What makes you trust bill more than Rex? Brando merriweather? Devin Mccourty? His countless misses on secondary players with an abundance of picks? I suspect it's more Brady making the "finds" on offense play well than bill finding great players.
Rex is not the GM, we agree on that. Maybe Tannenbaum was more of a pushover for Rex than he should have been. Obviously the GM needs to take input from the coach, but it sounds like you believe the coach is basically picking the team. I don't think that's how it should work and I don't think that's how Woody wants it working. The biggest reason the Jets lack talent is that Tanny mismanaged the cap by putting all his money into a small portion of the roster, leaving less money for all the remaining players on the roster and he repeatedly traded picks away leaving no talented depth. You could see that clear as day watching Westhoff fail with the leftover scraps. Did Rex contribute to some bad roster moves? Probably.
The overall system that he has in place for the present and the future. And Tom Brady didn't become great on his own, otherwise he would have been a first round pick. He had/has great coaching in New England. Also, the Patriots under Belichick did select him. We didn't.
We aren't the Patriots and Robert Kraft doesn't own the Jets. Belichick was a failure his first 6 years as a head coach - MUCH MORE SO THAN REX in his first 4 - and then Tom Brady fell into his lap year 7. 14 years later and he's the best coach in the league with 3 superbowl wins and 2 more appearances.
Rex might not be the GM going forward, but you can't sit here and tell me the last two seasons Rex didn't get every player (that was available to us) he asked for? Rex built this team the past two seasons. If you don't believe that then we're never going to agree on anything. Woody is not a normal owner. A normal owner would not have their head coach who's coming off 8-8 (losing the locker room) and a 6-10 circus of a season and say that he will have some say in who the next GM is. That's not normal. What successful franchise in any sport does that sort of thing? Can you cite a team that has done this and became successful? Any team? Why would a good GM want to get interviewed by his underling? Makes no sense, unless it's the bizarro world.
You keep saying this but it's not something I've ever said. I believe that it's the GM's job to build the team and the coaches job to coach the team. I believe that Rex can do very good things when he has a talented roster. The GM shouldn't be giving Rex everything he asks for and Rex is NOT the only reason our roster is as shitty as it is right now. Not even close. He was probably a small piece of that puzzle, but the majority of that blame goes to Tanny and his ways. If you really believe Rex is mostly to blame for the roster being ass than you haven't been paying attention to the way Tanny has been doing business.
And this is where we differ greatly. Our franchise isn't set up to have a strong GM running the ship. The structure is not there because Woody is weak. Until Woody gets a clue, we will continue to slide. Woody has gotten a taste of the build your team through F/A route and that's how we're going to proceed. But that only yields short term success (sometimes) and then you're quickly back at square 1. I also think there are lots of holes in this roster that you aren't seeing right now. Start with the o-line. Mangold and Brick.
Rex is the best coach this team has had since Parcells. It's not even close. Herm Edwards was a moron and a terrible coach. He couldn't manage the clock, he was way too conservative, and his teams were perennially out of shape to begin the season because he didn't put the team through a hard enough training camp. You ever hear Herm on ESPN? He just talks loud and with authority, but he has no clue what he's talking about most the time. Guys like Merril Hoge, Bruschi, and Jaws are much better at analyzing the game than him. It's amazing how quickly people forget how great Rex's first two seasons here were. Rex has one of the WORST, if not THE WORST, starting quarterbacks in the NFL. His dominating defense and rushing game was enough to overcome that in 2009 and 2010, but it could no longer do that in 2011 and 2012 once the defense started getting older and slower (Bart Scott, Pace, Bryan Thomas, Shaun Ellis, etc) and lost an extremely important piece like Kris Jenkins who could collapse the pocket by himself, and once the Jets' offensive line started to get old/lose key guys like Faneca and Woody who were replaced by bums like Slauson and Hunter/Howard. Mark Sanchez was supposed to take that proverbial "next step" forward to mask some of the deficiencies the Jets were going to suffer from. The defense wouldn't have to be as dominant as they looked to rebuild, the offensive line wouldn't have to produce a #1 ranked rushing attack because Sanchez