You just don't get it, but that's ok. For the record, the Jets didn't and don't have the most cap space in the league. A good cap manager would never get into those messes in the first place. A good cap manager always keeps the cap in mind when signing FAs, when handling the draft, and re-signing his own players. He doesn't continually kick the cap hit down the road. He doesn't ask players who are mediocre to restructure their contracts, so that they wind up getting even more money, have greater cap hits, and become impossible to cut. He doesn't bid against himself and overpay for his own players. He always keeps the big picture and long-term view in sight. Tanny did little, if any of those things right. Tanny was awful. If he was anywhere near as good as you say, he'd still be working in the NFL as a GM or as a cap manager. Instead, he's out of the league and working as an agent. That should tell you everything you need to know.
I would say its too early to tell how good the 2013 draft was one way or the other for the Jets. Probably won't be able to properly grade it out until AFTER the 2015 season.
I think you can only really asses Idzik's off season AFTER the draft. The FA period was pretty decent, he signed "the best" available WR and QB. I wish something would have been done in the defensive backfield, but maybe that will be assessed in the early parts of the draft. It's a wait and see thing for now...
http://espn.go.com/blog/new-york/jets/post/_/id/37518/frugal-jets-raise-stakes-in-2014-draft I guess this describes what the pro and anti idzik posters have been debating about. Good read The biggest cliche you will read or hear over the next few weeks will be from NFL experts explaining that this will be a critical draft for (insert any team name). Hello? They're all critical because they happen only once a year. The second-biggest cliche will be from smart-alecks like me reminding you it's a cliche. That said, I'll probably incur a penalty flag for writing this, but there are special cases -- see the New York Jets -- where there is simply no way to minimize the importance of a particular draft. This is one of those years for the Jets. Because of their deliberate approach in free agency -- some might say cheap -- they have raised the stakes for the upcoming draft. May 8-10 will be the three biggest days of the year for a franchise in Stage 2 of its rebuilding project. Despite having enough salary-cap room to pay an entire small-market baseball team, general manager John Idzik chose to save most of his money, counting on a bountiful draft to fill the many holes on the Jets' roster. You might say he's putting most of his eggs in one basket, and it happens to be a complete dozen -- 12 draft picks. He'll have yolk on the face if he blows this draft, because he passed up a lot of potential upgrades in free agency. 2014 NFL DRAFT Round 1: May 8, 7 p.m. ET Rounds 2-3: May 9 Rounds 4-7: May 10 Radio City Music Hall New York City Draft order | Draft home • Kiper's 'Grade: A' draft • Todd McShay's latest mock • Draft Machine: Create your own mock • Mel Kiper's Big Board • Todd McShay's Top 32 • NFL draft player rankings • Rank 'Em: Rate the top prospects Many fans are restless because they are not accustomed to this way of doing business. Under Idzik's predecessor, Mike Tannenbaum, the Jets owned the New York back pages in March, titillating the fan base with sexy trades and expensive signings. Tannenbaum knew how to feed the beast, but there was a method to his madness. His research told him they were better off spending the money on proven commodities instead of stockpiling draft choices, figuring the bust rate of draft picks -- especially in the late rounds -- didn't validate the risk-reward. In the past six drafts under Tannenbaum, 2007 to 2012, the Jets added 31 players -- an average of roughly five per year. If Idzik keeps his full allotment of choices, which includes four compensatory selections and a pick from the Darrelle Revis trade, he'll be up to 19 picks in two drafts. Tannenbaum's plan damn near worked, as the Jets reached back-to-back AFC Championship Games in 2009 and 2010, but the talent base eventually eroded and he was fired. Now they have the anti-Tannenbaum in Idzik, building at a glacial pace through the draft. "The football offseason is like an event, a circus act, and fans in general want to see something," a longtime personnel executive said this week. "With John, he takes the air out of the balloon. It's not exciting, but he does it his way. You have to respect that." Idzik's way is similar to those of the Green Bay Packers, San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks, three successful organizations that rely on the draft more than free agency. In Wisconsin, you're more likely to see a March thaw than a flurry of free-agent signings. The signing of Julius Peppers last month was a stunning departure from the norm, a rare walk on the wild side by GM Ted Thompson. Their usual philosophy: Draft. Develop. Extend. In other words, use your money to re-invest in your homegrown talent. "He's modeling those organizations," the former