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Aaron Rodgers is their best hope to get out of this abyss.
Not just with his play, but with his understanding of the art of winning football.
Forget about silver linings.
They don’t exist on 6-10 teams.
The Jets need to wrap up this season and then collectively look themselves in the mirror and to quote Dave Hutchinson again – “Fix the dern thing.”
“I think it’s important that we learn the lessons and really communicate entirely before we leave town, so we can do a little better next year,” Rodgers told ESPN.
While they do have a smattering of decent talent on the roster, they have a lot of work to do this offseason to “fix the dern thing.”
People throw around the word “culture” a lot, but not everybody understands exactly what it looks like.
The Jets need to fix their culture, which might not be as easy as you would think.
It will take somebody talking to one of the most powerful people and asking him to stop tweeting about uniform combinations and pushing how great individual players are doing during a train wreck season.
This stuff really, really, really pisses off fans, and it also sends the wrong message to the players about priorities.
“Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing,” Vince Lombardi said.
Somebody needs to talk to him, but most people are afraid to be honest with their boss, because they fear for their jobs.
But this guy isn’t like that. He’s a very nice man. Not an ogur.
Maybe his brother can do it.
Maybe Rodgers can.
“It’s about culture,” Rodgers said last month. “Culture can win championships, chemistry wins championships. So we obviously need to fine-tune a couple of things, tighten some things up.”
When you miss the playoffs for the 13th straight year, your culture isn’t in a good place.
When you are leading perhaps the NFL’s worst team, the Washington Commanders, 27-7, at halftime, and allow them to storm back and take a 28-27 lead, and you need a 54-yard field goal to win at the end, your culture isn’t in a good place.
So they need to take Rodgers’ lead and work with him on fixing the culture. He was the only one who came out this year and talked about fixing the culture.
Too many others think it’s okay. It’s not.
In a good culture, there is high level of accountability, and Michael Clemons’ behavior would not be accepted.
First he gets throw out of game, and then last week he was seen cursing out Cleveland Browns fans.
He needs to change. He also needs to stay inside at defensive tackle. He’s not quick enough to be an edge rusher. Why they moved him inside for the Washington game, and then moved him back outside in Cleveland, is something hard to understand but nobody will ask about it. Wasn’t the plan to play him a lot at DT this year? What happened?
And it’s not just his behavior, he’s not playing that great. Yes, there are occasional good plays, but there are a lot of problematic plays mixed in, like not setting the edge great.
Sometimes I wonder what the film study sessions are like with the players, because they keep rolling with certain guys who keep making the same mistakes, like with their run defense, which is playing on a very low level right now.
When you watch film, you need to see what is actually happening, not what you want to see.
For the culture to improve, they need to look at the tape, and not have a T-Ball attitude and give medals for trying, but, for goodness sake, get guys out of there who keep making the same mistake over and over again.
Accountability.
Culture.
Jets have to a lot of things to fix after this season is over, and Rodgers knows it.
It’s just a matter of the decision-makers knowing it as well.
January 3, 2023
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