I have no problem taking a step back to take two steps forward. At least you get to see young guys develop that we draft or pick up young vets in FA. Better than always trying to patch some crappy pieces together like this franchise always does. Yes it is amazing what the Bungles have done considering their previous 15 years before Lewis got there. However the Bengals are never a serious threat to contend for a Super Bowl. A good team, yes. But a team that screams respect and fear into opposing clubs, not so much. The Jets are very similar in this regard. I'm sick of a team that's mediocre almost always. I want a team that builds something and then you have the makings of a Top 5 NFL franchise a la the Niners, Seahawks, Pats, Broncos. Those teams are dynamic, even tho the Niners aren't on top and struggling a little they'll be back as long as they keep that HC of theirs. Those are the clubs you want to emulate yourself after IMO. I don't care if it's a combination of draft and free agency, those teams have a blueprint and they follow it year after year. The Jets are all over the place. There's no consistency in the FO, the coaching staff, the players, on draft day or in FA. If there was a model there then I'd feel more certain about things. However with the Jets you always feel like it's just throwing shit against the wall and hoping it sticks. Sick of it. There's got to be a way to build sustainability through the draft, FA and the coaching staff.
Well you have to do what the Bengals have done recently for more than a few years to get real respect. There are only about 4 teams in the NFL that just flat out scare me when the Jets play them. The Steelers, the Ravens, the Packers and the Patriots. That's because they just beat on people regularly and have been doing so for a long time. The Ravens and Steelers just beat the opponent into submission using hard physical football. If the Bengals are still winning next year and they are still doing it with hard physical football like this year they're going to join that group above. Same for the Seahawks. In the Woody Johnson era the Jets have been built to be a respectable team on a year in/year out basis with occasional flashpoint seasons where everything comes together and the inevitable down seasons when the flashpoints have passed by. That's probably going to have to change now because you can't get from where the Jets are right now to respectability without doing some hard legwork beforehand and even then the breaks will get you because they get everybody in the NFL. The Jets are rebuilding at the moment and it's much more of a gut rehab than we recognize. That's because we got lucky earlier in the year and won a couple of games we shouldn't have. I expect about a third of the active roster to torn over again next year and a good 5 or 6 slots of that to be starters getting replaced. By the time the season opens next year I think it is possible that we will only have 4 or 5 guys starting who opened for the Jets in 2012. (Mangold, D'Brick, Wilkerson, Harris and possibly Cromartie) That's a huge turnover in a two year period and is the essence of rebuilding. The key thing though is that the guys who get replaced don't get replaced by guys the same age but maybe a little bit better. That's not rebuilding, that's rebranding and when you rebrand something you don't make the product any better in the end you just hope it sells better.
