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New Jersey – The next couple of weeks could lead to the possibility of being mislead. The Jets need to be careful about that. It’s happened to them in the past.
Beware of fool’s good.
The Jets fell for it last December.
Could history repeat itself?
Clearly John Idzik wants Geno Smith to emerge has his long-term answer at starting quarterback.
You don’t need to be inside the meeting rooms at One Jets Drive to realize that.
Last December, the Jets’ brass got very excited about Smith’s play, and wouldn’t stop talking about it throughout the spring and summer.
It was non-stop. Go back and look at some of the transcripts. We kept hearing over and over about Geno’s December.
He was okay, but some in the Jets’ organization definitely embellished what he did, and where he was as a quarterback, based on last December.
So Jets fans, beware, it could happen again.
The Jets next two opponents – Minnesota and Tennessee – aren’t great teams.
And they both present an even playing field for the inconsistent Smith.
He’s facing a pair of raw rookie quarterbacks in Minnesota’s Teddy Bridgewater and Tennessee’s Zach Mettenberger.
Perhaps it’s even better than an even playing field for Smith. While Smith is struggling, he is a year ahead of those two signal-callers on the growth curve. He’s played a lot more games, and has seen more.
One problem for Smith this season has been when he faces established veteran quarterbacks, he has a hard time keeping up the Jones, so to speak.
So now he gets to face a pair on his level, or perhaps a step below.
So he has a good chance to lead his team to a victory or two.
But the Jets should be wary of getting too excited about this, if it comes to pass.
Just like last year, they shouldn’t have gone hog wild over wins against the Oakland Raiders and Cleveland Browns. Those were two awful, banged-up football teams.
However when you have an agenda, and you want something to happen so bad, sometimes you believe what you want to believe.
So beware of the next two games.
Some fool’s gold could be on the horizon . . .
On the field before the Jets-Dolphins games, I saw John Idzik standing on the Jets sidelines, around the 50-yard-line, talking to Ira Akselrad.
Akselrad runs the “The Jets Company,” which manages Woody’s money.
He also the lawyer who helped Woody negotiate the purchase of the Jets in 2000.
The man wields enormous power in the Jets organization – enormous.
Ira, along with Woody and Neil Glat, interviewed the GM candidates last year.
These men, with business backgrounds, picked a cap guru as their GM.
“He spoke their language,” said one veteran NY sports columnist.
You get the sense that all the time and effort Ira and company put into the interview process last year, they want to make this Idzik-thing work.
Reading the tea leaves, you get the sense that Woody and Ira have bought into Idzik’s long-term plan on building the Jets the right way, through the draft, not wasting money in free agency, and retaining their own core players.
The big challenge in keeping Idzik is selling it to the Jets’ fan base, especially the season-ticket holders.
December 2, 2014
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