It’s not necessary

Enough already. Enough of the low-road crap. It’s quite possible to do your job without going there . . .

I’m talking about the Jets taking these non-stop body blows from the press. Please read a short blog I wrote today before I continue . . .

“Even in a story that doesn’t involve football, Pro Football Talk took two cheap shots at the Jets. Early this week, the Jets were granted permission by the New Jersey Department of Transportation to land helicopters at their Florham Park training complex. But even in this nondescript story, that has nothing to do with football, PFT’s Mike Florio worked in a couple ad hominem attacks on the Jets.

“It also will come in handy when trying to impress potential No. 1 overall picks in the draft, who will be touring the facility after the team successfully fails in the standings this season,” wrote Florio on July 18. “Or when owner Woody Johnson declares victory and swaps the day-to-day management of the team for an ambassador gig in England.”

“Is that necessary? You know, it’s okay to write Jets news straight once in a while, without working in salvos.”

In response to this blog, a fan tweeted at me, “is there literally anything the Jets’ management could do to make you stop defending them?”

Any of you that read this section, or my monthly magazine, regularly, know that I’m very hard on Jets management, players and coaches all the time.

But two things I refuse to do:

1)Take cheap shots. I will criticize, but try to deal with the facts and present them in a scientific fashion. I’m not about ad hominem attacks.

2)I’m not going to destroy a team before the season starts. All teams are undefeated right now. To destroy a plan, before it takes flight, meaning the real games start, is a little reckless. It might not look to promising for the Jets right now, but I have no idea how this is going to play out. They could go 0-16 for all I know, but I don’t know.

So if people think being fair is being an apologist, then I’m guilty as charged.

But let me make one thing perfectly clear for any people who think the Jets are “tanking” or “cratering” or whatever you want to call it, it will have no impact on my coverage.

I don’t care how many rookies start, or how young some of their starters are, I’m cutting them no slack.

If somebody doesn’t execute properly, I will call them out.

I love what Tony Dungy used to always tell his teams, “No excuses, no explanations.”

If the Jets do indeed have some agenda driven by something other than winning games, that is there problem, not mine.

I will judge them like I always have. Praise the good, and criticize the bad.

I’m not lowering my journalistic bar this year and cutting them slack. No way.

But I will continue to keep it classy (no cheap shots). I would never write anything like Mike Florio did in that helicopter story.

And once again, I refuse to trash a team, an organization, before one real game is played.

Nobody wins or loses in the off-season.

July 19, 2017

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