Precisely! If Idzik did something like re-structure Cro and sign DRC or Revis and we start Vick game 1 there isn't much doubt we are a solid team, likely battling for a playoff spot. The major rebuild nonsense is way off base and being used as an excuse for Idzik apologists. And before anyone stomps their feet and says no way we would have had chance for playoffs....Houston, Miami, Buf, KC, Cleveland are all 7-6 and battling for a playoff spot. That was ABSOLUTELY in our grasp if Idzik didn't totally whiff on free agency and the draft.
I remember getting blasted for even suggesting Idzick was a glorified pencil pushing manager with little to no experience in scouting. I would have gladly eaten crow if he proved me wrong and while I didn't like the signing I still was hoping he would succeed.
Great reading and arguments from both sides. The only out come I see is by-by Idzick and Ryan. There are no guarantees in life and HC and GM's live by this. It's like the QB. U do great you get the credit. When it goes wrong it's the teams fault. In Idzick's case it's the whole shabang. I honestly wished he would have done much better and had given us hope instead he has bought famine and despair to the Jets and the fan base.
I'm kind of hoping Woody ignores the fans and media and sticks with Idzik. Fans are just that, fans. They don't work in the front office for a reason. Fans and media can offer opinions, but it shouldn't be taken seriously. I'm of the opinion that spending money just to compete for a playoff spot or just to be competive is a waste of resources. You should spend money because you need a couple of pieces to make a championship run. What some people don't get is that there is a right way to rebuild and a wrong way to rebuild. You rebuild the right way, you look like Seattle. You rebuild the wrong way, you look like Oakland.
The difference is I don't get paid for it. I don't see any billboards saying I should change my screen name.
This is exactly why Idzik is a good GM, in my opinion. Because he didn't do what you are suggesting. That's what impatient fans want, so they would have something to watch this season, but what would that have done for the Jets long-term? Vick, Revis and Cro are over the hill and only going to get worse with every year now, and DRC is just not very good, average corner at best. So you do it the Tanenbaum way, go all in on aging, overpaid average players, and get the team to compete for a wildcard spot. You won't win anything, and then those players will get too old and you will bottom out again, just like they did in Tanenbaum's last 2 years. This is the Knicks approach, always reloading on overrated veterans because the ownership is too afraid to rebuild in NY, and as a result, these teams never win anything, just vacillate between shitty and average for decades. This is why I made a thread a while back about NY fans and media getting exactly what they deserve.
The Tannenbaum way got us one playoff appearance as a wild card (2006) and two AFC Championship game appearances (2009, 2010). Idzick has yet to prove that he can deliver a playoff game. It amazes me how many people continue to demonize Tannenbaum and even Parcells who have each given us some of the best times in the Jets' otherwise arduous history. Of course bringing in good players on reasonable contracts through free agency is somehow a bad idea because the Redskins and Knicks overpaid of free agents in past years. Why would we want to fill glaring holes with quality veterans when we can throw rookies drafted in later rounds into those roles and cross our fingers.
That's kind of the point. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Do you want an also-ran that just barely squeezes into playoffs and if all the stars align, makes a little noise there, but then inevitably loses? Or do you want a team that actually has a chance to win it all? The Tanenbaum/Parcells approach has never won it all, the Idzik approach not only won it all in both of his previous stops (Tampa and Seattle) but has worked for every Superbowl champion in the modern era pretty much. Because filling holes with expensive veterans before you have a foundation in place hurts the team in the long run. It's ok to sign a few veterans when you already have most of the team in place, they can put you over the top then, but when you are a young rebuilding team like us, bringing in expensive veterans only hurts us. If we let Vick start this year, that means Geno doesn't get a chance to become our franchise QB, or whoever the next QB prospect is. If Revis and Cromartie are playing, then Milliner, McDougle, and other young guys don't get a chance to emerge. Just because Geno and the CBs struggled this year doesnt change that, we still need to let them or other young prospects play until we find the good ones. Because Revis and Cromartie aren't going to do anything for us due to their age. By the time the next iteration of the Jets is ready to compete, they will be too old. The only thing they would do right now is hurt our draft position. So do you want to compete for a wild card spot this year, or do you want to build a real contender?
