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Mike Maccagnan and Todd Bowles have not handled this well. They both deserve blame in their own way.
Buster Skrine had a very bad game today, especially in the fourth quarter when the Dolphins stormed back to win the game.
This is a mismanaged player from a personnel department standpoint, and a coaching standpoint.
First off from a player personnel department standpoint. Based on Skrine’s first two seasons as a Jet, he probably shouldn’t still be with the team. He wasn’t good in 2015-16 – very inconsistent. Why not move on like they did with Darrelle Revis, Brandon Marshall, David Harris, Eric Decker, Nick Folk and Nick Mangold.
Why would you get rid of that group, and keep Skrine? To me, that didn’t make any sense.
You could make a strong argument that some guys from that group would have been more value to the Jets this year.
I think money was a factor.
I think part of this was Skrine’s contract. They reworked his contract and pushed back some money, so if they cut him this year there was a $11 million in dead cap money and an $8.5 million cap hit.
So just like Matt Forte, who had a big cap hit if released this off-season, the Jets kept Skrine around.
These were the two guys who avoided the purge and cap ramification was the driving force.
Forte does bring some value to the Jets because he’s a terrific receiver out of the backfield and in the Jets’ new West Coast offense, they throw to the backs a ton.
But bringing back Skrine was clearly not an ideal decision. While he is a little improved a little as I mentioned before, there is only so much Dennard Wilson can do to improve him because you can’t teach instincts. Skrine is often a tick late reacting to what is in front of him, and lacks sophisticated eyes in coverage. I’m talking in scouting parlance because this isn’t personal. He’s a heck of a guy, and he works his butt off, but he’s wildly inconsistent, and the Dolphins’ big comeback in the fourth quarter was in large part to them targeting him.
So Mike Maccagnan, Brian Heimerdinger and company deserve some blame for bringing him back and not just eating the cap hit (they have plenty of room).
But this takes us to Todd Bowles’ blame in this.
If the personnel department, Ira Axselrad, or whoever insisted on bringing him back due to the dead money and cap hit, then Bowles needs to handle things differently than he has.
If you have this player on your team, he’s the fourth cornerback and core special team’s player. Skrine with his toughness and speed is a superb special team’s player running down on kicks and punts.
They are starting him?
He’s not a starting cornerback – doesn’t have the instincts and commits too many penalties.
Why on earth is Bowles starting him?
And why would the Jets release Marcus Williams who gave them good cornerback depth? He had a rough game against a Cleveland, a Jets win. Skrine has had a lot more bad games than that. Keep Williams. You need the depth. He’s more instincts than Skrine. Poor decision to release him. They could use him now.
You can talk about the penalties, you can talk about the late Josh McCown interception, but the biggest reason the Jets lost in Miami was horrid pass coverage in the fourth quarter with Skrine leading the way.
Maccagnan and Bowles handled this player very poorly in 2017.
There is no way around that.
October 22, 2017
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