It's the offensive line stupid...

You know what's really annoying me about the Sanchez haters? They are actively saying we should dump him. Or, at least, most of them are. Dump him FOR WHAT? WHO? Who do they think we're going to get? Manning? A. Not happening because the Colts won't let him go. B. He's too expensive. C. The guy may not last another season!
It's like since Sanchez isn't carrying this team of malcontents and underachievers on his back it's all somehow his fault alone. As if a new QB will fix everything. Fucking asinine. I feel like I'm arguing with a bunch of teenagers who've only been watching football since 2005.

 

Is there a reason you're hurling personal attacks? "Moron"? Really? C'mon man...You know better than that.

 

Oh, so now we're comparing Sanchez (who has won 4 playoff games and 28 regular season games) to Gholston. Who did fuck all in two seasons. Yeah. Great job.

 

You're right Bray. Shouldn't let it get my temper up. Perspective and all.

 

I'm gonna go count to 10 slowly. Maybe do some yoga or something. Deep breathing. Look at pictures of puppies.

Heh heh. Just messin' with you.

 

The Pats had the 28th ranked rushing game and 23rd ranked defense Brady's first year.

 

My post noted that last year Flacco had a Qb rating over 93. That is the number Sanchez has never come close to sniffing.

If I were you I'd go on read only for a couple of months and see if you can learn anything.

 

Robert Turner was to be the backup center, if I'm not mistaken. He got hurt, so when Mangold got hurt, we were down to our 3rd string options, not good when going on the road to Baltimore, NE and Oakland. So you think Mangold will only play 2 more years? I'll say he plays another 6-8 years, at least.

 

While as I said earlier, I agree with most of your initial post, I disagree with the following in one of your recent posts:

Really? And what or who exactly required that they trade extra draft picks to find good players??? It's funny that other GMs (who are not attorneys and bean counters, but rather are football men and know how to evaluate talent by the way) are able to find good talent and productive players in every round, yet Tanny cannot for the most part. No one made Tanny trade up. It's his ego, his need to make a big splash to get his name in the papers, plus that's the only thing he knows how to do (i.e., go after a big name player who is supposedly a can't miss prospect). Similarly, why did the Jets' LB corps get so old???? Why couldn't the safety position be addressed? He had plenty of opportunities, even as late as the 7th round (and if I'm not mistaken, in every round from the 3rd through the 7th) to draft a safety prospect last season and chose not to. He could have signed Michael Griffin or another vet FA S last season and not spent so long chasing Nnamdi.

 

I respectfully disagree. My response is going to be lengthy, so I'm going to break it down into a couple of posts.

No, teams don't have 9-year plans to build a winner any more, but Rex didn't have to try to turn things around in one year. I believe that if he had started more slowly showing definite, significant progress each of his first three seasons, the team would be in better shape now and no one would have been killing him for not winning big immediately. He could have grown and learned and he built the team, rather than getting the talent that could get him there and his not really being ready to handle the problems that come with being a HC.

I think it's entirely reasonable to say that building too fast can be detrimental to your team's long-term success in that it can create unrealistic expectations and results in worse draft position which can hinder the team's growth and progress long-term. A lot of fans have made a point of excusing Tanny's job performance by stating how he was handcuffed by the final 8 rule the last two seasons following the Jets' appearance in the AFC Championship Game. If the team hadn't been in those games prematurely, perhaps they could have signed the FAs who could have been difference makers on the team and not only gotten them to the AFC Championship Game in 2011 or 2012 but to the Super Bowl as well.

For instance, Rex brought Jim Leonard and Bart Scott with him from the Ravens as FAs. It made sense as they were good players and could help teach the rest of the players Rex's system. Had he not done that however, he might have developed younger players on the Jets' roster or enticed Tanny to draft players at those positions. He also could have signed different FAs at those or other positions who were younger and cheaper.

First and foremost, a team wins a franchise caliber QB to lead the team. Many Jets fans don't think that Mark Sanchez is that caliber of QB. I'm on the fence about him. Initially, I was against taking him or any QB in that draft, but he has won me over to some extent with his play.

If the Jets hadn't traded up to take Sanchez, there are a number of things they could have done. Tampa Bay wound up getting the Jets' #17 pick from Cleveland so they could take Josh Freeman. Some Jets fans think Freeman is better than Sanchez. I'm not saying he is, but that would have been one option. Another would have been to trade down with Tampa. The Jets could have then had their pick at #17 of Robert Ayers, Jeremy Maclin, Brandon Pettigrew, Percy Harvin, Michael Oher, Clay Matthews, Hakeem Nicks, Kenny Britt, Beanie Wells, or Evander Hood. At #52, they could have had their pick of LeSean McCoy, Phil Loadholt, William Moore (S), Fili Moala or Sean Smith. Think any of those players would have helped the team and filled needs? On top of that, the Jets could have even traded down again as Cleveland did to garner additional picks with which to address holes/needs.