You continue to make assumptions an implications that are simply untrue. Parcells and Tannenbaum would not have gotten us over the hump by avoiding free agents. The free agent acquisitions were the reason they got as far as they did. Every, and I mean every Superbowl Champion since the advent of free agency has needed free agents to make it to the top of the mountain. Without Marshawn Lynch all of those Seattle draft picks don't get their Superbowl rings. Tampa Bay won its Supebowl with a ton of free agents. Parcells got closer than anyone since 1969. The Denver Broncos (the guys who beat us) were in violation of the salary cap at the time of the AFC Championship game so they serve as an example of a team that won the Superbowl because they DID spend a ton of money on free agents. Curtis Martin, Vinny Testaverde, Kevin Mawae, Jumbo Elliot, Bryan Cox, Roman Phifer, Pepper Johnson, Otis Smith, and the other free agents were not the reason we lost. For many years Tony Dungy's Bucs would go to the playoffs year after year only to lose. They build a strong team through the draft but not strong enough. Jon Gruden's Tampa Bay Buccaneers added a ton of free agent talent in their buildup to the Superbowl. Keyshawn Johnson, Keenan McCardell, Joe Jurvicoius were shiny new free agents that were the wide recieving core. The Bucs didn't find Quarterback Brad Johnson or All Star pass rusher Simeon Rice in the draft. New Orleans won their Superbowl led by Drew Brees who was obtained in a trade. Without him they would have gone 4-12 that year. While the Cowboys were mostly build through the Jerschel Walker trade it was free agent pass rusher Charles Haley that got them over the hump and helped them finally win an NFC Championship game.
I am not arguing that we should avoid free agents, nor is that Idzik's approach, since obviously he has signed free agents, even some very highly regarded ones. What I am saying is that to build a championship contender, you first have to build a foundation which consists of good relatively young players playing on good contracts. They have to be relatively young because then you have a sizable window to compete and add missing pieces, this usually cannot be done in a year or two. They have to play on good contracts (not too expensive) because otherwise you won't be able to afford too many (because of the cap). The draft is the best way to acquire such players (young and cheap) but it can also be done via intelligent free agent signings and trades. Once you have the foundation in place, you can certainly add a few high priced and even older pieces, in order to win it all. All the successful teams you mention followed this formula. The Broncos in late 90s had a great foundation with players they either drafted or got very young (Elway, Terrell Davis, Shannon Sharpe, Rod Smith, Trevor Pryce, etc) and then they added some veteran pieces around that. The Bucs in late 90s and early 2000s also had a solid foundation with Sapp, Derrick Brooks, John Lynch, Rhonde Barber, Mike Alstott, etc and then when they added Simeon Rice, he was only 27, same as Decker with us. Drew Brees was also only 27 when the Saints got him. The Cowboys obviously drafted their entire core with Aikman, Smith and Irvin and then added pieces around that. The Parcells/Tanenbaum approach was different from that. When Parcells came to the Jets, they had no foundation in place. There was no franchise QB, and while there were some good pieces on the team, e.g. Aaron Glenn, Keyshawn, Chrebet, neither offense nor defense were anything close to a dominant unit talent-wise. Obviously Parcells had no time to rebuild, so he brought in a bunch of veterans, some still young, but many of them up there in age (Testaverde at 35, Bryan Cox at 30, Pepper Johnson at 33) and tried to coach them up with his excellent coaching staff. This worked to some extent and improved the team significantly from the 1-15 days, but without a franchise QB or some other dominant unit, wasn't good enough to win the big one. Because of their advanced age, the window was very small, and that team fell apart quickly. Tanenbaum started off pretty well with some good drafts, but then between hiring Rex and going for Sanchez, he got into the "all-in" mindset. Once it became obvious that Sanchez wasn't a franchise QB, the right thing would've been to reset and try to get another QB while adding good pieces at a good price. Instead, Tanenbaum (afraid of rebuilding) gave Sanchez a huge contract. He was also handing out other huge contracts to players who didn't really deserve them, like Harris, Holmes, even Brick. So the point is not to avoid free agents, but to only sign those free agents which are relatively young (so they can be with the team for a while) and on conditions good for the team. This is exactly what Idzik has been doing. He signed 26-27 year old Decker for 7 million a year, which is a good contract for a good starting quality WR in the NFL, got 25 year old Ivory in a trade very cheaply (something like 2-3 mil a year), and got 26 year old Harvin for a large yearly sum but no guaranteed money (so it either gets renegotiated or we can cut him anytime we need to). He has also offered FA deals to other young good players, such as Vontae Davis, but obviously not everyone is going to agree to sign with us for other reasons. The veteran signings which Idzik did not do, which the fans whine about, they weren't like that. Revis is going to be 30 soon and would have come with a huge cap hit. Cromartie is over 30. DRC was young enough, but he was completely overpriced for an average or below average corner. Those signings would have made our record better this year (and hurt our draft chances) but in 2-3 years when this team might actually be ready to compete for real, those guys would be too old, and we would have to look for their replacements all over.
