I'm really flabbergasted at the Abraham talk. Apparently people conveniently disregard the fact that we tried, on several occasions, to turn this guy into a Derrick Thomas type linebacker with no success. Moreover, the guy states in ESPN the Magazine that he was a disinterested drunk while with the team. He admits as much. He was always hurt and obviously distracted. Good riddance. In two seasons for the Falcons, he has a total of 14 sacks. I'd normally discount the lost season, but because we're talking about an injury prone player who makes big money, you can't. Part of being a good player is being on the field. Thomas got an absurd contract that, at the time, was way too much for a guard. He was always a potential guy that never really realized his potential. He was consistently overwhelmed by larger interior lineman. He was not worth what the Redskins gave him. All of this talk disregards our contract situation. Bradway gave horrendous reward contracts to Curtis and Chrebet that really hindered us. We still had other guys who were on the books at unrealistic rates. Ferguson was 30 with a bum shoulder and he got a 9 million dollar signing bonus. We had no way of giving him the upfront money that Dallas did. McKenzie should have been retained. He was a very solid offensive tackle, and they obviously misjudged the talent on roster, but that pre-dated Mangini.
It's not losing the players that was the mistake. The mistake was not adequately backfilling them with quality players. Over the past few years we have had mixed success backfilling players lost through FA or trades... Thomas replaced by Kendall (good) Kendall replaced by Clarke (BAD) Mawae replaced by Mangold (good) Fabini replaced by Jones, the D'Brick (fair) McKenzie replaced by Clement (BAD) Teams like the Pats and Steelers are consistently competitive because they always draft well and are able to maintain a pipeline of quality players so that they aren't forced to overpay for guys and so they don't go into a tailspin when they lose a few FA's.
We have a winner! Hermway let young starting OL walk, and failed to draft or sign young OL. Mangini let old, overpaid OL walk, and has signed and drafted you OL. The OL mess that Hermway left us really showed itself this past season, and I have no reason to believe it will not be fixed in the offseason.
The Big problem is paying these guys and letting guys like Derreck Ward and Atari Bigby go. are running game is sh1t and Ward goes and runs wild. Bigby and Rhodes in the secondary would have made a Huge difference helping out are crappy corners I cant under stand it. The talent is right under are nose the FO just cant sniff it out. Add Colston to that list
Crappy corners? Revis? :drunk:? Dyson/Barrett/Miller last year? :drunk:? Sometimes this place just floors me.
I agree with the basis of your post: Almost all teams that are very good in the NFL have good to great Offensive Lines. The Pats have an amazing one. As far as the names go, we should have kept Thomas and McKenzie. At least McKenzie. The Mangold/Mawae thing just would have never happened if we signed him. We wouldnt have drafted Mangold anyway probably. So we got rid of an old center on his way downhill and picked up a young great one... Not bad. Losing McKenzie hurt but at the time we had no cap space. The part about Abe I totally disagree with. He wanted buku bucks and honestly was in the lower echelon of top flight pass rushers. On top of that he was injury prone. I do understand the basis of your post though and agree with it... HANG ON to your good offensive lineman.
Keeping McKenzie and Thomas would have been much cheaper/better than what the FO has to do this offseason to improve the lines to be sure. The problem with the Jets right now is the poor drafting from 2001-2005. As it is painfully obvious the way to success in the NFL is to build through the draft and add a part here or there through free agency. So with weak drafts and losing the few decent players the Jets did to other teams, is it any wonder that right now the Jets are pretty lean talent/depth wise. This team was woefully mismanaged by the prior regime. They won primarily with Parcell players and seemingly did little to bring in their type of player, provided they had their type. It was like they were content with the status quo or were too quick to over-react to mistakes they made. Mistakes like that horrible offseason in 2003 which brought about the Drob trade up or the 2005 draft where they actually thought they were a kicker and a completely shit TE away from a SB run. It is that constant dog chasing its tail mentality that has the Jets in a lurch right now. How does this tie into the current FO/CS, I honestly do not know. I am really excited about the way they draft. They seem to get the right players and have drafted rather well. I could give a shit about the Schlegel error because every FO makes a mistake on a player. I am more concerned with them recognizing that error and making sure they do not do it again. From what I can see Mangini is pretty damn stubborn to a fault (no need to go into why I say that as it will take a thesis to do so). However in the offseason he is at least interviewing coaches with vast experience/success at what were weak areas of the team (OLine for instance). They are rumored to be looking at other coaches that would add both synergies and experience where they currently lack (Bob Ryan). Say what you want about Ryan and his real or perceived lack of success in Oakland. He will not be hamstrung here as he and Mangini would be on the same page. There is something to be said for this type of synergy. Anyway that is all speculation at this point but at least it looks like he recognizes deficiencies and is willing to fix them. The FO's real test this Offseason will be in Free agency. It appears so far that there will be more players that fill needs available then the last 2 off seasons combined. Of course you never know with the creative reworking of contracts if that will come to fruition or not. If it does, this is a critical juncture for Tannenbaum. He really needs to spend some of the loot he has available. If he is successful with at least shoring up the O-line than that would set the Jets up rather well for the draft. It is the end of year 2 for the current regime. There have been some good things and some bad. If they learn from what the mistakes (FA's, Coaching staff, coaching decisions,) of the last two years and build on the success's (excellent drafting) then there is no reason this FO/CS can not build a winner here. Really as excited as I was last season, I am that muted now. I am taking a wait and see attitude. One thing is for sure this is the most critical offseason this regime has had or will have. I want to see how they handle it to say whether they should have a few more years or not. Lets face it they made a bunch of mistakes, I want to see if they own up and correct them.
Absolutely. I hope my post wasn't interpreted to be a "we should have kept Abe" rant. More like trading the guy created a void that we've yet to fill and it's a huge problem. One of the biggest, in fact.
