We recognize where our coaching is lacking. But the root of our problem is we had a mountain of team building resources when JD started and he made poor decisions with the bulk of it. With what JD had we should have a minimum 10 win team that challenges for the SB every year - starting last year. But we don't and here is where we went wrong (focusing on just the draft). ROSTER/CORE BUILDING, TALENT EVALUATION and TRADING UP Our core was built incorrectly for most of JDs tenure. The strange thing is, his most intelligent draft was also a bad draft. Year 1 he made the right calls rebuilding wise. Lineman in the 1st, WR in the 2nd, low round QB dart, etc. A reasonable beginning of a rebuild. The problem was talent evaluation was really bad. Becton over Wirfs was bad, Mims was a tread down bust, Morgan wasn't an NFL caliber QB, and we ended up with a few backup DBs to show for the entire draft. Talent evaluation was really poor, but in the beginning it seemed like he had the right idea how to build. Where JD really went off the rails in team building is locking into players. His drafts weren't flexible enough and it caused him to make a lot of mistakes, as I'll demonstrate. (Not recognizing and adapting to his mistakes was also a major flaw.) YEAR 2 It was year 2 he went wildly off the rails. 2020 was one of the worst teams in our history, starting 0-13, and just looking terrible all around. It was clear we had a lot of work to do - not just a few players away. Instead JD acted like he had a .500 team just needing a few more pieces and turned his back on resources like crazy. We had 12 picks going into that draft, including 5 in the first 3 rounds. Obvioulsy locking in on Zach was a mistake. This has been debated to death here. But three facts still remain: 1. Our team had way to many holes. 2. That pick was worth a lot trade wise. 3. There were enough red flags around Zach's college career that clearly indicated he was in no way worth the 2nd overall pick. FUCK the mini Mahomes media hype. Hype doesn't create success or pedigree. But it can create the illusion of it. Through a professional lens, all three of these factors meant we had no business taking Zach 2nd overall. It was one of the stupidest gambles in our history. JD just fell in love with him, and worse, locked in on him. Because we had other suckers on the line willing to give up the farm, and we ended being the sucker. A damned Jets trait. Locking in on players would cause more problems with our next pick. AVT was the top rated guard in that draft, but he was not a blue chip rated guard. JD locked in on him and started a cascade of mistakes that has snowballed. We gave up picks 24, 66, and 86 for AVT. We all agree AVT is a good guard, but Darrisaw, who went with our original pick 24, is a very good tackle. In fact, value wise Darrisaw is worth more. Yet we spend 3 top picks to get a guy less valuable than one who went at our original spot. In the end those first 5 picks in the first three rounds all we have left is AVT. And being hurt it really shows why giving up multiple picks for one player can kill you. When rebuilding locking in on one player is bad, trading up is bad - and they usually go hand in hand. Staying flexible, especially when rebuilding, to work the board to your greatest advantage is key. Over the rest of that draft we chose 5 DBs. YEAR 3 JDs third draft everyone celebrates because we got some blue chip players. But many of them were the wrong picks, following the wrong building plan, and just plain amateur. We were a 4 win team with issues on both lines, and we drafted a CB 4th overall. Yes Sauce is great, but a 4 win team has WAY bigger needs than a CB 4th overall. Everyone knew we needed lineman, and everyone knew we needed an impact edge rusher. Corners can't impact every play - edges can. It was a luxury pick that a team only one player away makes to get to the SB. Not a 4 win team with serious line issues. Going CB with Thib. available was not only poor team building, it created more problems. We still badly needed an edge so the trade up, rebuild destruction mode, reared its ugly head. We gave up picks 35 & 69 (2nd and 3rd) to trade up for JJ. Now, JJ is becoming a decent edge rusher but he wasn't worth the trade up, and he is not a top edge. Logan Hall and Boye Mafe, both taken in the second round that draft, have been just as good. Getting cute with a corner instead of edge at 4 caused us to give away more picks, more team building, and miss out on a top rated edge. And it added to the cascade. Trading up for JJ caused another problem. JD was locked in on Breece, but we used that pick to trade up for JJ. So we trade up again to get Breece, giving up picks 38 and a 5th rounder. Again, giving away 2 picks for one player. A RB no less - bad idea. Kenneth Walker is also a very good RB that we could have taken if we did lose out on Breece. Instead we locked in and gave up more picks and ended up only being able to take one lineman after round 2 - Max. You wonder where out OL depth