Vinny would qualify as a franchise QB. His freak injury in 1999 was a bad bit of luck. We had dominant units at linebacker and offensive line. Our skill players weren't bad either. If the ball bounced differently a couple times against Denver we would have been SB champs in 1988. We had the talent and coaching to win it all.
Coach better put the talented players in position to make plays. That's why if the GM and HC share the same philosophy, it's good going forward. They are on the same page, want the same players, have the same plan for the team.
You're right the plan and execution sucked. But I will donate $5.00 if you change your screen name, and another $10.00 when Geno makes the Pro Bowl.
Heh, our QBs have been so bad as of late, that every mediocre QB before them is now seen as a franchise QB. Testaverde was not even close to a franchise QB. He was a journeyman quarterback who played for a bunch of teams, was mostly terrible, and much like Geno/Sanchez was good for a pick in every big moment. The difference was, unlike Geno/Sanchez, he was pretty good at moving the ball, as long as you could live with his turnovers. Also he was pretty old when he came to us. Our linebackers included old guys like 30 year old Bryan Cox and 33 year old Pepper Johnson, 1st/2nd year James Farrior who didn't become good until he left for the Steelers later on, and a couple of good but not dominant guys in Marvin Jones and Mo Lewis. That unit (much like defense in general) looked better than it was due to good coaching (Parcells/Belichick).
A lot of people beating you up about this post, undeservedly. Cro should have been resigned since he was willing to come back for less money! There was no legitimate QB competition between Geno and Vick, Geno received 85% of the first team reps, it was a sham. We still should have drafted a QB in the first or second round though, since we knew Vick would eventually get hurt, and already knew that Geno sucked. All the scrubs Idzik picked up in FA is criminal by nature, absurd at best. All the drafts and FA's picked up with injury histories is on Idzik's resume now. And Rex not using some the pieces properly is the other part of the problem. Big Blocker's assessment of the term "Delusional" comes to mind right now.
But Idzik DID spend money over the hill players. How is he a "good GM" if he did the exact thing you say makes someone a bad GM? Idzik wasted money on Johnson, Vick and Patterson when he could have signed Revis and Cro for same or less. This theory that Idzik did what he did to build for the future doesn't add up.
No, he didn't. When I was talking about Tanenbaum going all in, it referred to him giving out massive contracts to undeserving players, contracts with a lot of money per year, and also lots of guaranteed money. For example, David Harris got 4 years/36 million, with 25 million guaranteed. The contracts Idzik gave out to the likes of CJ, Vick and Patterson are small contracts with very little guaranteed money. CJ was guaranteed 3 million, Vick 4 million, and Patterson only 1 million. They are all cheap short-term rentals, and do not lock the team into anything. Revis alone has almost 4 million more guaranteed money than all 3 of them combined. Also, the reason Revis and Cromartie weren't signed/resigned this offseason isn't financial. The team is rebuilding and needed to give the young CBs of the future (Milliner and McDougle) a chance to develop. Having Revis and Cromartie around would hinder that. Also, obviously previous baggage with Revis, and Cromartie looked done last season.
