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New Jersey – Mike Maccagnan and Todd Bowles are two pretty fortunate guys.
They have an boss who is seemingly signing off on what seems like a rebuild in Year Three of their program.
That is almost unheard of.
Who rebuilds in Year Three of a new regime?
Maybe Woody feels bad that he put a ball and chain around the ankles of his GM and coach right out of the game named Darrelle Revis.
“Really, the way I want to be judged, hopefully from the fans’ standpoint, is just watch how we improve during the year,” Johnson told Hahn and Humpty, employees of Jim Dolan. “Look at each individual on the team, and if they’re getting better, that’s a mark of progress. That’s what we’re looking for.”
So winning doesn’t matter? What is this NFL Europe?
“If you want to go to the promised land, you have to go in a certain direction,” he said. “I think this is a direction we’ve never tried in the 17 years I’ve been associated with the Jets. We’ve never gone this way.”
So it took the owner 17 years to figure out the right way to build a team? That is quite an admission.
Johnson is all about “getting the right type of player in the locker room – young, build through the draft – young free agents that a lot of guys don’t even pay attention to, the guys who weren’t drafted. A lot of good players out there play American football, a lot of them.”
Wow, are Maccagnan and Bowles lucky guys. They both did a bad job last year, and he’s letting them chart an entirely new course. How many of us have bosses like that?
I’ve said it before, and I will say it again – Maccagnan’s first two drafts were no better than John Idzik’s two drafts. I always throw in the caveat, you still need to give some of these players more time before making a final judgement, but so far, there has been one impact player added in two drafts – Leonard Williams.
I don’t want to hear about Darron Lee. He hasn’t had a positive impact yet. Perhaps it will happen in Year Two.
As for the quarterback position . . .
“We’ll see what we have now,” Johnson told Newsday. “We didn’t test them out last year, but I think you’ll get a much better idea this year of what the young guys can do.”
They didn’t test out Bryce Petty last year? He started four games and played in six. I’m not writing him off, but he was tested out last year, and didn’t look that great. How can you say that he wasn’t tested out last year?
As for Christian Hackenberg, two Jets sources told Adam Schefter that he “regressed” and “couldn’t throw the ball in the ocean,” in practice last year in practice (with no tackling and you can’t touch the quarterback). So he’s going to go from that to starting in Year Two, in a new system to boot?
I’ve said it before, and I’ll will say it again, the Jets QB this year should be Josh McCown, at least at the beginning of the season.
This isn’t NFL Europe for Petty and Hackenberg to throw away games to learn on the job.
The Jets lost to the Rams last year 9-6 at home in a game Petty started. That game was unwatchable. In game that followed this, that Rams defense gave up 49 and 42 points in losses to New Orleans and Atlanta. This wasn’t a good Rams defense, and Petty couldn’t move the team.
I don’t care about this going young spin. The Jets have missed the playoff six years in a row, and were blown out six times last year.
I’m judging them in 2017 by wins and losses.
Others can fall for the spin.
May 2, 2017
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