32 Comments

First of all , Congrats on a safe flight, kudos to the kids. My tolerance for flying is about 9 hours, anything after that is just excruciating. Can’t calculate your total trip time, but this is a daunting trip. If you can share any prep tips, for this epic journey it would be appreciated.

It’s all good with Zach, the toxicity has left the building. We have turned the page, we obtained a little CAP space, utilized one of our comp picks ( first time in a long time ), made day three of the draft a little more interesting with a new and improved sixth round pick. It’s all good.

Zach has a new home, gets support from the old BYU fan base, has an Offensive Head Coach, that coaches hard, will make Zach or break him. Sean Payton doesn’t baby his QB’s. It’s a great opportunity for Zach, but he has to make the roster in September. It will be interesting to see the number of starts/wins of Wilson with the Broncos, Darnold with the Vikings, and Smith with the Seahawks. Okay , on to the draft

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hey David! Enjoy the cold Brew! and when you come back, fly through the US up here in Jet Nation land, and come visit the Temple that is the Great Air Conditioner known as MetLife Stadium hahaha!

excellent summary of Zach; wish him well, glad he's gone; can't wait for the team to get to work, and one less distraction for the ny media shark tank to gnaw on when the news roll is on a slow day...

CGVet

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There are many reasons why Zach failed. There are a few people who contributed to this , Zach included. At this point, we have heard every reason ad Infinitum, no use to hear it again.

Zach terrible tenure with the Jets started three months before he was drafted.

JD, with about 20 plus years of NFL front office experience when interviewing Saleh should have insisted that Saleh bring in a veteran OC who had a reputation for developing young quarterbacks. I’m sure JD knew that either Darnold or a drafted rookie would be the future supposed star franchise quarterback.

In letting, Saleh bring in his best friends kid brother was the start of a losing situation. If he needed an OC he was familiar with, how about present day Dolphin coach Mike McDaniel who was on the Niner staff. He might be young but he sure is innovative.

You want to argue that Knapp was the quarterback whisperer, fine, but Jets fans really had no knowledge of his accomplishments.

Unfortunately he was killed in a tragic auto accident while bicycling but if he was deemed so important why didn’t they try to replace him.

Why was it important for Zach to start immediately. Saleh had a year or two grace period.

One other problem with the Jet organization is their propensity for always hiring defensive coaches as HCs. Since 2000, Groh, Edwards( never a coordinator), Mangini, Rex, Bowles and Saleh. To show their lack of offensive knowledge, these coaches have hired a clock coach for two minute warnings, a timeout coach, probably a throw the red flag coach and of course let’s get a good dam snack coach.

Not one of these coaches had true experienced veteran OCs aside from Groh who had Dan Henning.

Calling Gase an excellent OC is a joke. While Hackett is attached to Rodgers hip, Gase had Peyton Manning’s play book minus Manning during his disastrous tenure. Yet, Clueless Chris Johnson proclaimed him offensively BRILLIANT.

Mike McCagnan is the worst GM in Jet history, please don’t argue Idzik was. Idzik had one year of scouting, Mr Coffee at least 25.

For all of his shortcomings, he let Matt Rhule walk away from the Jets HC job, thank god.

The reason, Mr Coffee with a young Sam Darnold on his roster, insisted when interviewing Rhule that the Jet organization have say who Rhule’s OC should be, it was a deal breaker.

I don’t know if McCagnan or anybody in the Jet organization back then was up to the task. But in principle, Mr Coffee was 100% right.

Just an update, The Official NY Jets Draft Day TV remotes are flying off of the shelves. You can still receive it overnight air for tomorrow nights possible throw-a-thon when either a defensive lineman or cornerback is chosen by the Jets.

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You're spot on regarding the difference between Idzik and Maccagnan. For the atrocious roster that Idzik put on the field, he was 100% in the business of cutting the fat from an old, past its prime, bloated roster. He, technically, did that. That draft class, though, was the face plant of all face plants. I'd throw a fair amount of blame on late-stage Rex for some of that. I got the impression there was a bit of a struggle for authority between Idzik and Rex.