personnel executive said of Idzik. Idzik has to yet to make a long-term commitment to an ascending player, although you could make the case that the Jets haven't had anyone worthy of a contract extension. That will change when defensive end Muhammad Wilkerson gets a new deal, this year or next. For now, the objective is to find more Wilkersons. Their list of needs is long, perhaps too long, considering they began free agency with close to $40 million in cap room. They upgraded the No. 2 wide receiver spot by signing Eric Decker, and they fortified the quarterback position by adding Michael Vick. But where are the playmakers? If the Jets are counting on Decker to be a difference-maker, they misspent their guaranteed $15 million. Defensively, the personnel is worse than it was at the end of the season, specifically at cornerback. The mistake wasn't cutting Antonio Cromartie and making no effort to re-sign him; after all, he played poorly last season. No, the mistake was failing to come up with a better replacement than the aging and injury-prone Dimitri Patterson. Defense will drive the Jets as long as Rex Ryan is the coach, and his defensive system is driven by cornerbacks. Idzik knows that, but he obviously held back in free agency, knowing he has an XXL draft to attack the team's weaknesses. The second-year GM and his revamped scouting department enjoyed a solid first draft, so there is hope, but the challenge is greater this year because the expectation level is higher. If you're going to be frugal in free agency, you had better own the draft. The Jets need to come away with a starting-caliber cornerback, a potential No. 1 receiver and a pass-catching tight end. With six choices among the top 137, they have the bargaining chips to wheel and deal. Idzik has enough ammo to take control of the draft, cherry-picking the players he covets most. A Justin Gilbert-Allen Robinson-Jace Amaro troika would be a nice start. This is a critical draft for the Jets. Sorry about the cliche, but it's the truth.
You are of course entitled to that opinion on it being a mixed draft, but for the next 2-3 years it's just that....an opinion. If the Jets in 2 years have 3 or 4 people from the draft starting for them or playing significant roles on the team then it was a strong draft. Granted only Richardson stood out in his rookie season, but 5 of the 7 picks (6 of the 8 if you include the pick traded for Ivory) were starters for the Jets during various portions of the season. Though part of that was attributable to the lack of depth on the offensive side of the ball. Smith started 16 games Richardson started 15 games Dee Milliner started 12 games Brian Winters started 12 games Bohanan Started 8 games. The Jets landed 5 of their 7 draft picks who each started more than 1/2 the season. As I said, part of that probably relates to the void in the roster but anytime you get a draft where 5 of your picks are year one starters means you had at least a solid draft, 4 of the 5 have had off and on problems, but each has also shown potential. Now where they'll be in 2-3 years is the key to how good the draft was, but anytime you land 5 guys who start for you in a draft you had a solid draft..not necessarily a spectacular draft, but you made your team better than it was before the draft. But as I've stated repeatedly, we won't know how good the draft really was for 2-3 years.
idzik is doing an alright job. i dont think its really fair to say much more about him at this point. things are looking bright and he could potentially be building us a powerhouse with loads of depth (wouldnt it be nice to finally be one of those teams that always has one or two players thats like, 'where the hell did that guy come from?') but there is no reason to celebrate potential as things could not turn out the way we project and etc. as far as free agency is concerned, if you were expecting a big splash just because there was money to be spent, you are probably upset. the team looks pretty good so far with a draft coming up that has a lot of players we can plug in. rex doesnt need a team of superstars, he needs solid role players and playmakers that can get it done. we might end up losing some guys that want to test the waters of free agency when their rookie deals expire, but we will also have a lot of really good young talent available for a coaching staff that can survive on their merit alone. this is all hypothetical optimism of course. idzik could blow the draft and not pick up any decent players, but something tells me that is less likely than the above
Wow, a decent article by Cimini, 2nd this week. Maybe there is a life on Mars after all. I disagree strongly with this: "Defense will drive the Jets as long as Rex Ryan is the coach, and his defensive system is driven by cornerbacks." RR's D was driven by CBs, but IMO this was because what he had available. I believe Rex is the type of coach who will cook up a good to great D no matter what ingredients he has. Weak CBs will just mean a different flavor, different type of dish, it'll still be a very serviceable meal. I think that perhaps Idzik recognizes this.