is, its been traded, or in Zach's case - not traded. However, this all goes back to locking in on Sauce. In the overall evaluation, going Sauce instead of Thib started an avalanche that cost us the 4th, 35th, 69th, and 146th picks. Not to mention after taking 5 DBs the last draft - we use the 4th overall on another one. Everyone gets lost in excitement on draft day seeing the new talent and not seeing the big picture. We need to build a complete and solid team. Now we are experiencing the real fruits of bad team building. YEAR 4 We just had this draft and I think most of us see the issues with it. No need to break it down or go into our free agency blunders. I've already made a long enough post. Drafting is just one part of building, but it is a key part. Bad team building led to desperation and more bad choices. So now I'm gonna brag a little bit. Every draft I called this stuff out both before an after the fact. I understood what needed to be done and even how we could maximize talent to build something akin to the 49ers right here in NY. Even in what looks like a very bad future outlook, I still know how to do it and I understand how to get there from here. Get me in that front office and I promise you we wont be suckers anymore (or the biggest suckers ever - but I promise it it wont be boring). Only a fellow lifetime Jets fan knows how we all feel, and what we need. Only one of us can truly represent us. I wont just build a SB team, I'll build a dynasty - starting next year. Something to shove in NE/Miami, and Buffalo's smug faces. And...we also need a better culture. Not just a locker room culture, a city culture, a Jets fan culture that enjoys the team and can be proud of their ultimate success - and their role in it. We need to remember who we were in the 1960s. Be the rebels from NY and take no prisoners. How better to start than a rogue visionary GM who comes from the bottom. The next two years are stacked against us anyways. Why not take a chance. There are viable plans for exciting paths to a championship if the right person can make the right decisions. I'll turn this into the most exciting and funnest team to root for since our glory days. Ouchy for GM.
The Sauce thing annoys me to no end. I love the guy but if you draft corner at the 4 pick, you don't stick him in a zone on one side every single game and think you are doing your job. Everyone that gets hired to this team is out of their depth. We seriously hired Adam Gase instead of Mike McCarthy. This franchise is dead above the neck.
I think Sauce would have a much greater impact on the game if the team would use him as such. They stick him in a deep 3rd against the teams 3rd receiver all game running clear outs or flag clear outs from the slot and teams just don’t look there. I wanted Thibodeaux for what it’s worth too but he has disappointed across the hallway. They were just talking about it on WFAN today about how he’s a good player but underwhelming for the top edge in the class. He has the sack numbers but the Giants blitz a ton because they can’t get home with 4 and Thibodeaux ends up with a lot of free rusher sacks.
People are sure the next guys will be better-- I am supremely confident that they will be worse, as impossible as that may seem. And the current GM/HC/Staff suck very very very much. Woody will probably pass on Ouchy to hire Tim Boyle for GM and Wayne Hunter for HC.
All the Reasons JD and Saleh needed to be fired THIS MORNING! Alas, we can beat a dead horse - but it will still be dead...
I've said this before and I'll say it again, Perfect is the enemy of good. Trying to be perfect in the draft, going after what appears to be significantly premium players, gives us the current situation. We need a bunch of good players, gotten through a bunch of draft picks. The only 2 positions where it makes sense to go all out are QB and some kind of pass rusher. And you better be sure these guys are HOF stuff. Too often our GM falls into this trap. Also, it doesn't matter if player A at position A is better than player B at the same position. As they play the same position they NEVER face each other. As long as Player B is good enough., its not worth the extra cost to go for A. I'm on board with a vote for Ouchy.
I've argued this before but I'll argue again because people bring it up again and again. The Sauce pick was the right pick at the the time for one good reason: Tyreek Hill. People seem to forget that JD sought to get him in FA but lost out to the Finns even though we supposedly offered more money. Now with a super star receiver on a divisional rival, the Jets needed a plan to stop him somehow. Drafting the country's best CB made perfect sense and based on last year's stats, it worked out. Can't go by this year because of the switch in defensive matchups. A DE maybe, maybe would have been better over a long period of time but DE's rarely, in fact hardly ever, record more than 10 sacks their rookie year, and rarely crack that number in their career, unless their last name is Watt.
