JD was highly regarded and in high demand around the NFL. It seemed at the time that the Jets made a good hire, but it didn't work out. Sigh...
It wasn't a bad hire I agree, just that red flag of only having 4 years of experience at senior level. Usually this is at best when you become assistant GM for a few years then if you prove yourself there, you get your shot. But ... you gotta keep trying to get successful people. You can't say that, well successful people didn't work, let's try to get some from shitty teams. To me, you still gotta look at Philly GM assistant, KC assistant, SF, teams like that...
Douglas was a good hire and made a lot of sense given his history. It’s possible he was a bad scout but he was pretty well regarded by two well run organizations. Idzik and Maccagnan were atrocious hires. Idzik was another money guy and was given mandates with Revis after a bunch of guys didn’t even want to interview for the job. He also didn’t bring any of his people with him. Maccagnan was hired by his buddy consultants and was about to get fired from the Texans.
Most teams have 8+ scouts. There's a big difference between being one of eight and being the guy who ultimately makes the picks. The proof is in the pudding - JD was a bad evaluator of talent with us. There is no debate. He made very few good picks past round 1, AKA the picks that actually require having accurate opinions. I don't understand the logic here. Don't hire people from teams with great analytics departments because they're unlikely to transform our analytics department? This is like when people say we shouldn't have drafted Bowers because he wouldn't have been good here.
The only way the Jets will make the playoffs again is firing everyone from top to bottom and replacing them, just the Gm and coach is not enough, their whole organization stinks, from scouting deparment, to doctors, to whoever else. Since we can't fire Woody they need to fire everyone else and replace them.
Because 1 guy can’t accomplish what a team of analysts accomplish elsewhere. and the bowers thing is not relevant, NO analyst can have as much impact on the outcome of a game as a guy who is actually playing in it, like Bowers…
I do hope so too. One thing I do want to say about Woody, he majorly fucked up for not cleaning house last year like many of us wanted. But I do think the "meddling" is blown out of proportion. He didn't meddle before this season for years. This year "meddling" accounted for getting rid of Saleh, getting Reddick to finally play, only paying for remaining games and without new contract, and then Davante for a 3d round pick. And even that after JD failed for 6 years, and things were going nowhere. I have no issues with him trying to jolt the team. It didn't work, he then fires JD and hires Tanny and Spielman to help find new GM. Honestly, all of these are not bad moves. Last year (and others before) Woody fucked up badly and he didn't meddle. But this year so far, I think every move made sense, and meddling was fully justified and was the right thing to do.
This is exactly how I feel as well Both Idzik and Mac were hires where the initial reaction was “they hired WHO????” Neither of those guys were in any kind of talk about potential GMs. Idzik came from Seattle where he was the money guy for Schneider but clearly NOT the talent evaluation guy there. Mac was exactly that…a friend of dinosaur Casserly. Neither guy was going to get a GM gig. Period. JD was different. He did come from two solid organizations in Balt and Phil. We can quibble about how many years at a senior level he had…to me that’s nice but not make or break, so whatever. He was around two of the best guys to do it and he had an inside view on how well run front offices are structured. He was getting hype as a GM candidate. I absolutely HATE Idzik and Mac as unqualified defuses who shit the bed so bad they will NEVER get GM gigs again. I don’t feel the same about JD. I get results are what they are and his record sucks. No argument there. However, to me, he was VERY different than those two morons. He DID have a solid strategy as to building from the trenches. Strategically I think he had a good plan, and I also think he did well in getting players that his coaching wanted as they seemed to be good system fits. Where he went wrong is in the execution of his stated strategy. Look, every GM misses on prospects, even high ones. It happens every year to every team. The miss on Zach was brutal, but so was the miss on Becton, though to be fair, Becton played well his rookie year and was done in by injuries, probably coaching staff on OL, and also immatirity on his part. The record I get to some extent as he did do a total tear down..this team was atrocious, so the bad records early on were not unexpected. But he failed on the coaching hire and that did him in. Then it all spiraled out of control. So yeah, he deserved to get fired as it shouldn’t take 6 fucking years to turn it around in today’s NFL, but in order to really do it, you have to hit on both, but at least one, of the HC and QB. He whiffed on both and that’s what sunk the ship. As to the consultants, I’m fine with it. Better than using Korn Ferry or the dinosaur group of Ron Wolff and Charley Casserly, so I can live with it. We’ll see who the names are. The hope is that they provide a short list, say 3 or 4 guys, that are ALL good candidates, so that whomever Woody chooses is ok. We’ll see…
I do recall that when he started, JD had to totally restructure the scouting team and replaced A LOT of those guys…the story was that our scouting team was a fucking hot mess (and the results certainly supported that assertion!) So I wonder what the next GM will think of the scouting team that JD has left. But I do agree…there is a lot more wrong with this organization than the HC and GM…this is all on Woody on down…we’ll see how much the next GM can address and how well he does it.
