It’s a catch 22. If woody learns anything from the other owners is "OWN IT". This is his financial property. Those other owners "OWN IT" they get involved to a point (some beyond the point) to make sure they are fielding a product that reflects on their involvement in the team. Woody has not in my eyes; taken ownership of his team. This is not just for this year; this is since he has taken over the team from the Hess group. Looking at his hands off approach to shaping the team id say Ego doesn’t even factor into his thought process concerning the team. He strikes me as the type to take advantage of any good success in the future to build up the value then sell it and head off into the sunset.
This is not the Tangini negotiating style, it's the Jet's negotiating style. If you were not clearly one of the best 4 or 5 players on the team Bradway and Herm were exactly the same way. What we saw with Kendall last year was just a little ratchetting up of an established team personality. That's probably why the Jets have such a hard time negotiating in free agency. Asses never win at diplomacy.
You guys are like the town villagers, just before they grab the pitchforks and light the torches in search of the horrible ogre. :lol:
Yes but Leon said that after he was told that he was terminal. Before that he could not nor did he care one bit about the NYJs. His only concern was Hess Oil.
Reporter: Recent polls show a 99% of all Jets fans can?t stand the thought of going another 39 years before a championship. Why do you think this is? Woody: I personally believe that our fans are unable to do so because, uh, some people out there in our nation don't have good game plans, and I believe that our education, like such as South Africa and the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should -- our education over here in the US should help the US -- or should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up my franchise for our children.
This year was a very bitter pill to swallow for me. It isn't that I thought the Jets would win the Superbowl, it's that they regressed, and still had the audacity to talk such a $%#ing big game. It's all just crap. You're as dark as they come, Champ. And, I'll still enjoy a 10-6 or 11-5 season that doesn't end in a Superbowl victory, which I realize is where we diverge. However, after this year, I'm convinced that it's all about changing the culture of the team. This ownership doesn't appreciate that, and wouldn't know how even if it did. This coaching staff and management thinks it knows how, but tries to make its point with idiotic power games, in order to make peripheral points - thereby weakening the team. IT'S BEEN MORE THAN 20,511,360 MINUTES SINCE THE JETS HAVE WON A SUPERBOWL. TIME TO SMARTEN UP!
I've been a season ticket holder since before our "one" and only SB and I don't see another one with Woody owning the team. He doesn't appear to have any interest or a clue what it takes to develop a championship team. People can put Kraft down but he knows how to put a winning organization together and takes pride in their accomplishments. Even after a good season last year they went out and brought in a whole new receiving corps for Brady, of course we also don't have a Brady but we made no moves. After watching the Patriots play this year the talent chasm between us and them is unbelievable and Belichick gets so much out of even the least talented player. My frustration just continues to grow and I don't hold out much hope that Woody or his team will get it right this offseason. The only fortunate part is we relocated to South Carolina and only make it up for a few games a year, my family now gets to suffer every week. Disgruntled, long suffering fan!!
Quite a bit of hating on Woody Johnson in this thread. In all fairness, give the man some credit where credit is due. 1) Woody pushed hard for our own, state-of-the art, West Side Stadium. Paid thousands in advance for plans, proposals, traffic management reports, mass transit studies, retail and residential analysis and NYC financial benefits, only to be shit on by NY politicians. Put the blame where it belongs, on the NY voters in those districts who voted for the assholes who helped reject the proposal. NY Jet "fans" who criticize Woody Johnson over the WSS fiasco either have Selective Memory Syndrome, are uninformed or totally brain dead. 2) Woody made the current stadium-sharing deal with the State of NJ and the NY Giants before Corzine took office, thereby blocking Corzine's election claims that this was a "bad deal" for NJ and that he would have to "take a look at it" if elected. Corzine was elected, but the deal was already done under acting Governor Cody. To his credit, Woody took the best deal he could find for the Jets so that we could at least have half ownership in SOME stadium somewhere. Other NY options were ridiculous, unworkable proposals at best (Queens? Come on!). Despite what most Meadowlands haters say will still be "Giants Stadium," it simply isn't true and saying that doesn't make it so. The shared stadium was the best deal Woody could do (and for the Giants to do as well) and will be a terrific stadium and a place to which I look forward to going. 3) Woody, in effect, took positive steps to rid us of Herman Edwards. Okay, Herm officially "quit" after having lined up his KC job well in advance, but by adopting his "Don't Let The Door Hit You In The Ass" stance, Woody sealed Herm's intent to leave, which paved the way to acquire Mangini. Okay... I'm leaving myself open on that one because Mangini goes 4-12 now, but I'm still happier with Mangini than Herm and willing to give him another year. I can't believe Tangini is a worse situation than Herm, Heimerdinger and Dick Curl. 4) Woody also took a major step for the Jets by proposing and now building a brand new, state-of-the-art office complex and training/practice facility in Florham Park. He successfully got NJ to turn over 20+ acres of prime wooded property for what will be a virtual showplace for all Jets fans to visit, be proud of and take their families to to watch TCs. What did we have before (and for as many years as I can remember)? An office or two on loan from Hofstra University? A couple of outdoor fields, a small weight room and an indoor bubble-tent "field" that only came along because Parcells insisted they needed one? Come on, fellas. Give Woody a little credit. He's more than just the greedy bastard some of you paint him to be.
