Joe Douglas: 4 Years On

Edition #406

Good morning!

I hope my New York readers managed to avoid the smoke this week, some of the images I saw looked apocalyptic in nature.

We made it to another weekend, which means we’re one step closer to the football season. Although most Jets players are probably jetting off somewhere tropical as we speak.

A little bit of personal news. I’ve just joined the staff over at Last Word on Sports to cover the NFL. Any Jets work I do I’ll make sure to link it here. Unless he signs elsewhere before, there will be a piece with my thoughts on the Jets signing Dalvin Cook on there today, so keep your eyes peeled.

The Jets decided to release free safety Will Parks yesterday. Parks appeared in over 200 snaps last year for the Jets on defense and played admirably, he was also a good contributor on special teams. It could be the Jets are looking to add more of a coverage safety considering they signed Chuck Clark earlier this off-season, or they could be opening a spot on that 90-man roster for someone else, say a certain former Vikings. It’s interesting timing considering they canceled minicamp next week, so there’s no rush to fill that vacant roster spot.

Chris Simms dropped Aaron Rodgers from 5th to 8th on his QB index this off-season, calling the Jets QB too conservative: “Way too conservative for the talent he has. nobody in the top 10 left more yards, and plays, on the field than Aaron Rodgers… He’s still got an awesome arm. He’s a special thrower, there’s no question about that. He probably has the quickest release in football, I think. It’s certainly in that conversation. But he had the worst year of his career. I mean there’s no doubt, I think, in denying that. And that’s where I want more from him. He has an elite arm still, and he’s not taking advantage of it,” Rodgers takes what his offense provides and the defense allows. In the two years prior to last season, he threw for over 8,400 yards and 85 touchdowns, I’m not sure I’d call that conservative football.

PFF had the Jets ranked right at the top of their list of teams who are most likely to go from worst to first saying: “The Jets came in at No. 4 on Buday's list in February but made the biggest upgrade at the most important position when they traded for Aaron Rodgers. The four-time MVP's 77.5 PFF grade last year was the second-lowest of his career, but no Jets quarterback has surpassed that mark since PFF began grading in 2006. The Bills and Dolphins will make winning this division tough, but the Jets finally have the signal-caller to help them do it.”

This week marked the four-year anniversary of the hiring of Joe Douglas, and I couldn’t be happier with the direction of the franchise.

Let’s get the ugly stat out of the way straight away. Over the four years that Joe Douglas has preceded over football operations as General Manager of the Jets, Gang Green has won just 20 games. So an average of 5 games per season. This means they’ve lost 46 games, failing to even sniff the playoffs.