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Leaders like this are hard to find . . .
I’m talking about Josh McCown, and you can’t downplay what this guy meant to the Jets from a leadership standpoint last year.
The year before they had almost no leadership on any level.
Last year, McCown helped the Jets take a quantum leap in the leadership department.
He was the best leader in the building. His impact on this front can’t be minimized.
Not only did he play very well, but he kept the team together.
Eric Allen on the Jets website wrote some nice things about the free agent this week, perhaps this means something about how they feel about the guy, since the website represents the team.
“Reunited with Jeremy Bates, McCown played the best football of his career,” wrote Allen. “The 38-year-old passer, in his 15th season and with his 10th team, set personal highs with 2,926 yards and 18 touchdowns. Starting 13 games, McCown completed 67.3% of his passes and also rushed for a career-high five scores. Despite landing on the injured reserve after breaking his hand in Denver on Dec. 10, McCown became the sixth different QB to win the Curtis Martin Jets Team MVP.”
Sounds like a guy they should bring back. He led them to five wins in 13 starts, but I think there would have been more if the team’s pass defense wasn’t so bad, helping teams come back on the Jets, like the Dolphins in Miami. Hard to win a lot of games in the NFL with the level of play the Jets got from their pass defense last year. In the Jets-Raider game, the Jets pass coverage was flat-out awful.
The Jets clearly know they should probably bring him back.
“Based on what Josh has done, I would have no problem bringing him back,” Jets GM Mike Maccagnan said.
Of course they should kick the tires on Kirk Cousins. Why not? They have close to $80 million in cap space, and could use a long-term answer at the position.
But they better make sure he’s into them, and their not just buying his love. He needs to be “all in.”
Not just in because of a huge offer of between $28-30 million-a-year.
McCown is “all in” with the Jets. He wants to be there. He also wants to help them train his eventual replacement. Sounds like a good plan if Cousins doesn’t work out.
And the leadership thing is huge.
He’s a terrific leader for the Jets’ organization, an organization that takes it on the chin from the media way too often. It’s overkill sometimes, like when the drive-time host on their FLAGSHIP RADIO STATION called Woody Johnson “pathetic.” In the world of sports, that kind of language is rare from a team’s flagship radio station/business partner.
McCown is not only a great leader for the players and building, but also does a terrific job of representing them with an often vicious press. He did such a good job last year, the press gave him the media “good guy” award, given to the Jets’ player most cooperative with reporters.
And if the Jet sign McCown to let’s say a deal for $8-9 million, they would have a load of money to sign players at so many other area needs, and they have a lot of needs. They can’t overrate their core.
And by keeping McCown around, they would keep around the best leader in the entire building.
That can’t be minimized.
February 16, 2018
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