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John Idzik said he’s a big believer in competition. If that is how he truly feels, than DeMario Davis will have to win a starting job – he shouldn’t be handed one.
A Manish Mehta tweet today about Davis, caught my attention.
“DeMario Davis will be the Jets starting ILB alongside David Harris next season,” Manish Mehta tweeted.
That is not the way you run a football team.
You don’t anoint people for jobs.
You make them earn a starting job.
Did Davis play so well last year, in spot duty, that he should be handed a starting job?
If he did, I didn’t see it.
Make him win the job – don’t hand it to him.
And if the Jets just hand him the job, it once again points out a Rex Ryan shortcoming – putting high draft picks into the lineup whether they are ready or not.
Stephen Hill, Kenrick Ellis, Kyle Wilson – you can point out a few of these examples.
And it’s not a winning formula.
Mo matter where a player was picked, or how much he makes, he should be forced to earn a starting job, or even a roster spot for that matter.
I can assure you the top programs in the league, like New England, don’t hand players jobs based on draft status.
Because ultimately, if they don’t play well, it’s not going to be good for the team – so what are you really accomplishing?
You are trying to boost your draft record, when the only record that matters is a winning record.
Remember when Joe McKnight has awful, as a rookie, in the summer of 2010, and even he said he deserved to be cut, but the Jets kept him over Danny Woodhead?
Look, I understand it would have been tough to cut McKnight at that time, but maybe you keep both of them, and release somebody else.
The released Woodhead and kept McKnight. Woodhead went to New England, and the rest is history.
The Jets put Quinton Coples into the starting lineup from the moment he arrived on campus.
And they even made Mike DeVito take a pay-cut when the anointment happened.
It was like – “Coples is now the starting end, so Mike is now a backup, and should make backup money.”
Coples came in as a project as a 3-4 end. He had never played the spot before. He played in a 4-3 front at North Carolina. He came in as a project as a 3-4 end. He need a ton of technique work. He also needed work against the run.
But Rex put him right in there.
And honestly, the way Mike Tannenbaum and company treated DeVito was wrong.
He wasn’t making a fortune, and does everything the team wants, but he was demoted and made to take a paycut based on a projection that made no sense at the time – Coples starting immediately.
As for Davis, why should any of us be convinced at this point that he’s better than Nick Bellore or Josh Mauga (restricted free agent who will likely be tendered)?
There is no evidence of that.
So let the three of them slug it out for the spot.
This idea of handing people jobs needs to stop.
It’s not a good way to run things.
February 7, 2013
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