Regarding the difference between McDaniel and LaFleur; they were, actually, on the same career path at that point. LaFleur was the passing game coordinator and McDaniel was the running game coordinator. There's a little bit of hindsight at work there, is all I'm saying. It's suggested that the only reason LaFleur was hired was because he was the brother of Saleh's friend. That relationship mattered, of course, but LaFleur was the passing game coordinator of a pretty good offense, and was coming over with the offensive line coach he'd just spent a few years working with. I wonder what LaFleur and Saleh thought of decision to take Zach Wilson. Those discussions would've been interesting to have heard, at the time.

Also...Matt Rhule can shove it.

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David, I'm glad that you arrived safely and that your children were on their best behavior. Enjoy that beautiful tropical paradise and the Bintang! Will look forward to your take on the draft.

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Good summary. Jets save a little money and Denver gets a low cost option. Joe D does a better job of selling than buying. BTW, the move up by 50 spots so late in the draft is a smoke screen —- sounds nice but it’s worth no more than $100k.

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My issue is not this trade, it is what the ZW tenure revealed about back office ineptitude.

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In the immortal words of Bart Scott, ‘can’t wait’ to see Zach succeed with an offensive coach that knows how to develop QB’s.

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Good morning gentlemen! Big Ron late to the party as usual.😂 OK, let’s go. Happy for Zach. His time here was disappointing to pretty much everyone including himself. Personally I never liked the pick but had hoped to be proven wrong. Moving on the whole play the rookie QB immediately thing seemed to be the trend and I think it started in Seattle when the Seahawks after bringing in Matt Flynn from GB saw rookie QB Russell Wilson steal the job. Pete Carrol’s no dummy and saw how having a QB on an inexpensive rookie contract gave Seattle the opportunity to load up at other positions. Dallas had Dak on his rookie deal and for me I think that opened the door to make playing the rookie the trend. So I can’t blame the Jets for trying to join the party. The failure was more about the team’s infrastructure at the coaching positions and the poor roster construction. I don’t think there’s a WR from those Darnold teams that’s still in the league.

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Good morning, Ron. I can blame the Jets for being a copycat, instead of thinking for themselves, and realizing, as they should have, that 1) if they were going to have a rookie HC, OC, and QB Coach that they never should have drafted a QB, they should have traded down; and 2) for starting a rookie QB who had no veteran mentor, who had bad footwork/fundamentals, and for not designing the offense around what he did well. Instead of playing to his strengths and trying to hide his deficiencies, they just took the normal force a square peg into a round hole approach and tried to make a pocket QB out of him. I loved JD up until the time I realized how many absolutely stupid and horrible decisions he made in hiring Saleh, drafting and then handling Zach. I could even forgive him for not realizing that Zach was immature, perhaps a spoiled mama's boy, and maybe not mentally tough or sharp enough to handle playing QB in the northeast. After all, that was during Covid, and there weren't all the in-person visits that normally happen.

I wish Zach well, and if we're going to be stuck with JD, I hope to hell that he has learned a LOT these last 3-4 years and we'll see a much better and smarter JD going forward.

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I'm sure there'll be plenty of his mother's friends to bang in Denver.

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I hope that that incident didn't really happen, but if it did, that may be at the crux of his problems. He may be focusing on enjoying the celebrity of being an NFL QB, the money and the babes, rather than working on fixing his flaws and getting better. I hope not for his sake, but he wouldn't be the first "pretty boy" QB who blew his career. In college he was a hard worker, gym rat, and film junkie, but it seems to me he did a 180 in the NFL. Hopefully, I'm wrong.

