I've been a Jet fan for over 40 years and best advice I can give to everybody is to calm down!!!!! Let's look at reality. The Jets have a rookie QB and a first time HC. Forget the 3-0 start. Everybody knew there would be growing pains this year. The hope was for 8-8 and that is about where this team is headed. If your expectations were higher than that, you were somewhat delusional. Now let's look at the injuries. Yes, every team has them, but the Jets arguably lost their best defensive and offensive players for the season. Maybe Jones Drew's big day had something to do with Jenkins being out? Lastly, look at the way the team is losing. This team is not getting blown out or pushed around. Moreover, they are in every game. Other than the Saints game, all of the other four losses could have been wins and came down to the last play. In two of these 4 losses, the Jets dominated the game and lost because of turnovers and kickoff returns. I have never seen a fan base harder on a team than Jet fans, and the local media, have been on this team and it is not deserved. Let the QB, the coach, and the team grow up and develop. These losses are all lessons. Miami - stop the run against running teams (which they did the 2nd game against them), Buffalo - take the boring win and stop throwing when you are running at will and stuffing the other team. Miami II - special teams count; Jacksonville - put pressure on the QB at the end of the game when protecting a lead. I am not pessimistic about this team. I feel better about things than I have in years. Yes these losses are hard to take, but this season's close losses turn into next season's wins. Give the kid and the coach a chance and stop worrying about this year's record or in game meals or press conferences or what the coach says. This is a 2-3 plan and we are 9 games in. The defense is greatly improved, even with the late game meltdowns. The offense has the necessary pieces also. Now come down from the ledge, take your fingers off the panic button, stop with the Clemens nonsense, stop worrying about what the players say, and put the season in its proper perspective. This team is a pass rusher, a right tackle, and some experience for the QB away from being a winning team.
well be alright, this will be a good team in years to come, im just disappointed that were not living up to our potential this year, a lot of these games could have been won. But im willing and excited to see through this whole process, people who are jumping ship on rex ryan already dont know much about football at all and the time it takes to develop a franchise.
It's like politics, dude. The people who can be convinced that the sky isn't falling already know the sky isn't falling. The people committed to a doomsday vision of the team won't be convinced otherwise, no matter how much logic and even empirical evidence you might bring to bear. Depressing, but true. I salute you for trying though. The team would be much better off if its fanbase could get beyond this culture of panic.
i see what your saying, let me rephrase that by saying we lost a lot of games that were very very winnable for us.
This is true. Now the Devil's Advocate says that the collapses in 1986, 1994, 2000, 2005 and 2008 have not lead to better results down the road. Given those facts I think it is a reasonable reaction to panic any time you see anything that looks like a collapse from the Jets because the odds are that it will just lead to a period of equilibrium followed by... A Super Bowl? Nope, another collapse.
And I'd respond that that's sports fandom. And that the alternatives are to stop watching sports, or to become a Yankees fan. (I take as assumed that a Yankees fan will also be a fan of whichever football team is winning the most superbowls in a given decade) I'm not suggesting that this disappointing season will inevitably lead to a Super Bowl in the near future. I'm saying its retarded to demand that it should. Sometimes sports are disappointing. Sometimes sports are almost always disappointing. People can get over it or get out, but do the rest of us a favor and don't drag the team down with you. Jets fans need to quit acting like shit is worse for us than anybody else. For example, not only is our one super bowl victory more than the zero a number of other franchises have won, but its easily the most memorable and well known. How many people know who won Super Bowl I? Super Bowl XV? How about Super Bowl III? That's something. If you find it unendingly disappointing that we aren't in the conversation for most superbowl victories, maybe you should go root for somebody who is. It's like the talk lately about fans cheering at games, and fans saying they have nothing to cheer about. We're a competitive team, just below .500, with above average talent, that hasn't been blown out of a single game. I've been disappointed after some of our games, but I haven't been bored during a single one of them. There isn't a lack of things to cheer about, unless the only reason you're into sports is to be associated with a championship. Personally, I love football, so as long as it's football season, I've got reason to cheer.
