In my opinion, it is obvious that Idzik values building through the draft a lot more than signing free agents. In his two years with the jets, he has freed up cap room, accumulated draft picks, and cut overpriced aging veterans. He is emulating the Seattle model of drafting players, keeping them together for consecutive years and signing/trading for missing pieces that can put the team over the top. He is so confident in his ability to build a strong young team that he is maintaining the cap room/flexibility to resign our homegrown talent and/or add a missing piece down the road. The jets strength is their front seven and naturally that is where the money should be tied up. Gone are the days of paying for shutdown corner(s) and neglecting the pass rush. Idizk/Rex finally realized that tying up that much capital in one position is fruitless. The jets should be able to generate enough heat next season to mask and glaring holes in the secondary. Milliner looked great the last month of the season. Wilson is serviceable. Walls has some upside. We will likely target multiples corners late in the draft. Lets not forget that Sherman, arguably the reason the seahawks are so dominant in pass defense, was a fifth round pick. No one knew his name until the seahawks young defense grew together over a course of several seasons. When we do sign a free agent, we will no longer overspend or take unnecessary risks. Izdik ignored the hype and targeted/signed the safest available free agent on the market. Decker will never be a calvin johnson type, but we are getting a steady, playmaking, strong, durable receiver who has proven his abilities with Quarterbacks ranging from Tim Tebow to Peyton Manning. He is far and away the safest free agent on the market. The man will produce no matter the circumstances. Tannenbaum gave Calvin Pace one of the highest linebacker salaries in football and he was coming off a 5 sack season in Arizona. We had a need at OLB and tannenbaum's shortsightedness got us stuck with a serviceable OLB for the price of elite talent. Idzik wont make the same mistake.
The verdict on Idzik is a long way from being handed down. All you said may well be true, but until his plan wins something, it's just a different plan, not a better plan. Seattle put together a great team for the last two years, they got lucky with a few players and picked a few really good players in the draft. To say their strategy is the best or only way to win, is probably not accurate. Can they maintain a solid team for a few years? Will they be able to replace players as they are lost to FA? At some point these young guys are all going to want their payday, we'll see how they fair when Wilson and Sherman want 12-15+ mil. a year. I'm not against Idzik's plan, I'm sure he has a handle on what he wants to do, but I think it's fair to say the plan has to show results long term, not just a one off season. Going back the last 10-12 years there are a lot of one and done SB teams... TB, Oak, Car, Philly, Ari, NO, Bal, SF... Anyone can put together a team on the cheap, but to call it a successful strategy it has to produce success.
So if Denver wins the super bowl this season people should go out and start signing vets? As of right now how many of you would like to have Denver team be the Jets?
Yeah thats why I dont understand why people hate Tannenbaum so much. Tannenbaum had a very good plan, did it win us a championship? Unfortunately no but he was able to field a top 5 team and opened a window for our franchise to win the Super Bowl. Idziks approach as of now reminds me of Kevin Colbert/Jerry Reis/John Schneider which means the draft is where this team will be forged.
And if you think about, if the Jets can have a huge draft this year, this franchise will be in a VERY good position.
Very few wee complaining about Tanny in 09-10 when we went to btb championship games. As most teams have shown, it's a feast or famine game. We enjoy the feast, not so much the famine.
my point is everybody keeps saying build your team threw the draft. They have a lot of key players they didn't draft.
To build a contender through the draft it's not just about hitting on your early picks. You have to try and build quality depth in later rounds and also be willing to swing for the fences. Seattle got Richard Sherman in the 5th round, NO got Jimmy Graham with the last pick of the 3rd round. Even the Browns were able to find Jordan Cameron in the 4th round. My biggest problem with the Tannenbaum era was the pattern of blowing mid to late round picks on marginal talents with zero upside. All the Scotty McKnights are just throwaway picks. The perennial winning franchises don't waste picks. They will make mistakes in evaluation, but it won't be because they are playing it safe or picking based on the recommendation of a player already on the team. Sometimes guys will fall because of character concerns or off the field stuff. In the 3rd round or later, my approach is you have to be willing to pull the trigger, take some calculated risk when the potential reward is high. A good example of this is the Cards and Tyrann Mathieu last year. Idzik's debut draft in 2013 -- while hitting a home run on Sheldon Richardson -- doesn't offer any indication that this has changed or will change. No offense to Winters, Aboushi and William Campbell, but as a Jet fan you have to hope for better in 2014 and beyond.
