...that will happen next week when the Patriots thump us. Until then, some things to ponder for those off of suicide watch. #1 - The morons calling for Pennington to start are exactly that. We topped out with Pennington, and each start is a critical learning experience for Kellen. #2 - The morons claiming Clemens isn't the QB of the future are exactly that. Clemens is a 2nd year pro with a grand total of 6 starts to his name. Not exactly enough to base a moronic claim on. And the counter-argument that Chad did much better when he came in is BS. Chad had a great offensive line, a HOF RB and a solid defense with 2 1/2 full years on the bench to study and practice. That is a completely different set of circumstances than what Kellen has. #3 - The offensive line is shaky, but Mangold and Brick are improving. Whine all you want about Ferguson, but the guy is actually getting better and with another off-season in the weight room and on the buffet line, he may turn into something special (FYI - for those McNeil fans, watch tape of SD last 3 games and tell me he hasn't regressed and become reason #1 for River's struggles). #4 - Revis and Harris have gotten valuable playing time and will be the leaders of this defense w/ Kerry Rhodes for the next 5 years. These guys were worth the picks and have made a big impact. Yeah, Revis didn't have a great game yesterday, but he did limit Edwards to only 3 catchs and 1 TD - a TD he had perfect coverage on, but the ball was perfectly placed. Plus it is a lot easier to play DB when you have a pass rush in front of you. Harris is simply the DROY. #5 - Special teams are a big plus. Graham had a few shaky games in the past month, but has played well the past two games. Nugent has turned it on again. The KR tandem of Washington and Miller next year will be unstoppable. What needs to be done in the off-season and come the draft??? #1 - WHERE IS THE BEEF? The Jets better draft and sign plenty of big O-LINE and D-LINE this upcoming year. There will be plenty of competition and plenty of change at those positions. Outside of Mangold and Ferguson on O and Coleman on D, everyone else could be at risk. #2 - LOTS OF TRADES and Draft picks. Pennington, Robertson, Vilma, McCariens and Ellis all could be gone this off-season via trade. All are valuable commodities in the right situation and getting even a low draft pick is better than letting them walk. The Jets could potentially pick up 4+ picks by moving some/all of these players. #3 - Time to use that Cap Space. The Jets have basically taken the past two years to get us out of cap hell. Martin and Chrebets contracts will be off the books and we don't have an awful lot of money tied up that can't be dumped both quickly and efficiently. #4 - Welcome more LBs and WRs. The Jets will need to look at replacing 2 LB positions (most likely Hobson and Barton are gone) and I could see them actually drafting a WR very high. With Coles nicked and getting up there in years, another weapon for a QB would help greatly as we have seen the past two weeks without Cotchery and Coles at 100%. #5 - Coaching staff changes. Bob Sutton is gone. I think Mangini has gotten more involved in the playcalling and the results on D have been important the last month. Things have changed for the better since the bye week and I think we will be seeing a new/aggressive D Coordinator (Ryan is supposed gone in Oakland???) this off-season. All-in-all, the prospects are not all black nor all white in the future for this team. Bottom-line is that with some key draft picks and FA additions + an easier schedule next year, the Jets could take a step back forward. This nonsense about the players stinking and the coaches playcalling stinking is just that - nonsense. The team has been in transition since 2005 - fixing the cap, dumping old players, changing O + D philosophy. We were spoiled by an unexpect, but welcome, 10-6 season and playoff appearance. Unfortunately that hid many of the warts this team has. Are the coaches and FO guilty of hubris? Sure, but many of the posters here were doing the same thing this past off-season with their unrealistic claims of challenging the Pats dominance. I expect big and forward moving changes to come quickly this off-season and I think everyone will be eventually pleased by the results. In comparison, I am glad we are moving methodically along as opposed to what some other teams are doing. How is the 49ers off-season spending spree and their draft moves working out now?
Thank you... thank you very much... this should be stickied for all to read, and re-named "THE REALITY OF THE SITUATION"
That is true also. But since we have already sucked for the first 40 years, the next 40 can't be that bad, now that we are acclimated to the pace.
This is supposed to make people feel better about this train wreck of a season? Clemens blows, you can theorise and rationlize all you want. His play has been bad, yesterday he was awful, putrid. He stinks.
Yes but most of you have NOT be around for 40 or even 30 & tongue in cheek even 20 of those horrid years so what do you know about suffering for 40 years?
+1 Agreed. Everyone is pretty knee/jerk around here, but I guess I can't blame those who have had to endure decades of poor play. Relatively speaking...i'm pretty new to being a jet fan so that's my reason for being more optimistic. Also, we can't blame Mangini for every single year we went w/o a superbowl trophy. Mangini will have 2 seasons under his belt...one good...one bad. Most learn more during bad times so here's hoping that this season's lessons are sinking in really well. All I want for xmas are: 2 new coordinators 2 New Olineman 1 Massive NT 1 Pass rushing OLB 1 Speed WR and the Pat's not drafting darren mcfadden
Either get off chads dick or go root for whatever team we trade him to next season. You're comparing a seasoned veteran to a guy making his sixth career start at probably the most difficult position in all of professional team sports. If you don't understand how absurd that is, the original post was 100% dead on accurate about you. Chad was never taking this team to a superbowl and that's part of the reason why he's on the bench backing up a second year player right now. I am hardly impressed by Clemens so far, more nervous than impressed, but it was his SIXTH career start. Have at least a little patience for christs sake.
