The last time the Jets were any good in an odd year was 2001. The odd year off pattern has included 14 wins and 34 losses (believe it or not) and no playoffs since then. Ryan has broken that pattern by not only winning 9 games this year but also making the playoffs. Damn, even as I was typing the 14-34 thing I didn't believe it.
I mentioned that in another thread. Its good to see that pattern broken. I'm hoping that Rex can make the even year pattern outweigh the bad 2nd year for Jets coaches. Last Jet coach to have a good odd year and then follow it up with an even better even year was Bill Parcells a decade ago.
I have a feeling he'll be able to because of his consistent track record in Baltimore, and then seeing how sorely Baltimore misses him and Pettine right now.
And even he didn't make the playoffs that year. Of course, last year broke the even year playoff streak. Perhaps that had a bit to do with it as well.
I thought his biggest accomplishment to date was that he adjusted from being a DC to a HC mid-season and really took control of the team. Rex is going to be a fantastic coach for us. I think the odd-year thing is just a silly coincidence. Unless there's some tangible thing you can correlate to the bad records in odd years, it seems to be more of a matter of inconsistency than anything else.
What was the problem in 2007? I don't remember any big injuries. I know Chad was not hurt, just played bad. Kendall left and we had a hole on the O-line, was that it?
Not having Kendall that year really killed us. I'm pretty sure every loss from that season was a very close game except the first game against New England.
Let's put it this way: Adrien Clarke and Anthony Clement each started 16 games for the Jets on the offensive line in 2007. They have never played a down in the NFL since.
The things you can correlate the disasters in 2003, 2005 and 2007 too: 1. Poor management of resources, leading to severe depth problems. 2003 - Randy Thomas walks to the Skins, Chad is hurt with a 2nd stringer playing right guard in front of him in the preseason against the Giant's starters. 2005 - The offensive line falls apart due to injuries after the Jets traded up early in the draft in 2001 and 2003 and neglected the offensive line depth as a result. The trade down in 2005 did not produce offensive line depth, it got the Jets a washed up pass-catching TE and a kicker. 2007 - Pete Kendall is run out of town and the Jets fill his spot with a 2nd stringer whose primary job is apparently trying to kill his QB. The trade-up for Revis was obviously successful, however the Jets likely would have had Ben Grubb at LG if they didn't make the deal. 2. Poor coaching decisions made by the coaches in-season that exacerbated the problems above. 2003 - In the absence of Chad Pennington for the first half of the season Lamont Jordan only gets 30 carries in the first 7 games as Herm Edwards lets Vinny light it up on the way to a 2-5 start, this despite Vinny having all sorts of issues early in 2002 before he got replaced. The situation called for a heavy dose of the run from Curtis Martin AND Lamont Jordan and Herm could not get it done. 2005 - Just a horrible coaching performance from Herm as the injuries piled up. Brooks Bollinger was asked to throw the ball too much in his first few starts in the NFL, piling up 109 throws in his first 4 starts, 3 of which were close losses for most of the game, while the rushing game had just 91 carries. Then when Fabini went down in game 9 the staff shook up the unit even more by switching Adrian Jones from RT - where he was holding his own - to LT where he failed. Herm basically just gave up on the season at one point and only revived at the end probably when he realized that the mess was not going to be his to cleanup. Oh, and he brought Vinny back to lose some more games in mid-season just to be sure the previous two seasons were not some bizarre fluke or something. 2007 - Mangini took forever to realize that Chad was not going to get anything done facing constant pressure from the blindside. He failed to use Kellen Clemens in any meaningful way until the season was effectively over and he'd run Chad out of town. On the defensive side the failure of the Jets 3-4 to develop was just another indication that something really bad had happened in the staff room that season.
