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East Rutherford – Never understood why Joe Douglas traded Leonard Williams in October, 2019. Why wouldn’t you want to keep that guy around?
Williams had two sacks and a pick-six in the Seattle Seahawks win over the Jets.
Why wouldn’t you want this guy in your long-term plans? He’s a great player with tremendous character?
Strange personnel decision and there have been quite a few over the years, like another one in 2019, with placekicker Jason Myers, who was 2-2 on field goals today from 43 and 54.
Myers was named to the Pro Bowl after making 33 of 36 field goals for the Jets in 2018, and in the 2019 off-season, GM Mike Maccagnan decided to re-sign him.
Never got that one. Maccagnan was fired that spring, but that damage was already done, letting one of the game’s best kickers go, and they have had a revolving door at the position every since.
If the Jets ever want to right their ship, they need to change how their football operation is structured.
They need to end the separation of powers approach where the GM just focuses on picking the players and the coach just focuses on coaching the team with both reporting to the owner equally. It’s not working anymore.
They need to do what the Denver Broncos did with Sean Payton and the Los Angeles Chargers did with Jim Harbaugh – hire them, and let them be the football czar, the one central figure where the buck stops with all football decisions.
You still have a GM. The Broncos have George Paton and the Chargers have Joe Hortiz, and those guys still run the college scouting and pro personnel departments, but all final decisions are made by Payton and Harbaugh. Look how those teams are doing this year.
That was set up in New England with Bill Belichick for 24 years and they won six Super Bowls.
You hire a big-time coach, maybe like Mike Vrabel, and throw him the car keys. Yes, he would still have a GM, but there will be no doubt who is in charge.
And the Jets had this set-up briefly at the end of Leon Hess’ tenure as owner with Bill Parcells, and they fixed their culture and went to an AFC Championship.
If Woody and Christopher want to fix this once for all – this is what they need to do . . .
The decision to demote Nathaniel Hackett and make Todd Downing the play-caller continues to make the Jets offense dysfunctional.
Hear me out. I’m not making Hackett into Sean McVay or Don Coryell as a play-caller. I’m not.
But if you are going to run Hackett’s playbook, why not let Hackett do it? When Todd Downing was the OC in Tennessee, he had his playbook.
This offense is out of sorts and often have issues lining up.
In their loss at New England, they had to burn three timeouts in the FIRST QUARTER.
“This team is in disarray. 1:37 left in the first quarter and you are out of timeouts,” said Pats radio analyst Scott Zolak after the third timeout was called.
Against the Seahawks, early in the fourth quarter, they were called for delay of game – they couldn’t get lined up properly before the play clock ran out.
Then on the Jets’ last drive of the game, wide receiver Davante Adams and Garrett Wilson were called for an illegal formation.
This is ridiculous.
You are in December, and coming off a bye-week, and you can’t even line up properly?
The decision to demote Hackett was a case of listening to social media and pandering to the public.
If you wanted to fire him after the season, go for it, but don’t demote him in-season, and have somebody else run his offense. You are asking for trouble, especially when you add a new #1 or #1A receiver in season in Davante Adams, which also has thrown a monkey wrench into this offensive operation.
Yes, Adams still has a lot of talent. Yes, Adams makes some nice plays at times. But after three years apart, it seems like the Rodgers-Adams combo is often not on the same page this season. Today Rodgers threw to Adams a team-high 12 times, completing just five of those passes.
This offense is a dysfunctional mess right now, and a big part of that was demoting Hackett.
If you want to run Hackett’s offense, let Hackett call the plays, not Downing, who had a different playbook in Tennessee.
December 1, 2024
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