I wouldn't trade. In 2 yrs when Denver is blowing up their team the Jets will be starting their dynasty run of multiple SBs. Plus it must suck for Denver. They are in an absolute WIN NOW mode, they have no choice, and Seattle will most likely beat them down again and again. It will all be for nothing and in 2 years they will still have to blow up their team and start over. You can have Denver.
And the Let's not forget that Belicheat wouldn't be known for his "genius" had the Patsies not drafted a HOF QB in the 6th round.
In a passing league you think we can "mask the glaring holes in our secondary"? You can't really believe that. We may indeed put more pressure on QB's (although that is yet to be seen, as we've made no improvements in that regard), but we are missing/unsure of 3/4 of our outfield. I'll give ya that Wilson is serviceable, Milliner is still a huge?, safety is two ?? and we still have no one on the other side of the field. DRC would certainly help, but he's not here yet and may not be. Like I said, I'm open to Idzik's plan, but right now we have no clue who our back up QB is, we're missing a O-lineman with not much in the way of backups, we have two decent receivers in Kerley and Decker, a couple of still unknowns , one average TE, 2 average RB's and a solid D-line. Should we nab 7 starters this draft, yes Idzik will look brilliant, but there is no reason to sit on cap space when you have so many needs. Granted, teams will certainly release more players in the next few months that could help us, and we may go after them. Just right now things are not looking rosey.
the jets pick 18 in about all of the rounds------very difficult to hone in on any one guy or sets of guys that will prob be picked before we make our choice-----and then again we don't know how good these guys will be in the nfl-----they may have been good playing in Austin texas or Georgia etc the best part of doing free agency is we know how good or bad these guys are the jets have drafted poorly over the years----that's why we don't have a dynasty-----the scouting dept may hit on one or two guys a season but we need more I hope idzik gets cromartie and another wr and several ol and several db our team has several big holes to make a run for the division----also qb is a big iffy ----hope we pick up ryan Fitzpatrick and let the better guys win
I don't argue building through the draft is a solid strategy, it gives you the most bang for your buck. Having said that, the majority of players who get drafted do not last in the NFL, especially the lower draft rounds. Yes you can pluck a few names out that have had great careers, but for every one of those there are a hundred who never see a game (or very few) in the NFL. Trading up for a sure thing is good football, missing on that move always looks bad. If Wilson were the next Revis, Tanny looks great, if we played 2 quarters of better football, the Sanchez move looks brilliant and we're not in this situation... It doesn't help any that we currently have 3 HOF QB's in our conference. Winning our division is very hard to do, running the gauntlet of Brady, Manning/Roth is nearly impossible, we came very close 2 years in a row.
This is why our lack of action in free agency is bothering me,All our draft picks are in bottom half of draft its not like we have a top 10 pick who knows who's gonna be there
We better all hope that Idzik is as astute of a draft expert as some are banking on him to be. If he's not then this team goes into next year with a lot of holes to fill cuz he sure has been conservative in FA.
Can we please be a one and done Super Bowl team? Seriously. And I don't think it's about that really. The norm is for a team to win a Super Bowl and then submerge some. The Bucs and Eagles experience is much more common than the team that is in the running every year the way the Pats are and the Colts were for awhile. I think the plan that Idzik and Woody are working on right now is to become a solid roster year after year that peaks every now and then with a strong run at a trophy. I think they want to avoid the tough years when everything collapses and the team only wins 4 to 6 games. The only way to do that is to build a deep talented roster, figure out who you have to keep and replace the other guys via the draft as they leave. The difference between the solid roster they want now and the solid roster they had in 2008 and 2009 is about 2 years. They want a 26 year old roster (like the Seahawks) not a 28 year old roster (like the 2009 Jets). That 26 year old roster has play in it year after year. The 28 year old roster is just about to decline.
Shouldn't you always be in a WIN NOW mode? What ? I want to wait? Hell no. I DO want to win now!!! The Jets rebuilding phase been going on forever...let's go for it!!!