was going to develop into a top 15 QB and improve the offense. But that never happened because Sanchez regressed and has proven to be absolutely awful. Swap Bill Belichick and Rex Ryan. Give Rex Ryan Tom Brady and that Patriots offense and I guarantee you that the Patriots are just as good with Rex as they are with Belichick. In fact, I bet the Patriots defense is actually with Rex Ryan as the head coach than with Belichick. Tom Brady masks so many weaknesses on that Pats' team. Belichick the "defensive genius" has had a bad defense since 2008 and has drafted pretty poorly, especially on defense. Rex Ryan is a far better and more creative defensive mind than Belichick. If the Jets had been able to lure Peyton Manning here, the Jets would have probably been a 10 to 13 win team and would have given the Pats a run for the division. Rex's defenses have always been good enough to win 10 to 13 games, but he's had a 4 to 6 win QB. That is really the only major thing holding this team back. You get a good QB in here and suddenly the o-line looks better, the running game is better because teams cannot stack the box every first and second down, and the defense is better because they are not constantly on the field nor put in horrendous field position situations due to Sanchez's turnovers. This team is not far off from returning to the playoffs at all. We have one of the best secondaries in the league, especially if we can keep Landry. We have some young promising pieces on the DL in Coples, Wilkerson, and Ellis. We need to reload with some youth/speed/pass rushing at the LB position. A WR corps of Holmes, Edwards, Hill, Kerley is good enough if you have a solid QB. It really doesn't matter who you get for Sanchez because he could make Calvin Johnson look like a bust. Sure up the offensive line at RT and guard, keep the secondary intact, add some speed/coverage ability and pass rushing at LB, and find a freakin decent QB and this is a 10-6 or 11-5 team in 2013. This whole "the sky is falling" mentality/hype is really ridiculous.
Bingo. If Rex had enough cachet that it allowed him to select players or finalize a Big Board, or something like that, then I have no problem with knocking him for misevaluating some players. My biggest problem (if the aforementioned was true) was Tanny's unassertiveness and as a GM. Was it Rex's idea to trade-up for players? Maybe; but couldn't Tanny - as the GM - have advised against trading-up and/or put his foot down and figure out an alternative? Was it Rex's idea to draft Kyle Wilson, while Tanny wanted to select someone else? Maybe; but couldn't Tanny - as the GM - go in a different direction? I don't know how much clout Rex has had in assembling the roster, but this is how I see it: (a) Rex has been a major decision-maker, which therefore, absolves Tanny of those specific roster mistakes (and also means Tanny was probably aboard just for cap proficiency); OR (b) Rex has been granted a lot of input in assembling the roster, however, he wasn't placed in charge of acquiring talent -- which probably means that Tanny was submissive as a GM. Then again, there's always the third scenario: Tanny was indeed the decision-maker of talent acquisition, in which case, he had no fucking clue what he was doing.
Rex wanted Sanchez. Rex kept starting him this year. Rex is as responsible as Tanny for this decline.
Missed this turd of a thread. The only thing Rex has in common with Herm is being embarrassing in a press conference. Rex actually knows how to coach defense. Herm doesn't. Herm was the team mascot for Tampa, and Woody was stupid enough to hire him to run this team. Herm was like the Jets' team chaplain and honorary HC for all of the years he "coached" them. I don't understand how anyone could say otherwise after seeing how little he brings to the table in terms of the understanding of coaching football with the four letter network. Just a pretender.
How does the overall system make you think he's a better supporting cast finder? Yes Brady developed into a top 10 all time QB under him, but his recent drafts have shown you he has lost his defensive touch. Yes he had a really nice system there the last 5 years, "Brady score a lot points and hope our defense doesn't have to play defense". I don't buy the supporting cast argument. He has more picks every year than most GMs and he misses on a lot of them. He's still searching for someoene in the secondary. Offensively, I don't think it's a coicidence that teams like the SAints, old Colts, and Pats were the teams that always found 7th, UDFA receivers that blossomed. I put that more on the QBs than the HC/GM. None of that takes away from his great coaching ability, but we are arguing about finding a support cast which is always easier to do with an elite QB and something Bill has struggled with. The defense has dropped from their SB runs and he hasn't found replacements yet.
