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I don’t get . . .
. . . too caught up in his stuff
A lot of talk and articles the last few days about the Jets’ new uniforms.
It’s not really something I cover. I try to focus on things that impact winning and losing on Sunday, and this isn’t one of them.
I don’t cover uniforms. I cover the guys who wear them.
And while on the topic of players in the uniforms, if the Jets want to take the next step as a program, and it’s quite possible with Adam Gase this could happen, the roster politics need to be cut down ever more.
I do think Mr. Coffee has improved a little on this front. He cut a number of his former draft picks last summer.
But there is still a ways to go.
With handling of wide receiver Charles Johnson last summer being a perfect example.
Johnson was in camp last summer and looked good, but got cut. He pretty much had no chance of making it the way the depth chart was stacked.
He didn’t give up on his dream, went to the now defunct Alliance of American Football, and dominated.
Johnson is a 6-2, 215 pound receiver, who runs 4.5, and has good hands.
Johnson was critical of the politics that go in a lot of NFL amps.
“Everybody’s pretty much equal,” Johnson told the AAF’s website a couple of months ago. “There’s no politics in this situation. The NFL’s different. If you’re a first-round pick, if you’re not playing, that looks bad on the guys upstairs, so they’re going to make sure you’re out there playing.”
Bingo.
Darron Lee is a perfect example of that. No matter how much he was hurting the Jets’ run defense last year before his suspension, the powers-that-be refused to pull him.
If you want to challenge the Patriots, aside from landing an elite QB, you need to stop the roster politics, because we all know they don’t do it. Bill Belichick doesn’t care where you were picked, or how much you make, he is always going to play the best players.
Adam Gase was pretty good about this in Miami, benching or cutting starters at times, and trading two talented players, Jarvis Landry and Jay Ajayi, who often didn’t follow do their playbook assignments correctly.
But in Miami, Gase had final say on the roster, and with the Jets he doesn’t.
So it’s essential that Mr. Coffee eschew roster politics if Gase wants a guy off the team who isn’t getting the job done, and not worry about how much he makes or where he was drafted.
And if a guy like Johnson emerges in camp, figure out a way to keep him, roster politics be damned.
One last thing, speaking of the AAF, the Jets need make a bee-line for the league’s top sack guy – Jayrone Elliott – who has 7.5 sacks in eight games. He’s a 3-4 OLB. They need to make this happen.
April 4, 2019
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