The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly this Season

So, another season ends in disappointment. I'll tell you, it sucks to be a Jets fan. The Browns, Lions, and Jets are the three teams where dreams go to die. Every light at the end of the tunnel is nothing but another train coming. We're a team that, other than one season 48 years ago, doesn't have any good old days to look back upon. So, what do we take away from yet another failed season?

The Good

-Fitzpatrick. He took a lot of flack today, and during midseason skid, and rightfully so. However, the majority of the time, he showed himself to be a competent QB and a good leader. We haven't had a QB that generally played without making costly mistakes in a LONG while. Also, he showed himself to be very capable in crunch time. I believe he's earned himself another year as the Jets' starter.

-O-line. This unit wasn't the Redskins' Hogs, or Jimmy Johnson's Cowboys' o-line, but they gave Fitz a LOT of time to throw, and were a big reason for Chris Ivory's 1,000 yard season. There are certainly some upgrades that need to be made, and both Mangold and D'Brick are getting toward the end of their careers, but overall, this was a very good unit.

-Marshall and Decker. The one good tradition the Jets have had through the years was a good WR tandem: Walker and Toon, Johnson and Chrebet, Coles and Moss...then nothing for 10 years. Guess what? We're baaaack! The Jets were pretty thin on talent at WR; the fact that this team had a prolific passing attack is solely on the shoulders of these two guys.

-Run defense. Running on the Jets this season was just a waste of time. The D-line was just too big and strong for most teams to open gaps for the runners.

-Discipline. This team largely cleaned up a lot of the sloppiness and buffoonery that were the trademark of Rex's team. There were a lot less penalties and dumb plays this year. It wasn't perfect, but it was a HUGE step in the right direction.

--The Bad--

-Pass rush, or lack thereof. This team was S L O O O W ! ! As I've said before, 3-4 defensive linemen are supposed to close running lanes and take up blockers for pass rushing linebackers. They are NOT supposed to be primary pass rushers. 300 lb guys just don't have the speed to be in the backfield before the QB can react. It's just physics. Pocket passers got the ball off too quick for them; scramblers just outran them. There's no edge rusher on this team, with MAYBE the exception of Mauldin. However, with the slow-as-ever Pace on the other side, his talents were largely rendered useless.

-Pass defense. I hate to say it, but Revis isn't what he was. He's still starter quality, but Revis Island is sinking beneath the waves. He did well defending long passes, and he's still got decent speed, but he's certainly lost a LOT of quickness. Cromartie was even worse; most big plays the Jets gave up were due to his fuck ups. Pryor was decent when healthy and Marcus Williams should be the starter on the other side next year. However, this team is no Legion of Boom.
Also, again, the linebackers were just too damn slow and thus the Jets were just about worthless in the short to medium passing game.
If they improve on the pass rush next year, all this should be less of a problem.

-Short to medium passing. Other than Marshall and Decker, the Jets have NO ONE who is a major receiving threat. They were really hurting for a quick slot receiver and a tight end. It was getting really frustrating watching Fitzpatrick launching 20+ yard passes on 2nd and 5 all the time. Marshall and Decker just didn't have the quickness to get open under five yards. Even when they did, they still weren't fast enough to get decent yards after the catch. The limitation of "run or go long" was a huge problem this year.
One thing that is of major worry is that Kurley could have easily fit the slot receiver role. However, we only ever saw him on special teams. This is very questionable judgement on the part of Bowles and Gailey.

--The Ugly--

-Preparation. With the exception of maybe 4 or so games, the Jets came into every game disorganized and unprepared. That's solely on Todd Bowles. I don't know if he's simply a poor game planner, if they have a problem scouting other teams, or if he just doesn't do anything at all. They got REALLY lucky that many of the teams they played either were too weak offensively to do much damage, or collapsed later and allowed the Jets to surge in the 2nd half. Even Johnny Football created a lot of problem for them until they woke up. This trend CANNOT continue. With Geno Smith or Mark Sanchez at QB and without Marshall and Decker, we would have been a 3-13 or 4-12 team this year.

-Offensive playcalling. A lot of the problems were thankfully negated by good decision making. However, Chan Gailey's playcalling was atrocious much of the time. Long bombs on 3rd and 1, running up the gut on teams that stopped them all day, horrible clock management...the list goes on. I hope that this is just a transition year, and this trend doesn't continue, because this was unacceptable

-Special teams. I'm trusting that Quigley won't be back next year. I don't need to go into why. I also hope that Nick Folk is back, because Bullock is so-so at best. There really isn't anything good to say about this; not a single positive on special teams. They need legit kick returners, they need a punter, they need better defense on kick returns. All in all, it was a mess.

I still don't have any faith in them, because 100% of the time in the past, they regress after one or two good seasons. But these problems are not insurmountable, and many of these issues can be corrected in by next season. Hopefully, they won't be the same old Jets.