Why?

This must change

The Jets practiced inside again today.

It was raining early this morning, but stopped a couple of hours before the Jets’ practice time.

It was in the low 40’s around practice time, just like it will be in New England on Sunday.

Going inside so much in the winter could be considered going soft on your team. It’s been a couple weeks straight of this approach, sometimes due to weather, sometimes not.

If the Jets make a coaching switch, this is one of many things that needs to change. You need to go outside in the winter. This is football, not tennis.

Why is the coach doing this? Because he can. It’s his decision. Just like it was his decision to run Frank Gore so much with a bunch of young promising backs behind him. The way the Jets are structured, these decisions are in his wheelhouse, so he can practice wherever he wants and play whomever he wants . . .

I keep hearing people blasting the Cleveland Browns for not being able to run the ball better against the Jets.

First of all, the Jets have a good rush defense. They have most of the year. Secondly, the Browns were without their best run-blocker, right guard Wyatt Teller, and their first-round left tackle, Jedrick Wills, who’s playing very well for a rookie, and their backups both had really bad games. The Jets dominated backup left tackle Kendall Lamm and reserve right guard Nick Harris.

And throw in the fact that they had their top four wide receivers out, so the Jets could load up the box, and the answer to what happened is simple.

I was watching a press conference RB Kareem Hunt had with the Cleveland media earlier this week, and he was getting peppered with questions about what was wrong with their running game against the Jets.

All you have to do is look at the facts about what was truly going on Sunday.

The Browns’ running game should be back to its normal self on Sunday . . .

The Jets have played hard all season. That has never been the issue. The issue have been more related to strategy at times, player execution at times, costly penalties and struggles at the most important position in football.

Not effort.

And a big reason for the Jets’ great collective motor as a team is the club is loaded with guys on one-year contracts, or at the end of their existing contracts, so they are essentially on one-year contracts, because their deals expire at the end of the season.

One-year contracts are a tremendous motivational tool. As much as you are playing for your coaches and teammates, you are playing for your next contract.

When you look at the Jets’ roster, who’s in a position to make “business decisions” in these games, and not impact their future with the Jets or in the league?

Hard to find anybody.

The guys you will see making “business decisions” this week around the NFL, are guys early in long-term lucrative deals, knowing they are beyond reproach, and the team will have a hard time moving on from them, even if they want to. So you might see some of these guys putting in half-baked efforts in Week 17 to avoid getting hurt.

Most of the Jets roster is in no position to do this. Joe Douglas has loaded up this roster with one-year deals, which is a tremendous motivator, a ideal dangling carrot, for a player looking for his next contract.

December 31, 2020