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Yeah, no doubt the Zach situation was badly mishandled. I would have kept Sam, drafted Penea Sewell or Jamar Chase. I always wondered how Robert Saleh felt about Micah Parsons. Looking back I think MLF actually tried to Taylor the offense to Zach’s talent. But he was reckless with the football and after he was injured and than benched they turned him into a game manager. That helped his completion percentage but he threw only one or two TD’s and was throwing for about 100 yards a game. But you’re right, the Jets totally screwed him up!

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I think that early on, MLF perhaps did try to tailor the offense to Zach, as he was calling for a lot of deep shots, and trying to exploit weaknesses in the opposing secondary. The problem was that Zach wasn't ready for that. Very few rookies are ready to do that in their first few games in the NFL, maybe none. IMO it just points out how clueless MLF was. Also, you may be right about Zach being reckless, as he was a bit of a gunslinger, but I think it could also be a matter of trusting his arm too much and not adapting quickly to the faster, better DBs in the NFL and his confusion in reading the D at times.

Zach didn't help himself with his immaturity/insecurity, not accepting/dealing with things, not taking responsibility for his screwups, and perhaps not working hard enough on his footwork and on reading NFL Ds.

I'd like to think that if Zach had been drafted by Shanahan or Andy Reid or a few other OCs in the NFL, that things would have gone very differently for him, but perhaps not. Even though I believe that the Jets botched every single thing in the way they handled him, I think he caused a lot of his own problems, and the bottom line is that his play sucked most of the time. The Jets' situation was totally not right for him, and he wasn't right for the Jets, not with his issues and the Jets planning to start him day one.

He'd better grow up quickly with Payton or he'll be out on his ass and looking for an arena-league, CFL or some other league to try to rehabilitate/save his football career. He needs to realize that even though he's very talented, that will only take one so far in the NFL. He has to become disciplined and work harder than he did in college, and quit focusing on having fun.

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Well said! No argument from me on any of these points. I think MLF reigned him in to protect him from the ire he was getting from the fan base fueled by the media! I think maybe he went to far being overly conservative! It was hitching a thoroughbred race horse to a milk cart! Totally stifled and creative ability the kid had!

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Receivers still in NFL that caught passes from Darnold

Berrios

Crowder

If you want to count tight ends, the following are still possible active

Griffin

Tomlinson

Wesco

Herndon

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Bobber, like I said he had little to nothing to work with. I would have liked to see Sam with MLF. Garrett Wilson and Isiah Moore and Conklin as well.

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Sam Darnold's targets by year:

2018 - Robbie Anderson, Chris Herndon (TE), Jermaine Kearse, Quincy Enunwa, Isaiah Crowell, Bilal Powell

2019 - Jamison Crowder, Le'Veon Bell (UGHHHH), Robbie Anderson, Demaryious Thomas, Ryan Griffin (TE....who?)

2020 - Jamison Crowder, Breshad Perriman, Braxton Berrios, Chris Herndon (TE), Denzel Mims, FRANK GORE?!?!?!

Robbie Anderson was such a bum. Quincy Enunwa's neck was made of paper mache. Le'Veon Bell essentially stole money from the Jets. I suppose Chris Herndon never worked out, huh? Frank Gore is old. The Jets are good at signing really tiny wide receivers (Crowder, Coles, Moss, Chrebet, etc.)

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Yeah, there were others not listed here as well like Hogan the LaCross player and a couple other stiffs! The Jets seem to have a thing for guys that have either failed elsewhere or on the wrong side of 30! We have had more than our share of has been that never were!😂

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Look at the total history of top QB draft picks few of them meet the hype and expectations. Zack didn’t do himself any favors but the Jets never set him up for any kind of success. I wish him well, it’s good for him and the Jets that he is gone and now I think he and least has a fighting chance to revive his career. The Jets still have a hole to fill at the position and the future can’t be forgotten because we have AR. Maybe we can get lucky like the Niners and find a gem in later rounds of the draft. The Goat wasn’t a first round pick.