The Jets also traded up in the 3rd round to get Shonn Greene, giving up their 3rd, 4th and 7th round picks. He has proven to not be the starting quality RB the Jets thought and we hoped. To be fair, there weren't a lot of even good players in that third round and lots of teams missed. Ironically, the Jets wound up with two of those players that they could have drafted with their original 3rd round pick in Jarron Gilbert and Patrick Turner. In the 3rd round they could have taken Ladarius Webb who has been a pretty good player for the Ravens, however, or Mike Wallace who has been excellent for the Steelers. In the 4th and 5th rounds (the 5th going to Philly for Lito Shephard) the Jets missed out on Austin Collie, Johnny Knox, Kevin Huber, Thomas Morstead, Javon Ringer and others. Again, think any of those young players would have made the team better? In the 7th round, the Jets could have taken Pat McAfee, Ryan Succop or Dan Gronkowski. If the Jets had a punter who could nail the ball for 50-60 yards and a kicker who was more consistent and who could get consistent touchbacks, would that not have made a difference in games?

Now if the Jets hadn't taken Freeman, who would have played QB? That is problematic as in 2008 and 2009 the FA QB groups were not exciting, but they could have signed Matt Cassel, Michael Vick or Jeff Garcia in 2009 or perhaps traded up and drafted Sam Bradford in 2010 or taken Colt McCoy. I'm not saying that Sanchez isn't perhaps the best QB for the Jets and was the wrong choice, but cases could be made for Cassel and Freeman, and the Jets wouldn't have lost those draft picks/players that would have filled some of the holes they have. I'm just pointing out that there are always options. Finding that franchise QB is difficult. It takes a lot of luck, but sometimes luck is created. Look at Indy. They got Peyton Manning because Parcells supposedly screwed the pooch and told Archie Manning that he was going to trade Peyton for a slew of draft picks. The Jets could have had Peyton Manning. Now Indy gets Luck if they want in this draft.

 

I'm not saying a team should never trade up. The 2007 draft was awful, so trading up for Revis and Harris in that draft were excellent moves.
As I showed in my previous post, however, trading up in 2009 for Sanchez, not only was not necessary, but may not have been the best move. IMO after trading up one year, the wise thing to do is to counter the lost picks by trading down within the next year or two to gain additional picks. What burned the Jets is that they traded up in 2007, 2008, and 2009 in addition to making some bad picks in the 2008, 2009 and 2010 drafts. We know that Gholston was a huge bust. That isn't the end of the story. The Jets traded up for Keller, who hasn't been all that he could/should be. To trade up to #30, the Jets gave up the #36 pick of the draft, where they could have taken Jordy Nelson, Curtis Lofton, Matt Forte, Eddie Royal or perhaps have traded down a bit in that round and taken Ray Rice. Their 3rd and 5th round picks went to Carolina in the Kris Jenkins Trade. In the 3rd round they could have taken Charles Godfrey or Jamaal Charles. Their 4th round pick went to GB for Favre. They took Dwight Lowery with the 4th round pick they obtained from the Saints for Jonathan Vilma.

I like Braylon Edwards and he was a very good player for the Jets, but he is no longer with the team. I think that not keeping him was a mistake as in the best of worlds the Jets could have only added Jacoby Ford and Aaron Hernandez with those two picks.

In 2010 they could have added Rob Gronkowski, Dexter McCluster or Arrelious Benn instead of Kyle Wilson. In the 2nd round they could have taken a number of better OL or WRs than Ducasse. With the Jets having Gronkowski rather than NE, think things might have been different for the two teams?

As I said, I'm not totally deadset against trading up. There are times when the drafts aren't very good or deep, or have quality players at positions of need. I just think teams need to be very judicious about when, where, how often they trade up, and who they are trading up for, then trade down in a subsequent year to replenish those picks.

 

@joeklecko

Nice post.

I think the big mistake in all of this was trading up for Sanchez to win now. Not trading up for Sanchez, but trading up for him and then stocking the team around him to immediately compete.

Everybody knows the Bill Parcells/Peyton Manning story at this point. Parcells was asked by Archie Manning whether or not Peyton would be the 1 pick for the Jets if he came out in 1997. His response was that Peyton would be the 1 pick but would likely be traded for a large package of goods to somebody who had time to develop him properly.