I don't know if theres just failure of communication happening here, but I don't see you're point. Is it that teams don't win when they have players on larger deals? at all? Cause that feels like a "correlation does not imply causation" moment. I feel like a lot of these deals were efforts to retain talent that was certainly not worth losing, you need to pay you're good players the big bucks eventually, even under todays rookie deal CBA. I mean sure The Seahawks have Sherman and Wilson for pennies, but for only one more year, am I to believe whatever was working will stop because they get paid in the 10's of millions each? I feel theres an over exaggeration going on here.
Ok, so I should have made this clear in the initial post. I believe that ALL of the non-QB NFL deals that average $11M a year and above were listed in my post. Now do you understand what I'm trying to get at? In addition I believe that no QB making north of $14M against the cap has ever won a Super Bowl in a year in which that was true. The possible exceptions are Roethlisberger in '08 and Eli in '11 but I believe both of their deals were structured in a way that they won in years in which they were not making $14M against the cap. Edit: realized I had left Mike Wallace's deal with the Fins off the list. I think I did this because he didn't actually count anywhere near that in 2013. I also left Percy Harvin off the list because he only counted $4.9m against the Seahawk's cap last year and only played in the Super Bowl.
Drafting players who end up starting is an incomplete and misleading standard. As your own post, contradicting itself, acknowledges, it does not mean much if a player starts because no one better is on the squad. For example Smith started because Sanchez was injured, and Sanchez was a woeful Qb. That Smith started doesn't say anything other than that. EFFECTIVENESS is the better measure, and by that measure the draft last year, as I correctly said, was a mixed bag.
As for that post article, I thought the most interesting part was what I think was a somewhat incomplete way of comparing Tanny to Idzik. This led to two implied points. One implication of the comparison is that a GM is faced with an either/or choice, either go for flash in FA, or rely (mostly!) on the draft. Of course that is not true. You can modulate the mix as your roster situation and cap space suggest. The second was that Tanny's problems had more to do with FA than the draft and managing the existing players on the roster. In hindsight Tanny's real problems, the ones that caused his undoing, had more to do with the latter than with his FA practices, the ridiculous example of the trade for Tebow notwithstanding (which we all know was Woody's deal, not Tanny's). For Exhibit A we need go no further than the draft day move of trading up to pick Mark Sanchez. Quite obviously this was not a FA move, and yet was the move that arguably hindered the team nore than anything else in the last several years. Quite simply if the Jets had gotten anywhere near the value of that fifth pick out of Sanchez, they likely would have gotten over the hump. The Jets would at a minimum have been competitive in the years we instead saw them decline. Roster management was also a big problem. The Tebow trade was a huge distraction, but what hurt the team even more that off season was the Sanchez contract extension. It ended up being a factor in the terrible situatoin last off season where the Jets let their best player go. Meanwhile Sanchez stayed on the team. And instead of being able to at least attempt to get a vet Qb on the team as an upgrade, they went into pre-season with Sanchez still on the roster and an unprepared rookie in Smith who proceeded to suck. Sure, there were problems related to FA. The Holmes contract was no doubt a factor, but having a player picked in FA get injured and underperform his contract is not an indictment of FA. It is a risk with all players. Now of course it is a fair indictment of Tanny to say he went for flash in the draft rather than carefully harvesting his picks. Trading up for Sanchez in hindsight looks like a flash move, not a solid one. I agree. But this shows the issue was not so much about an FA oriented method of building the team than it was about the flashy move. In short I think Tanny's problems were more in his drafts and his roster management than in having an FA orientation.