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and of course Denver is coming to Metlife...... Have a good trip David !

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This is another Jets failure. Amazed nobody is taking notice of the pattern of the failure to develop Sanchize, Geno, Sam and now Zach. Each had tremendous talent and potential and were completely underserved by the owner, coaches, media and fan base in NY. Frankly I am disgusted by the way these young QB’s are put on a pedestal and thrown into the fire, and then torn apart when they don’t have immediately success. Extraordinary immaturity. I pity the next poor soul to walk on that stage as the Jet QB high draft pick. Where is that story?

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Are you related to Zach Wilson, or something? Some of these posts seem pretty personal

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I’m related to all Jet fans that are sick and tired of mishandling young high draft pick QB’s.

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Douglas, when you say no one is taking notice I assume you mean the PIC’s? ( People in charge) The fans on this site are very much aware of the eternal incompetence.😂

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JetOrange, Ron and any others who really like Fautanu, I just saw that one of Fautanu's knees has been red flagged. It doesn't say which knee or what the problem is, but says it shouldn't be a problem in the short term, but could be a problem long term. Albert Breer reported it. Here's a link to SI that talks about it: https://www.si.com/nfl/steelers/pittsburgh-steelers-troy-fautanu-flagged-medical-concerns

Would that change your mind about taking Fautanu? I think it would keep me from taking him at #10, I'm not sure about #15. Maybe Fuaga would be the way to go.

Another thought would be maybe trading down further and taking Guyton. I really like his potential, but don't know how long it would take for him to be ready to play. He supposedly has instincts and sees things that players with as little experience as he shouldn't see, so maybe he could be ready to play this year.

Thoughts?

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These Tackles are close, medicals are huge

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Any broken remote controls or TVs?????

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While there was little tangible difference in Zach's actual stats between years 1-2 and year 3, to me they are two verry different records. While Zach had terrible coaching and below average support in 2021-22, he had to take the big chunk of the blame for those years, given his immaturity and severe mechanical failures, which would have severely hampered him anywhere. However, 2023 was a whole different ballgame. Grounding a 3-yd pass behind the LOS, which occurred on every other play in 2021-22, was almost non-existent. He no longer ran backwards regularly, did not abandon the pocket prematurely, rarely made wildly inaccurate throws, and was far more able to set plays and go thru progressions. The utter inability to get first downs and sustain drives, let alone score TD's was far more the result of protection that would fail against a college varsity DL, the most unprepared and ineptly coordinated OL in the entire NFL (repeatedly unable to block even with 6 OL against 4 DL), receivers 2-5 that did not deserve to start on an average college team, destructive and ill-timed penalties, and the worst offensive design and play calling in the entire NFL, bar none. IMHO, there is a reasonable possibility that even a world-class QB like AR would have been barely average under those conditions. Expecting a 23-yr old with minimal experience and a world of pressure on his shoulders to succeed under these conditions was praying for a biblical miracle. Given all that, and the significant personal and field growth shown by Zach in 2023, I think there is a better than even chance that Zach can have a productive and winning season in Denver this very year, if he is given an average supporting cast.

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From Ron Alexander

Yeah, everyone has an excuse/reason Zach failed here! Bottom line is at the end of the day talent will always prevail. The QB position is probably the most difficult in any team sport to master! Less than 1% achieve the ultimate prize! A Super Bowl victory! Kudos to the ultimate champions like Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes! As for Zach while it’s not all on him he just failed the biggest QB test; Consistency! There is an endless list of NFL QB’s that have had their shinning moments in the sun! Only to fail miserably the very next week! Unfortunately that’s Zach in a nutshell! Yes he had some great highlights but far too little consistent production!

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Interesting article from Daniel Jeremiah. I guess he doesn't see Fautanu as an OT, or maybe dropped him due to the knee thing.

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10118321-daniel-jeremiah-everyone-is-eying-2024-nfl-draft-trade-to-take-ot-in-1st-round

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