The OP is dead on IMO. I'll take Ryan from Okland or Ryan from the ravens if Billick gets canned. Both would be a major upgrade to our D with adding any cap hit. Shotty is shitty this year. I wounder how much the O-line can help that side of the ball with a couple of upgrades though. If you have no ground game your offnese is going to suck, and we can't run the ball for crap.
Chad is still on this team, and gives us the best chance to win. Clemens and his "strong arm" give us no shot.
Be careful Chad does not stop too fast, you may get some crap on your face. Chad is done. His body is cooked from the beating its taken. I love his warrior mentality, but his arm is shot. I didn't realize our best chance to win was throwing Picks in the 4th quarter game after game.
Pretty funny because we've already won twice as many games with Kellen as QB then Chad and Chad started against the weaker part of the schedule. Get off the mans sack
#2 - I think that assessment of Pennington's supporting squad is a bit over the top. A great offensive line? Fabini was already slipping fast as a left tackle when Pennington came around; Mawae was (and is) great, Randy Thomas was solid, and Kareem McKenzie was solid but young. A solid defense? Our safeties that year were Damien Robinson and Sam Garnes; Marvin Jones and Mo Lewis were our starting LBs three years after both should have retired. They were a decent unit, certainly better in some ways than this one, but lets not act like this was a hall of fame squad which anybody at all could have led to success. Pennington came out and it was instantly clear that he was better running this team than Testaverde had been since 1999. People can hate on him now, and he certainly wasn't anything special in early 07, but that season's playoff run was about three players, Curtis Martin, Laveranues Coles, and Chad Pennington. None of which has anything to do with the question of whether or not Clemens is any good. But think back a few weeks to when he got the starting job. The rationale at the time was to let him take his lumps now, use the losing season to see what the kid is made of. So far, he's shown very, very little in terms of quality quarterbacking, and while the line has hardly been stellar, go back and look at tape of the early part of the season, they're playing way, way better now than they were two months ago, as is the defense. Watching this last game on sunday, Clemens looked like the weak link, and I imagine that if he doesn't show improvement over the remaining weeks, the coaches will have to seriously consider going another direction. And to those who think that Clemens can stink it up the rest of the way and still be handed a starting job next year... why would anybody want that? This isn't a top draft pick who we're financially forced to give every chance to succeed like Eli Manning. If the coaches don't think he's bringing enough to the table, and the coaches want to win football games, the coaches have no reason not to go find somebody else. Maybe someday Clemens will be a good NFL starting quarterback, but right now he certainly isn't. If the season ended tomorrow, and the Jets made it clear that 2008 was going to be all Clemens, I'd have a hard time getting excited about the Jets' chances. #3 - Ferguson certainly is improving, I'm more and more confident in him each and every week. Its harder to tell with Mangold, but I tend to think that if we can add a solid player at RG, Mangold's ability will be more apparent. #4 - Revis is about my favorite player on this team right now. I don't even care to think about how many seasons went by where the Jets were desperately, desperately in need of decent cornerback play. Remember Aaron Beasley? This kid has come in his rookie year and played great against some of the best wideouts in the game (and personally Ive been ready to include Braylon Edwards in that category since his last season at Michigan). The sky's the limit for him, and same goes for Harris. What needs to be done in the off-season and come the draft??? First off, I tend to disagree about adding wideouts. Yes Coles is dinged up, but he's not exactly aging, hes 28. McCareins is clearly a goner, and somebody will need to take his place, but Smith and Stuckey are two young guys with upside, and I'd like to see them get a chance to develop before this team spends money or draft picks in a premature attempt to find somebody to take Coles' spot. I also tend to think the general amount of turnover you're expecting is over the top. As much as I hate to say it, Vilma does seem like a candidate for a trade; he's talented as hell, but he's worth so much more to a team that runs the right system than he is here. Conversely, Robertson is a talented player who I don't see us losing (although we DO need to find somebody else to play quality snaps at NT so Robertson can be moved around some), and Ellis is a solid player and a leader on the team. Frankly the fact that Ellis has stood out at all this season is a shock, 3-4 DEs rarely get any stats or attention but Ellis has had some great games (Seymour is one of the best linemen in the game but you very rarely actually notice him doing anything). We've got some nice young players on defense to build around, top notch players at the two most important spots on the OL, and enough quality receivers and halfbacks to have a successful offense. Add some big run blockers to the offensive line, another talented player to the defensive line, somebody at OLB with pass rush ability, and get somebody behind center who can get the job done, and this team doesn't look half bad.
We can bring this team to dominence but our owner is to godamn cheap. too buisey buying plain tickets for hall of fame running backs !
