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The Jets had a player’s only meeting on Tuesday.
How effective are these?
For instance, the Buffalo Bills had a player’s only meeting last week, and they went out and lost at home to the Denver Broncos a few days later.
Hey, there is nothing wrong with meeting to talk things over during a rough streak, but this stuff can be window-dressing if you don’t deal with the real issues.
And it’s hard to deal with real issues in these kinds of meetings because players generally don’t want to call out other players by name.
Also, no line-up changes are going to come out of players-only meetings.
While the coach feels the quarterback is playing ‘pretty well” some teammates might not agree, but do you think that is going to come up in a players-only meeting?
Likely not.
So it turns into cliche kind of statements from the leaders about playing harder and with more discipline or whatever.
So what do these really accomplish?
It certainly didn’t help the Bills . . .
The Jets’ release of Michael Carter was a surprise, but not a total surprise.
They clearly wanted to send a message to the locker room after two losses in a row, and it wasn’t going to be the QB, who they feel is playing well, so it was Carter.
Though they say it was done for humanitarian reasons.
“We felt like it wouldn’t be fair for [Carter] to just sit there and rot on the bench,” Robert Saleh said today.
But moving out Carter to create playing time for Izzy Abandikanda, probably isn’t going to turn around this offense. Abanikanda is very talented, but Breece Hall and Dalvin Cook are still ahead of him, just like they were ahead of Carter, so we aren’t talking about a lot of opportunities.
This cut was clearly to send a message to the locker room, and shake them up a little.
Carter had a couple of bad plays in Las Vegas, a dropped tipped pass that turned into a knuckle ball and an illegal block,
But Mekhi Becton also had a couple of bad plays.
On a third-and-one in the second quarter, Hall was stopped for no gain by LB Robert Spillane – Becton went inside to help Laken Tomlinson double a defensive tackle and then was late to get to Spillane who shot the gap and stopped the runner.
In the third quarter, DE Malcolm Koonce beat Becton for a sack, and Wilson fumbled and it was recovered by Becton.
Not looking to pick on Becton, just pointing out the double standards at work., Some player’s mistakes are okay, and others aren’t.
It is what is it . . .
Former NFL offensive lineman Mark Schlereth, had this to say today on his podcast with Trey Wingo on Stunt:
“I’m going to tell you right now, if they play Trevor Siemian, they’re winning that game (against the Raiders). I’m just telling you right now, Trevor Siemian is a professional quarterback,” said Schlereth. “He’s going to put you in the right play. He’s going to make the right check. He’s not going to make bonehead decisions and if the guy is open he’s going to hit him. With that defense and just a game manager at the quarterback position that’s not doing stupid things you’re going to win games. I truly believe that Trevor Siemian would have given them a chance to win the last couple of games. Why they continue to lean into Zach Wilson I have no idea.”
Schlereth, who is Denver-based, saw Siemian up close in 2016-17 when he was 13-11 as a starter with the Denver Broncos.
November 15, 2023
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