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if the Jets want to take the next step, they need to take a close look at some of the teams on display this week in the Division Round of the playoffs.
The Baltimore Ravens, Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills should be role models for what the Jets are looking to do.
They all have two key elements if you want to challenge for a Super Bowl every year – a franchise QB and a strong culture.
Aaron Rodgers returning should give them the franchise QB part if he stays healthy, and if he doesn’t lose anything coming off an Achilles injury at the age of 40.
But they must fix the culture.
The culture of these teams is so strong, that when they suffer injuries or suffer other adversity, they are able to handle it, and keep the train rolling along. The cultures these teams possess allow them to have great competitive stamina.
The Jets’ competitive stamina wasn’t great this past year.
A 17-game regular season is grueling, and you must have competitive stamina to fight through all the roadblocks you hit through a long season.
Baltimore’s culture might be the best in the NFL.
And the fact that Joe Douglas worked 15 seasons in Baltimore, from 2000-15, you would think that he could put in that culture with the Jets.
It’s not that simple.
He doesn’t have enough power to do that.
Douglas does know what an ideal football culture looks like, but there is only so much he can do.
He’s not the team’s football czar. He just picks the players.
Jets owner Woody Johnson is a great guy. I’ve talked to him quite a bit over the years, but some would argue that perhaps he doesn’t help the culture with his tweets.
I don’t think Johnson means any harm. He doesn’t. He’s trying to be supportive.
However, how often do you see Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti, Bills owner Terry Pegula or Chiefs owner Clark Hunt tweet?
Not very often.
While the owner is a terrific guy, he has got to understand that when it comes to culture, everything matters.
When he tweets player highlights or PFF grades after losses, or uniform combinations, many fans tweet things like, “Sell the team” or “Read the room.”
Some things need to change if the culture is going to change.
And Aaron Rodgers has made it clear, not talking about the owner, but just in general, that the culture needs to take the next step.
“If you want to be a winning organization and put yourself in position to win championships and be competitive, everything that you do matters,” Rodgers said. “And the bulls— that has nothing to do with winning needs to get out of the building. So that’ll be the focus moving forward.”
“Anything in this building that we’re doing individually or collectively that has nothing to do with real winning needs to be assessed.”
Follow the lead of Baltimore, Kansas City and Buffalo.
Strong QB + strong culture = Winning.
January 19, 2024
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