But since Jets fans have always panicked in the past, and that has been followed only by another collapse, the reasonable reaction must be to change it up and not panic this time, since then it will be followed by a Super Bowl instead. After all, correlation implies causation, and fan reactions matter so much. Right? :wink:
The media in general is definitley way to hard on this team and then the fans pile on. But forgetting all of that I really like the direction that this team is going. Sanchez is showing the tools and the potential to be a franchise QB. He's just inconsistant. Thats normal for a rookie QB. There are pieces on the Offense to go along with Sanchez that I really like. I think a guy like Braylon Edwards is essential to our team. Even when he doesnt catch the ball he opens everything up. He might drop some passes but he also has the ability to make the big play. Cotchery is as solid as they come at WR. Keller is a matchup nightmare and we have a good running game. Eventually we are going to need to not only replace Woody but Faneca as well on the O-Line but that can wait. Our D is really good but if Gholston truly is a bust (and im starting to come around to that realization) then this team needs a big pass rusher to go along with Pace. Calvin is good but has a tendancy to dissapear from time to time. Most 3-4 D's have that one feard OLB. While I like Calvin and think he is definitley a good piece to our defense he isnt that guy. We need to look at upgrading the posistion opposite of him. Thomas is solid but nothing more then that. Were going to need to adress the D-Line as well. Ellis probably has another year left in him and Douglas are playing well. Neither are great but there not doing a bad job out there. They make plays and are not invisible like Kenyon Coleman use to be IMO. But we definitley could use a shot of youth at that posistion. But I would like to see a NT brought in here to rotate with Jenkins. This is suppose to be a good draft for NT's so I would like to see the Jets look to adress that in the upcoming draft. All in all I have faith in Tanny and Rex and like the direction that this team is going in.
Well it's certainly a reasonable reaction to not panic based on this collapse. Panicking or not whatever is going to happen will happen. That said, if you live and die by the Jets results the odds are you're panicking right now. That's not your fault, it's the Jets fault for collapsing on you yet again. I kind of like to contrast the Jets and the Mets because so many people are fans of both teams. Both teams have a similar lifetime record and both are very frustrating to watch from season to season. The Mets however actually get to the World Series often enough (about once a decade or so) that nobody considers them cursed. The Jets on the other hand seem to be cursed. Similar season by season results but the failure of the Jets to ever fully capitalize on their opportunities makes them seem like a much weaker organization.
The panic now is both unjustfiable and unreasonable. 1986 - No franchise QB (Obrien) 1994 - Washed up franchise QB (Boomer) 2000 - Old franchise QB arm with with $10 brain 2005 - Franchise QB brain with $10 arm 2008 - Franchise QB with injured arm We have a POTENTIAL franchise QB, where we can be set at the most important position in football for 10 years, EXCEPT he is a rookie learning the ropes. That means 2009 is NOT 1986, 1994, 2000, 2005 or 2008. The only thing similar between now and then is that Jets fans remain the most irrational fans in the NFL.
^ +1. And to those saying fan reactions don't matter and whatever will happen will happen, the fans and the media create the environment in which the players have to live and work. The negativity gets to them, thats a fact. Theres a reason Rex has been trying to tell Jets fans to cheer and be prideful. It isn't that he wants you to enjoy life more, it's that he doesn't want that negativity to drag his team down.
Actually another thing that remains similar is losing very winnable games, and I think there is a big difference between fans being understandably frustrated and passionate about blown opportunities, and over-reacting. Sunday evenings and Mondays are designed specifically for emotional rants. All reactions, arguably, to a football game are an over-reaction. Hence the term "fan", short for fanatic. Of course I'm having a little fun here with a couple folks but I also think creating a thread to counter negative posts is also an over-reaction, and it also reeks of self righteousness, which is what I really enjoyed about it.
It is not overreacting. I don't care who the Jets have. Evaluate each game on a game by game basis and these are all winnable games the Jets are losing. There is no other way to explain it.
Why does everyone say this is a young team that needs time to grow? Sanchez is a rookie, and Revis and Harris are young and their receivers/tight end are somewhat young, but most other places: OLD. Whole starting defensive line is over 30, even their backup nose tackle is 30 and Jenkins, with that injury at his age may never be the same. Jones is 31 and his 27 year old change of pace back just had a career threatening injury. Fullback is 37. O-line: left guard, right guard and right tackle: old, somewhat old, old. Linebackers: Thomas is 30, Bart Scott and Pace: 29. Combine the above with the fact that they gave away lots of picks in the draft for Sheppard (28 years old) and Edwards, you won't be able to make lots of replacements with volume like they did in the 2006 draft. This is not a young team, so to think they'll "grow stronger" next year is silly, they're mostly growing slower and older...
^ yes everyone grows slower and older. Its called life. do you know how rare it is to have a team full of 25 year olds? And those teams usually win only 6 games. This team is old up front. That's really it. The skill positions are young, and that's what counts. You put a draft pick on either side of the lines, and this team gets that much younger. Its not a veteran-riddled team like the Titans are.
The Jets are young enough that they can afford to have a season like this one. There's some flexibility cap wise, it's not like the Jets are gonna be in cap hell at season's end and need to tear it down and start over. They can keep this same core of players for next season.
Is JWWS Ira in Staten Island? Holy cow enough with the "we feel great" about our direction...The team just can't shake the funk of the Jets. Simple as that. Smell the coffee.
That funk is you. And those like you, among both the fans and the media. And yes, it does seem the team is having trouble shaking said funk.
