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According the New York Post, a source close to Woody Johnson after the Jets loss to Carolina said the owner’s “not happy.”
What’s he unhappy about?
He signed for this.
Johnson’s clearly on board with starting a rookie quarterback who’s not ready, thinking he’s going to get the kinks out by playing in games.
“We’ve got a young quarterback, who is very, very talented,” Johnson said a week ago. “He’s learning so much… I think you’ll see him get better and better and better.”
Is he getting “better and better?’
It’s hard to see that, and Johnson doesn’t know if that is going to happen. He can’t see the future. I don’t mean that to be disrespectful, just keeping it real. None of us can see the future.
Once again, I don’t blame Geno for his struggles. I blame those who put a super-raw quarterback, who really needed a year or two to sit and learn, and refine his technique (his footwork is terrible, and contributes to a lot of high throws) and ability to read defenses (he telegraphs an awful lot, staring down his first read).
“Geno Smith has been a turnover machine,” said Dan Dierdorf yesterday.
So if it’s true that Johnson isn’t happy, he’s partly to blame.
He claimed last week, “At the end of the day, you want to give players the opportunity to win, which is what I think we’re doing.”
It’s very hard to concur with that claim.
How are you giving your players the opportunity to win, when you are starting five rookies, and four aren’t ready?
Sheldon Richardson is the only one ready for prime-time.
The other four have hurt the club’s “opportunity to win,” throughout the season.
Brian Winters had another rough outing in Charlotte.
Once again, not the fault of any of these guys. It’s on their bosses, forcing them into action too quickly.
Mr. Johnson is no victim here.
He was on board with this youth movement.
He signed up for it.
And to me, this youth movement probably knocked the Jets out of playoff contention.
The Jets had an easy schedule.
They could have started a couple of rookie, not five, and grabbed a wild card spot.
They can run the ball, play decent defense (with a dominant defensive line) and have a placekicker who is money in the bank.
All they needed was game-manager on offense at quarterback – a Greg McElroy, a Brian Hoyer, one of those kind of guys, with a ball-control passing game sans a lot of picks. Let a guy like that hold-the-fort until Geno was ready.
Look, Rex is far from a perfect coach, but this hand that John Idzik (and Woody) dealt him this year wasn’t a good one.
Honestly, they have made him a victim, to a certain degree.
And if they fire him now, they are going to get ripped by many. The PR is going to be bad.
How did they expect him to win with a raw rookie starting at quarterback being backed up with a raw rookie signal-caller in a QB-driven league?
December 16, 2013
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