Yeah I know. But he really meddled as far as personnel only in the things where JD was trying to get done but couldn't. Like he could not get Reddick in, he got stuck on principal where Reddick had to fist show up. In the meantime the season was getting pissed away with Dline a lot worse than last year. So Woody stepped in and reached what I think is a very good deal: only get paid for the remaining games. Similarly, Adams discussions were ongoing, but JD didn't want to pay 3d round pick. Again the season was on the brink of collapse so Woody stepped in and gave 3d round pick. Which again I feel was the right compensation and the Bills paid the same for similar player Amari Cooper maybe even worse the same week. Basically Woody wanted these things which were already in progress done before we are out of it. I don't really think he meddled saying whom to play, I do not believe Russini on that. But yeah, to your point, JD at that time looked totally incompetent, we were going the downward spiral, so I would not mind him meddling more and getting the kicker in sooner. But again, things that he did this year I think were all positive. These are minor though compared to the fuck up of not cleaning house in January.
Think of it like this. Say you are an associate of a major company like Boeing. At this position you rarely work directly with CIO on major items. You are then promoted skipping a level, and serve there for 1 year. A year later you get promoted as well, but not assistant CEO, but still have access to CEO. Three years later you are promoted to CEO. Usually that is not done, and it is so for a reason. You need seasoning at the senior roles to run a company. Prove that you can deliver wide variety of big projects, Some take multiple years. Now, sometimes it works, if the guy is just so talented. But normally you have to go through the ranks and earn your stripes and learn and absorb for years. You could give the same example in military as well. The point is that if you skip there, it is hard to make a good general. So, I think it is an important point to consider. When you skip the line, the likelihood of failure increases. And JD definitely skipped the line as 4 years as a senior executive is very little before becoming the head.
Agreed, but the idea is that the 1 guy would assemble a good team of other analysts in addition to himself, and he'd know what to look for given that he came from a team with good analysts.
The amount of meddling isn't my big concern. My big concern is that both Woody and his brother are completely clueless about league trends and what to look for in good GM/HC candidates. Ideally, he takes whatever Tanny and Spielman recommend and just does it without any input of his own.
Agreed, and the first step was hiring these guys. Honestly I am very excited about this move, I fully expected Woody to do it on his own with Chris and surely fuck up and I was relieved he got competent former GMs to help him. Now, we may live to regret it, but I do have some hope now.
welll I’d love that but we are dealing with cheap woody Johnson here. I’d say a top class analytics department is unlikely
That's another thing, the cheap Woody narrative is simply not true. This year in actual cash spent the Jets were 22nd. Year before #5. Year before #8. These are not indicative of some cheap owner. Woody gave JD money to spend, he is often in top 10 in spending. JD just didn't deliver. https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/cash/_/year/2024/sort/cash_total
He was never highly regarded. The last time the Jets tried to hire a GM while keeping the old coach, they got stuck with Idzik because nobody else wanted the job. So we're supposed to believe that Rex was toxic to GM candidates, but a highly regarded candidate wanted to take the job with Gase? The only thing Douglas was good at was working his media connections to write puff pieces about him, which is of course what he did when he got fired because it's the only skill he has.
