see where that gets us. Also fire Gase. He's not a genius and keeping him is just going to make him one of the major stories around the Jets until he is gone. The Jets don't need their head coach to be a big story. They need the results on the field to be the big story. Just wanted to add: if the Jets go big on free agents this off-season then yeah we're set back 10-15 years...
Yeah this is a one of a kind gut punch moment because of the implications it potentially had for multiple seasons into the future. Never felt anything like it in my life - not playoff/WS losses in baseball, not lottery drawings in the NBA, not any football game that was lost when I was rooting hard for a win. But the second pick, while definitely not the preferred situation because of Lawrence sitting at the top of the draft, isn't a total loss. It's still a lot to work with when combined with the extra picks AND Douglas' football acumen (which I strongly believe in). It could have been a fairy tale, but we just aren't the fairy tale type of franchise. At the very least Douglas still has the tools and skills to really go to work and try to work our way to the top instead of marrying into wealth (which felt so good up until our crazy family showed up drunk to the rehearsal dinner today and f*cked the whole thing up).
I've said this a few times but it bears repeating every time this franchise does something just so stupid it should not be possible to top it. Being a Jet fan is like being A Man called Horse, strung up by your nipples in some sweat lodge somewhere going through a manhood test. Just when you think the pain cannot get worse some idiot does something and it ratchets up 10x in an instant.
It really does, though. It's not even about Trevor Lawrence. The loss of the QB prospect is really the third issue here. The bigger issues are the effects that this has on the coaching situation and free agency. Without the #1 pick and the chance of having a generational QB talent coming in here, there will be no quality coaches interested in coming to this dumpster fire. You need that kind of talent waiting in the wings to draw them here, because without the prospect of Lawrence, we're just a 1-15 franchise that hasn't been to the playoffs in a decade. We're a 1-15 franchise that hasn't been to the playoffs in a decade with an, at best, middle-of-the-road QB who celebrates game manager performances because that's his ceiling now. What coach is going to want to come to that, especially after we've fired multiple GMs and coaches in the past few years. Their line of reasoning would be, most likely correctly, I'll be fired in a season or two because I can't get the QB to play well. And no free agents are going to want to come here. Why come to the place where careers go to die? Lawrence could very well turn out to be a bust. In New York, it's even likely that that would be the case, because we ruin QBs. That's what we do here. But the possession of the #1 pick with a generational talent coming out in the draft is worth so much that it could turn around even a trainwreck of a franchise like this one. It makes people with credibility want to be here because of who we can bring in with that pick. Without that pick, those people aren't coming and we're left right back where we started this miserable season, with a bare cupboard. The 2021 season (or whenever fans are allowed back in the stands) is when we have to collectively band together to financially send the Johnsons a message. Flying billboards and stuff like that won't do it. Attendance needs to drop dramatically when fans are allowed back. There needs to be empty seats to send the message to the Johnsons that this is unacceptable. Until that happens, they'll be happy to churn out this pathetic product because they'll make their money regardless. Quit buying the merchandise, the tickets, the parking passes, and anything else that goes along with it. This franchise is a disgrace from top to bottom and, right now, the only thing that stands between this franchise and complete and total irrelevance is Joe Douglas. Let's hope he's the guy everyone says he is.
The biggest problem is that without Trevor Lawrence to give the fans hope for the future the owners are really likely to mandate a big free agency spending spree and that *always* sets us back in the end.
That will blow up in their faces because Douglas won't go for it. If they push him to do it, I could see him resigning and the Johnsons looking even dumber as a result. I don't really worry about the decisions that are being made on the football operations front at this point. I trust Douglas to do this correctly. He's not going to hand out any crazy contracts or do anything that jeopardizes the long term prospects of the franchise. But, he can't get people to say "yes" to coming here. He can seek out and attempt to sign the best free agents out there, players who would really compliment his plan and help take us to where we want to go. But given the toxic nature of this franchise, all of his competence means nothing if the players just simply won't come here.
I trust Douglas also at this point but I still think the best thing that could have happened to him in the off-season last year was getting hit by a truck.
I wouldn't name a coach to lead a ten year old's flag football team with that attitude - why would any NFL team? You want a coach whose attitude is that the team has failed so often because they had the wrong coach and he is the only one who can get the job done.
It doesn't look good, but I'll be watching the Jags game next week. If anyone can choke away a win they need against a weak team they should beat (aside from the Jets) its Trubisky and the Bears. Everything else aside, and as much as he is one of the villains because of the outcome, I take my hat off to Braden Mann. He made the game saving tackle at the end of the game when a return for a TD would have certainly been the nail in the coffin for the Jets. This isn't his first big tackle either - he has made a few tough tackles this year. If you watch the replay of today's game, he actually get juked, but then recovers and dives to tackle the returner. A lot of people mocked the Jets picking a punter in the 6th round but so far this guy has been totally solid.
You cannot blame the Jets and the players for the emotions they displayed yesterday either. They wanted a win badly and played very well. Good job by the defense and the new def coordinator. Players ply with emotions too.
