Great point. One I've been waiting to see in this whole Bret Favre debate. If the Jets had a decent backup, then maybe Mangenius would have benched Favre. But his indecision about putting in Ratliff or Clemes spoke volumes about how bad the Jets drafting decisions had become.
There's no way they could have gone to Ratliff this year, he's never been in a real game, and I don't think they have any faith in Clemens. You might as well take your chances with Favre given the other options. Going into next year, they need to take a long look at both and work them with the #1 team as much as they can, Favre or no Favre. You pretty much have to proceed as if there won't be Favre, so even if he comes back you're not hostage to a hurt or inept QB again.
One of the reasons we have to get a HC in here right now is to get a staff in place including a top notch QB coach to evaluate the guys we have in case they don't believe that we have a franchise QB on the roster now. We really have to address this and whoever the next HC is has to put in an agressive off season program for the QB's right away. We can't go through the uncertainty at the position that we have in Mangini's entire tenure.
This is I predict going to be one of if not the most frequently talked about topics this year, that being how the Jets should navigate their way to choosing a new direction for the O, starting at Qb, given the rather narrow parameters they are facing and will have to operate within. Imo those parameters include what seems to be apparent - that Clemens has not inspired confidence in the organization as a man to be given the reins at Qb. Now one can argue that they don't have enough data to base that upon, and could have done some things to better determine exactly what they have in Clemens. But here's another thing - Clemens is entering a contract year. It is conventional wisdom, imo for good reason, that allowing your starting Qb to go into a contract year is bad FO practice. Too much downside exposure to such a player obtaining too much leverage. On the other hand can they give him a new longer term contract? They may be able to resolve this by signing him to a one year extension of his existing contract, or something like that, if they can get him to agree to that... Ratliff got some real interest this last off season, but it's hard to get a handle on him, seeing as how much of what he did was against second and third stringers. Is he the answer? Not much to base a yes on there. But does this mean they should forget about those two guys and spend a high pick on a Qb in the draft? With all the other needs on this team, and with the spotty record of high draft Qb prospects in recent years? Do we have reason to be confident this FO will pick a good one? Like I said, this should be a fertile subject for many discussions here...
I agree, but it wasn't Mangini's fault. He stepped into a wide open situation with Chad coming off two surgeries, a rookie in Clemens who they drafted to be their future guy and a couple of also-rans. It wasn't Mangini's fault that Clemens didn't step up to the plate in any of his chances, and Chad presented a better option so he went with Chad. Then they got Favre, he had to adjust on the fly and it worked to the tune of 8-3 before Favre wore down because he didn't prepare for the season like most NFL players do. None of that, to me, can be put on Mangini. I certainly don't blame him for not benching Favre, he had no other viable option and Woody might have canned him on the spot. He was stuck with Favre for better or worse and it cost him his job.
As a technical matter, how would a new Qb coach get Clemens and Ratliff in to obtain a suitable and sufficient evaluation? I mean before the draft, which I assume you are implying.
They passed on Linart and Cutler to take Clemens when they had no idea if Chad could play at all. When they took Clemens there was a shot that Ramsey may well have been our QB in 06. They saw both Clemens and Chad in 07 and weren't happy enough with either one to make a firm move before TC with a revamped OL and a rookie TE who all needed the work. They didn't try and move up to get Ryan and they passed on Flacco. I agree Mangini came into a wide open situation but I really believed that the first thing they should have done was get their guy in the draft and if it wasn't Clemens keep drafting until you get it right. That may well have been Tannenbaums call? Hard to tell but I don't believe Tannenbaum did anything without Mangini's approval at least until the Favre situation?
The same way you evaluate when you're drafting a QB to run your franchise you put them through the paces make your evaluation and hope you're right.
Once they drafted Clemens that was the guy they pegged for better or worse. Leinart has done nothing and Cutler has been ok in spurts, neither has been to the post season or done anything special yet. Bringing them here instead of Brick and having their back side open would have gotten them killed or at least stunted their progress--not that Leinart has made any. Even in hindsight that isn't too big of a deal. Ryan was gone when we drafted, which means we'd have had to give up something significant to move up to get him. Flacco in hindsight would have been great, but you can't draft every QB out there, again they had Clemens two years into the process and with some games under his belt and that was the direction they went. All Mangini could do was give him chances and put him in position to make the most of them, he couldn't go out there and play for the guy.
You mean call them in and work them out? Without in game action, how much can they learn now that they don't know already? Not that they know all that much right now, of course...