The WSS would have been an unprecedented development project for a successful municipality like NYC to approve and invest in. Down in the mouth cities like Baltimore and Detroit do these kind of deals, to develop real estate that is strongly depressed and to revive neighborhoods. I never thought the WSS had a prayer of actually being put up because just allowing the Jets to build there would have been the greatest landgrab in New York City history. The Jets value as a franchise would almost instantly have doubled and eventually tripled, to be by far the most valuable franchise in the NFL. I'm not going to imply that Woody was solely in the WSS effort for the money, but an investment of several million dollars on the chance of acquiring up to a billion dollars was clearly a worthwhile shot to take. I'll guarantee you all of the actual investment wound up as a tax write-off somewhere. Agreed on Woody wanting Herm out after 2005. Why he didn't also outright fire Bradway is beyond me, but as others have pointed out he really does not know football and so the insidious nature of Bradway's effect on the Jets may only be beginning to dawn on him at the moment. I agree that Woody clearly is making an investment in the team's future facilities. I wish he'd moved the team back to Queens, because he has ceded much to much of Connecticut to the Patriots in perpetuity by staying in NJ, however that's his call. He wants the New jersy market, a much larger one, over the Connecticut market and he may well be right, even if by doing so he has ceded New England north of New York state to the Patriots. The man does need to create an effective organization now or he'll just be second fiddle in both the tristate are and in southern New England and in that scenario the Jets are still a relatively devalued franchise. Not to mention we all get to deal with a bad team on the field.
I agree about the stadiums. I would've loved to see a WSS and give him credit for trying, but I'm content with a new Meadowlands (and not it won't be Giants Stadium II thank god) Good enough for me. Kudos on the training facility as well. I just think Long Island Jet fans lament the fact that the team is totally settled in Jersey now, new stadium in Jersey(they were somehow holding out hope for Queens), practice facility in Jersey. For the LI fans it's an extra kick in the teeth on top of all that's happened this year. For a Jersey guy like me, it's a positive development. It just seems like we're trying to be the cheapo Patriots. Look at what they did this year, they didn't do it the "Patriot Way". Moss, Welker, Stallworth, Thomas, Seau. These guys aren't diamonds in the rough who play for pennies. They spent the money and shore up holes with talented players. They built Brady a fortress of an offensive line. We look for cheap fixes. Doesn't hurt that they have a hall of fame QB as well with a rocket arm, but we saw what Chad could do behind a good line in 2002. Granted his arm strength has faded since, but give any QB a top 10 line and he'll do well.
Once the Patriots sink back into the pack of NFL franchises, there sudden "fan base" will vanish as well. Anybody who remembers football pre 2001 knows what I'm talking about. All it takes is winning really, and we can be the #1 team here, in southern new england, and in Florida.
I do not consider my self dark as you posted or negative as some on this board love to accuse me of. I am just relaying 39 years & some days now since we won the SB my experience of how the NYJs have operated. Sorry to say the reality of the situation does not coincide with the outlook of many on this board. Leadership starts from the top which would be Woody & then trickles down as prime example check out the TRUMP organization to understand better what I am saying. BTW love that signature & it made me chuckle
Cmon U have to win the naive fan of the year award. If they win 4 SBs win in 7 years & you really believe that there fans will be deserting them? Give me break here please.
if they desert the cowboys (and tickets to Texas Stadium were easy to find in lean years) then they sure as hell will desert the Patriots, who had no fan base to speak of for 40 years and were a distant 4th in the New England sports scene. These are not Steeler fans, or Bears fans for that matter.
Nice to see so many oldtimers chiming in on this. I was beginning to wonder where you all went.. I just don't see Woody's management style changing at all. That is, he's always going to be a distant owner not involved in the immediate operation of the team. He'll be around to count the receipts though and pocket the profits. Other than that, why should he change? He's turning a profit with a losing franchise, cut a deal to share a palace in Jersey which will make him even more money, and he's got a decades long waiting list of suckers drooling over the thought of watching a jinxed franchise suffer through more decades of futility. Woody might say he's a fan, but always remember Jet Fans, this is a BUSINESS first and foremost. As long as Woody makes money from being the Owner of the NYJ's, there's simply no reason to change unless something can guarantee a huge change in his ROI.
But he did get those Orange County Eedjits to build a Jets chopper. That was certainly a step in the right direction.
The shot was worthwhile, both as a financial gain for Woody but also as a long-time feather in the cap of Jets autonomy. From that standpoint, Woody has received zero credit for having tried to do it for the Jets (and in fact has received a great amount of unfair negative critizim by uninformed, stupid critics). As far as a tax writeoff, well, of course it's a tax writeoff, as well it should be. It's all a tax writeoff against any income, which is what any sensible NFL owner or businessman does, Kraft and everyone else included. So let's not at all diminish what Woody tried to do for the franchise by getting approvals for the WSS. I was against the WSS, but will also admit that stadium would have been one hell of a calling card to attract F/A and other talented personnel. Bradway was demoted to the extent that he's now personna non grata, one small step above firing, IMO. Bradway did have some talents, one of which was scouting. To limit Bradway's input to scouting and nothing more wasn't the worst Jets decision I've ever seen, and if it was something that Mangini and Tannenbaum thought would work for them, why not give it a try? I do not see how moving the team back to Queens would have had any positive impact on retaining a Connecticut fan base. A trip to Queens from CT is a nightmare... by far much worse of a commute than a trip to the Meadowlands. As such, I don't see how Woody "ceded much of Connecticut to the Patriots." If anything, Woody deserves credit by CT fans for building the shared stadium in the Meadowlands, where at least they can come down I-95, hit the NJ TNPK and easily enter the Meadowlands. Same thing with upstate NY fans. It's a bad enough commute let alone forcing them to go into Queens, so the new stadium in Jersey is a blessing for all upstate and CT fans in general.