It occures to me in reading my previous post I should clarify that when talking FA I meant to refer to the FA period, where trades also occur, as compared to the draft and managing one's own roster. Sorry about that.
There are a bunch of problems with the style of management that Mike Tannenbaum had. In no particular order: Using the cap as a year to year asset instead of a long-term asset. Acquiring veteran players at top dollar just before they decline. Trading up in the draft to acquire better bets, leading to the magnification of busts and poor depth. Drafting players based on unrealistic projections of their future value. Trading for other team's declining players, often players with off the field issues. There are other issues also but essentially the Jets were managed in a Madden Football manner. Over time that catches up to you and it caught up to the Jets.
Br4 is correct in what Tanny did to this roster. He basically went for it, almost got us the ring and he and the fans paid for it with a crap team for 3 years with no way out. Maybe it was Woody that told him forget the future, I want to win this year, but the GM needs to put his foot down and tell the owner, this is not the way you build a winner. That's what Idzik did in his interview and why Woody hired him. Its the right way of doing things but it still comes down to making the correct personnel decisions which is TBD. This draft will make or break the GM and this team. Tons of picks, great draft. OOOYYY, a crappy draft could ruin us. Mr. Idzik but so far so good but you need to kill, totally kill with a A in this draft. I want 4 starters and 9 of the picks to make the team
Your point is valid about effectiveness as opposed to just being a warm body, but I'd say Geno was better than Curtis Painter was for the Colts when he had to replace Manning in 2011 or Shaun Hill was for Detroit in 2010, and both of them had better offenses than the Jets did last year- we would kill for either team's receivers in those years. Some people can't handle the job when thrust onto the big stage, and I think Smith did that well. He deserves at least another year just based on that imo.
Also replying to Brad's post before yours... I can't say this for a certainty for obvious reasons, but if Sanchez had even played like an average NFL starting Qb in years 09 and 10, the Jets I think would have made it past the Champ game in one or both of those years. Yes I understand the D didn't show up in the first half of the game against Pitt, but the Jets whole playoff picture would have been different in both years if a competent Qb had led them to a better regular season record. I know it's never about one thing. But the one thing that really undercut the team in the last five years of Tanny's tenure was poor play at Qb, and that despite having made the big move to trade up for Sanchez at the fifth pick in the draft. I think on that Brad would agree, despite his pointing to several practices of the Tanny regime that he sees as problematic. My point here is what was really his undoing was not FA signings or trades but questionable drafting strategy plus poor roster management. Were there questionable FA signings and trades? Sure there were. But they were not what caused his ultimate undoing.
It was the whole picture. You can't run an NFL roster like a plug-and-play enterprise. You need to build a team with some form of shared values and you need to have most of the good players on that team playing hungry, looking to get to the top. When you build a team around well-paid vets the last thing that is happening is players playing hungry and over-achieving. The irony is that the good Jets were pretty much fat and content except for Revis, who was one of the NFL's highest paid players. He always wanted more anyway.
Of course there was a whole picture that included many factors. As the Dude would say, there are lots of ins and outs to this whole, uh, story. But my original point remains, the main problem was not Tanny's approach to FA. His draft and roster moves were more the problem.
His draft and roster moves were heavily influenced by his approach to free agency. If you're going to pay mid-tier players like they were quasi-stars in order to fill holes then you will be less likely to try to build a deep and talented roster via the draft. You'll be more likely to view later round picks as dispensable in trades and to try to consolidate value by moving up in the draft. It really was the whole picture. Mike Tannenbaum did what he tried to do about as well as it can be done and it still collapsed in the end due to the friable nature of NFL talent. The ironic thing is that if he'd managed to get his hands on Drew Brees he might have pulled it off. You can't construct a Frankenstein Monster to win it all without a head.