Parcells had a mandate from Leon Hess, who was dying of a progressive blood disorder, to win immediately. Hess wanted to see a Jets Super Bowl win before he went and he wanted to leave that for Jets fans as his legacy to them and he had a very short period of time to do that in.

Parcells knew that any rookie QB, no matter how good, wasn't likely to be ready to win a Super Bowl in 1998, which was his target year after taking over a terrible but still a bit talented Jets roster in 1997.

Parcells also knew that Peyton Manning was an extraordinary talent and likely to be very successful in the NFL but he had two strikes against him as far as the Jets were concerned. First he was a young QB and would not fit in the timeframe they needed. Secondly he was coming out after his junior year, and even though he was a 3 year starter that weighed against him as well in Parcell's estimation of his ability to do well right away.

So Parcells told Archie Manning the truth, which is what you do if you want people's respect, and Peyton stayed at Tennessee instead of joining whoever he would have joined in the NFL.

Fast forward 12 years after that date and the Jets are bringing Rex Ryan to town to finally install a good 3-4 defense, after acquiring many of the necessary parts on Mangini's watch but never quite putting it together. They're trying desperately to sell PSL's in the new stadium because the Jets carry a pretty heavy debt load and PSL's offset that some. They're in year 2 of the PSL push with the Brett Favre season having exploded on them at the end. They're desperate to win the off-season war again and sell the damn PSL's.

So instead of hiring a savvy but unexciting vet to come in and run the offense while Rex put together the defense they go for broke and trade up fairly cheaply for Mark Sanchez. There were no guarantees in the 2009 draft at QB and so the pricetag for trading up to the 5 wasn't the usual multi-1st round pick deal.

Rex came through and created a great defense for the year, abetted heavily by Darrelle Revis having a great all-time season at CB. The Jets moved into contention in a big way. Then reality hit them smack in the mouth: a rookie QB just isn't what you want to have on a team built to win right now.

They buttoned everything down and went very conservative and got to the AFC championship game. The price of doing that was part of Mark Sanchez development. What he learned from the experience is that being himself, the player he was always successful as, wasn't good enough. He had to be perfect at being a controlled game manager. That's what he got out of that year.

Peyton Manning got to throw 28 interceptions his rookie year, no pressure at all. The team won 3 games all year long but all you heard out of people was that Manning was great and he'd be better in the future.

Mark Sanchez, who is already one of the better improvisational QB's the NFL has ever seen, making things happen on the run when the Jets will lose otherwise, got told over and over again to button that stuff down and let everybody else win the game.

In his third season Peyton Manning knew he was a great player and was being given the keys to the city in terms of freedom to do what he wanted with the offense.

In his third season Mark Sanchez had been through open it up, shut it down, open it up, shut it down repeatedly as the needs of the team overwhelmed the developmental needs of the player.

Is he going to turn into the QB he might have been if he had time to learn before he was forced to try to be perfect? Only time will tell, but the Jets did no great service to themselves or to Mark Sanchez by drafting him and throwing him into the fire the way they did.

 

I have been posting on numerous Jets' sites for years and never heard that story about Parcells/Manning until last week. While I understand Hess' motivations and Parcells (he was always in "win now" mode), it was stupid. It's what has always killed this franchise (stupidity and impatience). Leon Hess was a moron. One of the worst, stupidest owners in sports ever. If he really wanted to leave a legacy for the Jets, it should have been adding a franchise QB with the potential to be a HOFer that they could build a team around and be very, very good for a number of years. Anyone other than Parcells, probably would have gotten Hess to change his mind. But Parcells knew he was gonna bolt and screw the Jets, so he didn't give a damn. That's why I'll always detest that SOB.

Excellent points about Sanchez. I think if Rex and the Jets had built the rest of the team and just let Sanchez or Freeman develop slowly with a quality OC and QB coach, they would be primed to make a serious SB run for the next 5+ years instead of being in rebuilding mode and having to deal with all the problems they have.

It's like Dave Berry the comic writer used to say..."You can't make this stuff up." The stupidity of the Jets' owners, GMs and HCs is simply legendary and shameful.

 

Jets also lost blocking TE Ben Harstock ???

 

Sanchez had a year like Richard Todd in 1980 when he threw 30 ints.....or like some recent QB's whose QB rating fell 10-15 points into the low 70's or even 60's.

Oh wait.....Sanchez' QB rating went UP and his TD/INT ratio improved, too. And he was a middle-of-the-pack guy. IOTW, with a bit of improvement, he's Top 10.

From some of these posts, you'd think the guy finished 28th or something in the QB ratings.

 

That was addition by subtraction. Hartsock was a penalty machine and drive killer.

 

Good thing we have Mulligan in his place .