The stats of our ineptitude are stunning... and depressing. The loss yesterday really highlighted everything wrong with this team. I started to compose a list but it was too long... I'd clean house on the offensive side of the staff... that's where the main problem is.
I love how people say, clean house! On a competent organization that would work, this idiot franchise only hires worse, they can't even hire someone to find them a good GM and Coach
I strongly agree with the points about how trading up usually screws you. It blows my mind that GMs still haven't figured this out. There is an overwhelming amount of evidence that the only way to consistently outperform in the draft over a long period of time is by having more picks. Still, GMs fall in love with guys every year and overrate their own ability to pick talent relative to all the other GMs. This is all doubly true when you're trying to rebuild a roster or position group with numerous holes. The AVT trade was dumb, as were the JJ and Breece ones. They've all been good players and we STILL would've likely been better off not trading up for them. Now imagine if any of them had outright busted? It'd be a complete disaster. Any GM who frequently trades up is braindead and not the guy you want building your roster. Trading up means neglecting the data and overrating your own ability to spot talent relative to others.
jDs record has been horrible. Picking at the 2022 draft ain’t it tho. he missed on Zach. That’s the biggest problem and trying to recover from it has put them in depth the Texans won 2 games last year with the same roster. They drafted CJ stroud and look what happens
I don't fault JD for the Wilson pick because we absolutely should've taken a QB, Wilson was the most-liked one of the non-Lawrence guys, and none of the other QBs available at the Wilson pick turned out to be good either. The AVT pick was absolutely a mistake though. We traded away two third round picks to move up for a low impact position. The third round is a prime round to find OL starters and depth because OL prospects don't drop off as quickly from round to round as most. There is just zero argument that we'd be better off with one 1st round pick vs. a later 1st round pick and two 3rd rounders. The Vikings drafted a good OT with the 1st rounder we traded to them. It's moves like the AVT one that have left us in our current state, with holes everywhere on the line and our QBs getting annihilated because of it.
getting AVT a very good player player when healthy vs having a 3rd round pick that might not be on the roster is the last of the issue If Zach was the 20th ranked QB or Aaron Rodgers didn’t get hurt. This thread isn’t created
The thing that really chaps me about JD is he just tosses high picks overboard, and they're HIS high picks! Mims, Michael Carter, Elijah Moore, James Morgan, etc. These are all picks that should be contributors to this team, instead the Jets have nothing to show for those guys. Not saying they should be stars, but those 2nd, 3rd, 4th rounders are a team's foundation. And sorry, something is very wrong that an imbecile like Gase can make Denzel look like a building block, not a star, but a solid 2nd rounder, yet this admin couldn't figure it out? (I know Detroit thought so little of him in the short time that he was gone too.) At this point the only guys I see getting second contracts from his high draft picks are Sauce, GW, JJ and Breece. Def not Becton, Zach and depending on health maybe AVT. That is fucking atrocious you screwed up IMO the 2 most important positions on the team QB and LT...
It's not AVT vs. a 3rd rounder, it's AVT vs. our original 1st rounder and two 3rd rounders. Darrisaw is also a really good player and was taken at our original 1st round pick. There's a high chance we would've gotten 1 starter from the 3rd round picks and an outside chance we would've gotten 2 starters. We'd be looking at 1-2 holes on our OL instead of 3 right now. Everyone knows Zach is bad, but the AVT pick is widely regarded as a good pick when it was actually a bad one. This is about as settled science as you get in the NFL - trading up is generally bad. The numbers usually don't work in your favor because the draft is so random. Basically no GM can consistently pick better players than others over time, so you "beat" the draft by having more picks and picking premium positions like OT, CB, edge, WR, etc.
At that time, the jets needed a Guard. Becton was going into year 2 and George Fant was going into year 2 as well.
At the time Darrisaw was considered a poor scheme fit. At this point I don't remember what scheme we were running back then-- but I follow Virginia Tech a bit (a lot of friends went there), and I remember being exciting about him I like AVT plenty. We just need to keep in one spot so he can stay healthy.
