Pudden and Fourth, on the playbook, There is certainly truth to the notion that Favre leaving after next year does not mean that in the interim Clemens and or Ratliff would then have to learn a whole new system, since they would be following next year's playbook all the coming year. In that respect Pudden is correct. But, it is also true that a well constructed playbook will take into account the plusses and minusses of the starting Qb in question. A different Qb, depending on the nature of the difference, might call for some or many changes. Actually I think there would be less of that with Favre than you might have had with someone else in terms of arm strength, perhaps. But in some areas you might be limiting the playbook to meet Favre's game when Clemens or Ratliff might be better suited to a different playbook. Still, I think this would be a mostly theoretical concern as, were this scenario to actually play out, enough would likely be retained that no huge change to the playbook would be required next year. On the other side the major point that Fourth brings up that remains problematic if Favre comes back is the whole putting off getting the next Qb in place, particularly with respect to Clemens's contract. As it is the Jets are in a dicey situation there, since this will be Clemens's contract year. Perhaps they can resolve that somewhat by agreeing to a one year extension, but there is some downside to that if they're not going to actually go with Clemens. The team is pretty much already stuck with a problem here, though, and were Favre not to return at least the team will presumably begin making progress on deciding sooner than later whether Clemens is the way to go. Not to beat this to death but they need only sign an extension before opening day. At some point the lines of increasing confidence in Clemens and what leverage he would have on a contract number will cross in an acceptable place.
People here talk about that but I don't think for a second that Johnson and Tannenbaum give one damn about it at all. They want to win now and they will worry about '10 in '10. It's why they are making a vocal plea to Favre that they want him back and are willing to wait as long as it takes (within reason) to get him to say he will come back.
I completely concede the possibility, I could say probability, that Woody could ignore the medium term implications of failing to understand and work on who the next Jet Qb would be if Favre came back for one more year, but that doesn't stop me from rightly saying those implications are worth discussing, and should be taken into account. We're talking about two different things.
