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Jets GM John Idzik did some interviews this week about his old team, the Seattle Seahawks, and said something surprising . . .
John Idzik agreed to do some interviews this week with Jets beat writers about his old team, the Seattle Seahawks, and nothing else.
In his interview with the New York Daily News, he was asked about the competition mantra in Seattle.
“I don’t think competition is new in any football realm,” Idzik told the Daily News on Wednesday. “That’s pretty much how we’re bred. But it was certainly a point of emphasis in everything we did and everything Pete did in Seattle and in other stops as well. Pete, in everything, whether it be in a meeting or down time, there was always an aspect of competition that was done in Seattle.… It’s what we do here. We actually live it. They certainly did it in Seattle too.”
Seattle truly is about competition. They don’t mess around out there. Two undrafted free agent wide receivers played prominent roles on that team this year – Jermaine Kearse and Doug Baldwin.
Aside from Earl Thomas, their secondary is loaded with late round picks, guys from Canada, from Holy Cross, you name it.
When they gave rookie Russell Wilson the starting quarterback job in the training camp of 2012, after they gave Matt Flynn big money that off-season in free agency, that was epitome of what competition is all about.
Carroll really believes in in, and it’s not just window-dressing.
I have to say, I have a problem with John Idzik claiming, at this stage of the game, that he is about competition.
The Jets started five rookies, four that weren’t ready, kept three offensive linemen at the end of the roster who didn’t play, including two draft picks that didn’t have good summers.
Look, like I’ve said before, Idzik’s strategy of letting the five rookies learn on the job, and move up the growth curve by playing, might turn out to be a great strategy that benefits the Jets in the future.
And if he eschewed competition for a year to take an incubator approach, that is his right.
But for him to tell the Daily News that competition “was certainly a point of emphasis in everything we did,” is a little misleading.
Let’s see how Idzik handles things this year, and if the competition approach kicks in 2014, because there certainly wasn’t a lot of it this past season.
People always point to Brian Winters replacing Vlad Ducasse early in the season as an example of competition. I don’t view it that way at all.
Winters wasn’t an upgrade. He had as many problems with penalties and stunting as Ducasse.
If Idzik was into competition, Winters would have been replaced at some point as well. Clearly the GM views Winters as the long-term answer at left guard, and wanted him to play.
“There was always an aspect of competition that was done in Seattle.… It’s what we do here – we actually live it.”
Perhaps that life will begin in 2014.
2013 was about player development . . .
January 31, 2014
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