OP same guy who wanted devanta smith at 1.02 and said he was a combination of Randy moss and Jerry rice lol
Look, JDs record is what it is and it’s not good. He did take over a shit roster with a lame duck head coach who ran a different scheme. I don’t think anyone here was saying Gase was a good hire, and he wasn’t JD’s hire. So he started kind of behind the 8 ball. That’s why he held out for a 6 year deal…he knew it would be a slog. All that being said, to me, there is a bunch of really bad and a bunch of good…and that’s more than I can say for most of our GMs. To me, the big strokes are some of the following: First draft - in hindsight sure Wirfs has been better than Becton, and honestly I wanted Wirfs only because I feel like Iowa just churns out great OL year after year it seems. That’s it…that was my only rationale. However, I totally understood the logic in Becton in that (1) he played LT in college, while Wirfs played RT, and (2) the huge size and massive upside on a guy who didn’t have an injury in college. So I don’t really kill him for that pick. In hindsight it was the wrong choice, and you can make an argument that just in size alone that should have been a concern, but I don’t know, I understood the thinking there. Second draft - again, that was a tough choice…take a potential FQB, or trade back for a boatload, and there were plenty of people here who said trade back all the way. In hindsight that would likely have been better, but again I understand the logic in saying you don’t get the 2nd pick often and if you see a potential FQB, take the guy. Personally I didn’t like it coming from BYU with a guy who had one good year against a cream puff schedule. BYU has produced like what, one good QB ever? Steve Young. After that I’m not sure there’s anyone else. So while I didn’t like the pick, I did understand the logic. Third draft - hard to criticize when you get 4 great players. Going in I though we’d go Edge all the way instead of corner, so I was surprised at that pick, but I will never complain about adding pro bowl / all pro / rookie of the year talent, and honestly I think Sauce has been a better player than Thibedeaux, so no problem from me. Sure we traded up for both JJ and Breece, but both have been very good to great. I think sometimes people expect every freaking pick to be a pro bowler acquired after a trade down. No GM nails everything…getting 4 players of that caliber here is a win. Fourth draft - again, I won’t complain about pass rushers, but I too felt that OL was a much bigger need, and I wasn’t thrilled about how we gave into the pick swap with GB, but that’s another issue. So in short, the drafts have been hit and miss…some great, some shit. Free agency included plenty of duds, but also some really good players like Quincy W, Huff, etc. To me, the biggest issue I have with JD is his failure to build a decent OL, which has absolutely killed this team. I get injures, I get he’s invested high picks, but man after 4 years it should be better. MUCH better. It just should. Every team has injuries. And he mismanaged Moses…should have made him a better offer to stay…I get all the talk about wanting to play for a contender, but money talks, and if JD had shown him some love, I’m sure we could’ve worked it out. Relying on Becton after two years missed with injuries was another misstep that he doubled down on. Had he managed the OL personnel better, even with the fringe moves, we’d be better today…keep Moses. Keep Herbig. What about Fant? He could have handled OL better than he has. The other gaping hole is of course Zach. He’s just a bust, though the Texans game compared to the Miami game at least showed that OL crap is a big part of the problem. But doubling down on Zach and refusing to go find a better backup QB option is also on JD. So all in all, his record sucks, and while I think he’s been better than the likes of Idzik, Mac, and Bradway, he’s earned a firing if thats the way Woody goes. My worry is that Woody has botched every fucking GM and HC hire he’s made…there is NO reason to believe he’ll get the next one right. Not a one. I do have a little PTSD on this, and almost prefer the devil I know vs. the devil I don’t. Even if only because I don’t think JD is an idiot…I think he knows he has to fix the OL once and for all THIS year or he’s out, so I do think he’d address it. But from a strategic standpoint, I don’t think JD’s priorities are off…he’s invested high picks on premium positions … QB, OT, WR, Edge, CB. He just hasn’t made the best evaluations (Becton, Zach, etc.) and then he got hit with a ton of injuries at one position group in OL and just didn’t have enough depth. We’ll see what happens…I wouldn’t be upset with a housecleaning and it’s not like it isn’t deserved…but I am way way concerned over what fucking clownshow Woody would hire next.