Would people stop with that shit... Please?!? After four years the man is four games above .500. He slipped into the playoffs his first year. I will grant you that the team gelled during the playoffs, but this BS claiming all the success Ryan has had overlooks the fact that in four seasons he has had ONE good season with a stacked team. BFD. The team was lucky to win a few of the games we took this year and without those Rex is a .500 who has shown some playoff success. But if you can't win in the regular season then coaching in the post season means squat. In addition, he has shown incompetence--not just weakness but outright incompetence--in managing certain players, the offense, and possibly in generally evaluating and developing talent. Take all those attributes away and he is what? A DC and that's it. In fact, I would go so far as to say he is a DC who needs to work under someone else who game make up for his weaknesses since if it turns out that these weaknesses are correct. Essentially, he is a very good strategist. Great, but you know what, so am I. As for fan loyalty, what in the world does that mean? It isn't like the man saved my child or gave me CPR. He was hired to do a job and VERY well paid to do it. As it is, the past two years he has utterly failed by ANY metric and yet he will, in all stated likelihood, be given another year. That is a massive amount of loyalty in this day and age. Most people in most professions would have been dumped for making some of the stupid decisions and creating some of the messes Rex has made. Sorry, I look at Rex and I see a crappy version of his dad with perhaps an even bigger ego. And don't hand me that he is honest and speaks his mind. He has been towing the party line and BSing the fans all year about Tebow and Sanchez. There has been NOTHING honest about that. He is the same as every other coach in that way. First couple years he was outspoken.... Those days are over.
While I agree that Rex is, in most ways, a better coach than Hermwards, that is a backhanded insult. It is like saying you're the fastest guy in the bottom twenty five percent of runners. Nothing to get excited about. PS- one additional point to my post above. If Rex really is as good as his fans/supporters claim, then why are so many of the coaches--the actual professionals who've worked under him now--leaving to work elsewhere. In fact, many aren't even taking promotions.... some are moving laterally. This is quite an indictment of Rex and the state of the Jets organization IMHO. It is hard to argue that they just can't see his "genius" when they work with him everyday.
At the end of the day, the GM still has the final call at the draft table. Rex can pump his chest out all he wants about he wanted this guy and that guy, but the scouting department and GM have the final say almost every time (like when Rex wasn't huge on the Stephen Hill pick but the scouts overruled him). That's just the way Rex is - extremely loyal and constantly telling his players how great they are and how much he believes in them to boost confidence. He knows Sanchez can't play. I'm sure if he was the coach in Baltimore when they drafted Kyle Boller he would have been signing his praises all the time despite knowing behind closed doors that the kid blew. As for why Ryan kept playing Sanchez, I believe that as bad as Sanchez was, Ryan really felt he gave the team the best chance to win. He realized just how bad of a QB Tim Tebow was once he got here and saw him every day in practice (just like Merril Hoge has said from the get go) and he knew that a 7th round QB that was a game manager IN COLLEGE wasn't going to take this team where it needed to go. You can call it blind faith in Sanchez but I think it was more of Rex saying this guy turning it around is really my only hope of a decent offense. Unfortunately Sanchez got continually worse.
The key thing to understand about Tanny which I gradually came to realize is Tanny didn't know much about personnel. He was a Cap specialist who deals in numbers. I draw the comparison between him and Sparano. Everyone knew Sparano was a conservative keep it on ground kind of coach. So to turn around and fire him and blame him for being who he was is missing the point. The blame is misplaced it should go to who ever picked him (Rex). In Tanny case Woody was the one who promoted him from a bean counter to a GM. I think Woody must have decided that the HC would be the one who would assume the personnel responsibilities while Tanny would grow into his new position. If you notice this time Woody hired a firm to conduct the search for a new GM. It's a pretty painful way to go about learning a lesson.
Do I have to spare you the Matt Cassel shit too? I get that you like the guy, so do I but understand you are just making excuses for him.
BB had Cassell as a backup for years learning under Brady, they had undefeated talent from the year earlier. I'm pretty confident if we had Moss still in his prime and all those other weapons Cassell had along w/ that D we would have won a SB w/ Sanchez. Don't forget the team won 6 less games w/ Cassell starting in 2008 despite a signficantly weaker schedule.