As a small matter, I would not give up on Leinart quite yet. Warner is playing because he is playing fairly well, but I don't expect AZ to go in a different direction medium to long term after Warner hangs it up. And Cutler has played quite well at times. Fair point about the OL, too, although I am not a huge fan of Ferguson's progress. The point I assume you are making about Flacco is one I agree with - the occasional success teams have with rookie Qb's taken with a high pick is actually more rare than the failures. Where I think I see it a bit different is that I don't think Mangini allowed Clemens all that much of an opportunity to show us what Clemens has.
After three years of this Qb debate do you finally see the need to draft the best available one and see what we have in Clemens or Ratliff. If we would have taken a step back in 06 we would prob not be having this conversation in 09 and probably in 2010 and 2011 as well if the team does not act now. Farve was not the answer and CHad was vintage Chad yesterday. We need our own Flacco, Rivers, Ryan etc to lead us going forward. If we keep trying to instert the best possible chance to win now we never will win. If we have to sacrifice next season to find our Qb of the future so be it. We have given up the last four years for nothing already.
Farve is done. He was just woodys gamble to sell PSL's. It was a better gamble than Chad but in the end our future lies in the draft.
The problem is that the true evaluation comes through playing and the F/O is not willing to take the lumps that come with a rookie to move forward in the right direction. Until They do what the Falcons and Ravens did with Flacco and Ryan we will be spinning in mud forever. Lets spend another 100 million this year to give Garcia or some other done Qb a shot at a title.
I hate to say it, but bingo. We look at the way other teams do things, and say why don't the Jets do that? But if you look at a situation like the Ravens, you don't have to look too hard to see just how much is different. They had a quality D they could ride to a pretty fair prospect for at least a shot at a good season even if they played a rookie at Qb. That is not the Jets. They also have not had to go forty years since their last SB win. In short they had more framework within which to work in a young Qb, to take a chance on one. And here's the other part - what is the track record of this FO, this organization, being able to not only pick the right guy in the draft, but to bring him along in a way that optimizes his chances? How likely is that to occur? Perhaps we might be better off forgetting what a story like Flacco and the Ravens would otherwise mean, since the likelihood of something similar happening with the Jets is pretty slim. Don't over learn from the Favre experience, in other words. Perhaps this team has no other real option than to bring in a proven Qb, and not have to develop one in house.
They did draft a QB high in 2006, Clemens. He hasn't panned out as expected, but it's not like they didn't draft him, which is your point that we should have drafted a QB high. Clemens had a chance as a rookie, didn't win the job, which we've seen this year it's not impossible for a rookie to play if he's good enough. He had a chance to play half a season in 2007 with no pressure, he didn't impress anyone too much. Not to say the team was that great around him, but he didn't show flashes or really put up too many points even in defeat. The few games we won were mostly low-scoring snoozefests. If you're saying that we should draft every available QB until one of them sets the league on fire, that's not realistic. You can only devote so much time, reps and pay to so many developing QBs at one time, the guy they went with was Clemens. It always becomes clear what should have been done when guys go somewhere else and do well, but that's after the fact. I don't know why we're even discussing Leinart, to be honest, he's shown less than Clemens has and we wouldn't have a left tackle if we took him.
You are absolutely right regarding the Ravens and you can add the Steelers of a few years ago as well. Having veteran teams does help the learning curve. We have a very good Offensive line that will really help a young Qb. If you look at the teams poised to win over the longhaul they have Qb's that they drafted and groomed. Their are some exceptions like Arizona and Tenn but they had the pieces and Tenn has a coach that is one of the best around. Unless we can somehow get Carson Palmer I think our savior comes to us via the draft. Even if we get Garcia or somebody proven they would be on borrowed time. We need to stabalize the most important position on the offense so we can draft each year and build an idenity for our offense. The likelihood of the Jets doing that is slim. We will prob have to draft someody and see what Clemens and Ratliff can do and sacrifice 2009 to do so. I hate losing but sometimes you have to take a step back to take two forwards. With Parcells and Beli in our division it only gets harder from here on out. What the phins did this year was not by accident. When chad goes Henne or somebody else will be ready to step in and run a sb ready team.
I think we can both agree nobody had a shot with the line we had last year and Leinart is not good at all. I think that we should let Clemens, Ratliff and whatever rookie we draft this year fight it out and let the best man be the starter. If they falter then we take it from there. Any of them can do what Farve did for us this year. We should even think of trading up to get the best the draft has to offer this year as well.
I agree with just about all of this, depending on who is in the draft and if it's worth trying to go up. The other thing to consider is this is New York, it isn't Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Phoenix or Baltimore. Any young QB who comes here to be "the man" is going to have a lot less room for error than they do in other places. Keep in mind they were ready to run Eli Manning out of here a year ago in his 4th year in the league. Not that that is a good thing, but it's the truth and you have to consider it.
