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Was it really necessary?
Joe Flacco is now out due to COVID-19, since he was in close contact with Mike White, who has it.
So Robert Saleh was asked today why trade for a QB, Flacco, who is unvaccinated?
And the coach doubled down on his affection for the move.
“I’ll stand by this forever,” Saleh said today. “When someone offers a sixth-round pick for a player of Joe’s caliber, to me, there is no risk. You’re playing with house money. I’ve said it before, you can trade back one spot and get that sixth-round pick back in a hurry. I know we look at draft capital, but that’s an easy one. That was an easy decision in terms of, here’s a proven quarterback, a Super Bowl quarterback, a record holder, a guy who can settle an offense if he needs to step in there, which he proved on Sunday. He did a phenomenal job against Miami’s pressure system. So, that in itself is worth its weight in gold. As far as the draft capital, the thinking, it was a no-brainer. A sixth-round pick is not hard to recoup.”
Honestly, I don’t even care about the draft pick. The Jets have two 1’s, two 2’s, two 4’s and two 5’s in the next draft, along with their third-round pick. They are in good shape with draft picks. And if you have too many draft picks, it can lead to more confirmation bias because teams tend to keep the picks to justify picking them.
The reason the move was unnecessary was because they already had two backup quarterbacks, Mike White, and Josh Johnson, Why were they in the building if they weren’t good backup plans to Zach Wilson?
Did Flacco do a phenomenal job against Miami’s pressure system? They lost the game. Nobody did a phenomenal job. And Flacco lost a fumble when he got sacked from behind when he didn’t recognize a blitz properly. He also burned two timeouts in the third quarter due to confusion, two timeouts they needed at the end of the game, and had an intentional grounding call because he wasn’t on the same page with Jamison Crowder. Some are overrating this performance.
Yes, he won a Super Bowl in 2014, so that was seven years ago, and he’s had knee surgery, back surgery and several pedestrian seasons since then. He’s not the same player.
And then he walks in the building after the surprising trade and says on October 29 – “I think I see myself playing here at some point, in the next couple of weeks,”
Talk about being disrespectful to White and Johnson.
And then the disrespect for White and Johnson continues when the coaches first made Flacco the backup ahead of Johnson a week after his arrival, and then benched White for Flacco a week later.
Now, Flacco’s on the COVID-list.
“No-brainer.”
Far from it.
And to start Flacco against Miami’s zero blitzes was a questionable move because he lacks mobility.
“When Miami heard that Flacco was going to be the QB, defensive coordinator Josh Boyer probably spent two extra hours coming up with more zero blitzes because he’s just going to come after his ass knowing he can’t escape,” said former NFL GM Mike Lombardi on his podcast. “[You]Â don’t have to spy on the QB. It ain’t Lamar Jackson. I don’t have to worry about him getting out of the pocket.”
And you have to wonder if White even wants to be a Jet anymore. Hey, an astute GM, without an answer at QB, could look at the White tape, and give him a restricted free agent offer the Jets won’t be comfortable matching.
They can spin this any way they want, but it was a very questionable move for a number of reasons.
One good move was keeping Johnson after they traded for Flacco, because he will be the backup this week to Zach Wilson, who returns from a knee injury.
November 24, 2021
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