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Before I get to one of biggest blockbusters of the off-season, I want to touch on something else briefly.
You are going to read stories this week telling you which players the Jets are focused on at the combine.
I would suggest ignoring them.
Why?
Because the Jets will be focused on every player at the combine, yes, even the quarterbacks.
That is the job of Mr. Coffee and has staff – to focus on every player there. That is what good personnel departments do.
You evaluate all the prospects in the draft, and then as you get closer to your draft, you whittle down your value board in your war room to a few hundred player you have the highest internal grades on, and then stack them based on your value system.
No, they don’t do what some in media claim they should do and focus on certain prospects, like for instance pass rushers like Kentucky’s linbacker Josh Allen or defensive lineman Quinnen Williams.
No, that isn’t how it works. They are focusing on everyone.
So ignore these stories that always come out around this time of the year.
Because they don’t make sense . . .
There was a blockbuster from the Daily News last week, one of a few they had last week, claiming the Jets have “massive buyer’s remorse” for giving cornerback Trumaine Johnson, a five-year, $72.5 million with $26 million upfront.
To be able to get that out of One Jets Drive is a tour-de-force from a journalistic standpoint.
Who told him this? We have no idea. I talked to Mike Maccagnan for 20 minutes at the Senior, first at a coffee shop where we ran into each other. I know you are probably shocked that Maccagnan was in a coffee shop. And then we walked back to the Renaissance Hotel, the home base for all things Senior Bowl.
It was a very pleasant chat. It was off-the-record, but honestly, he really didn’t say anything newsworthy, even if it was on-the-record. And that is fine. He’s not a guy who “shows a lot ankle” to use a really hold expression.
So what is my point? The point is that he’s not the kind of guy whose going to tell a writer he has “buyer’s remorse,” especially one year into a five-year contract.
I hear his right-hand man Brian Heimerdinger isn’t a fan of this reporter, so I can assure you it wasn’t him.
And I’ve talked to Christopher Johnson on many occasions, and I can assure you he’s not the kind of guy who would say that kind of stuff.
And why would you want to humiliate a key player on your roster in his first off-season with the club.
So it’s quite possible this didn’t come from the building, and was just a case of the writer assuming they have “buyer’s remorse” because a cornerback, being paid a king’s ransom, played like a a cornerback making the veteran minimum, sans a couple of games (like the contest in Buffalo).
Jets have a big problem on their hands.
There’s a writer consistently writing like he’s knows the thinking of the people at One Jets Drive, and he does it ALL the time. It makes it look like they have a “lack of institutional control” as they say in the college sports.
Let me tell you something, if a writer wrote this kind of stuff about a team run by, let’s say Bill Polian or Lou Lamariello, where he claimed he knew what they were thinking with regularity, they would rip the writer a new one, and maybe revoke his credential.
It just seems to me the Jets are too dismissive of this problem as if to say, “That’s just the media, being the media.”
No, this is nothing like we have ever seen before.
February 25, 2019
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