No, you've got it all wrong! Namath actually made a deal with the devil. In exchange for winning the Super Bowl, the Jets would never win another Super Bowl for as long as Namath lived. Once he dies, we'll be home free.
There's no team in the NFL that can lose it's top 3 CB's in terms of talent and have the team still do well if the offense sucks. What we know right now suggests that going into camp the Jets best CB's in order were: Dee Milliner (IR) Dmitri Patterson (head case cut) Dexter McDougle (IR) Darren Walls (hurt) Once you get down to spots 4 and 5 on your depth chart to man two positions you're going to be in trouble almost without regard to what the positions are. Ok, so now we need to look at why the Jets couldn't overload at CB the last two years. 1. No QB going into 2013 so they wanted to add a prospect there. 2. Aging DL and LB's so they needed to make some changes there. 3. WR talent was injured often, over-paid in the case of Holmes and thin (Stephen Hill and Clyde Gates were 3 and 4 on the depth chart, 2 and 3 after Holmes or Kerley got hurt). 4. OL was average and aging. 5. No safeties to speak of moving forward (Allen is an ok prospect but nobody would call him a real asset at safety) 6. One RB on the roster (Bilal Powell) 7. One TE on the roster (Jeff Cumberland and he's not that good) 8. Special teams blew chunks. Ok, so in the face of that the Jets spent a 1st AND a 3rd round pick on CB'd in the last two drafts, despite the gaping holes elsewhere. Then they got unlucky and saw both of those guys go down with injuries. They signed two good stopgaps in Dmitri Patterson and Johnny Patrick (nickel) and saw both of those guys fail. Only one of the depth guys stood up and played near an acceptable level in Walls. Allen did his best as a stopgap but he's not fast enough to play CB at the experience level he has at the position. No recovery speed to make up for his understandable mistakes. It's just terrible luck, which is par for the course for the Jets recently. The root of the problem is that the Jets aren't getting enough talent out of the draft. They could paper that over by signing a few free agents but they're nowhere near the critical mass they had in 2008 after two drafts in a row that had produced 2 good starters each and the 2006 draft had given them 4 more good special teams and depth player. Signing one of the CB's wouldn't have made a difference this year except maybe to win another game somewhere, or not depending on how the breaks went. The Giants big "coup" was beating the Jets to DRC for which they're 3-5 and have given up 209 points. They actually have an NFL QB. Yeah, it's frustrating as hell but the CB's weren't the key this year. They wouldn't even have been the key if the Jets signed both Revis and another guy. We'd be 3-6 now instead of 1-8 maybe. We'd have had two primetime CB's on a team with no offense (again) and those guys would have been going post-prime before everything came together. It just is what it is. 3 guys you're counting on blow out and you have trouble replacing them. That's true for any NFL team that doesn't have a great QB and a lot that do.
I don't disagree with most of this, and yeah our luck has been horrible with injuries in an already weak area, but it further highlights Idzik's general philosophy for both the draft and free agency: Let's go high-risk and cheap, because we're smarter than everyone else and can magically keep guys healthy/productive. This has clearly proven to be a fallacy. Milliner: injury history. McDougle: injury history. Patterson: Cheap retread. Patrick: Cheap retread. I have no problem with taking a high risk/high reward shot on one or two of them, but you can't fill a position with bargain bins/risks entirely and then just think happy thoughts. We've had both the money and the draft positions to get guys without those risks. We counted on guys that failed - and the fact that they failed surprised no one, because they were shit from jump-street. All offseason I listened to Idzik say that free agency is for NEEDS, and the draft is for BPA. Well a glaring need was not filled in FA, and the "best player on our board" bullshit only holds water if your board isn't a piece of toilet paper. Is CB the difference between 1-8 and 8-1? Of course not. But Rex's entire scheme is predicated on having press/man corners...at least one. The entire scheme does not work without it. Idzik knew it, fucked us anyway, and then tried to sell his addressing of the position the same way Tanny told us "Don't worry about reciever guys, we got us some Chaz Schilens!!" We all bought the line that Idzik was a genius because he was in the same room with the guys who built Seattle. We were wrong. End of story.
While what you said may be true, a good coach will actually adjust his scheme to the players at your disposal. You cannot just take a square peg and jam it into a round hole and expect it to work.
LOL. Every single player on the DL is on their first contract. (edit: Except for Douzable, who has played for 7 teams)
In 2012 the Jets DL was Sione Pouha, Mike Devito and Mo Wilk. Kenrick Ellis still hasn't gotten into the starting lineup 2 years later. Damon Harrison was a completely unknown quantity. Sheldon Richardson was a necessary pick in the 1st in 2013.
We don't know what restrictions have existed for Idzik so far. We do know that the Jets draft process is highly collaborative. Just like Seattle. Who is in the room is a very important factor in terms of who gets drafted. The people who prepare the reports are very important. It's a team process.
