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When the Tampa Bay Buccaneers became an NFL franchise, they hired USC HC John McKay.

Mckay was a very successful HC who was known for his morbid sense of humor.

At his hiring, he answered a question by saying it would take a 5 year plan to build a successful winning franchise.

The Buccaneers lost their first 26 games. A reporter asked McKay it seems your 5 year plan isn’t working. He responded, no problem, we will just start another 5 year plan.

He won the division title the following year.

Here lies the problem with the NY Jets under Woody Johnson.

Since he has owned the team, there have been 7 HCs, one division title and two AFC Championship games.

That’s a lot of failed 5 year plans.

This year is without a question of a doubt, the worst season in Jet history.

Based on the supposed talent, this was going to be the magical year. The year that would be remembered for years. It will be remembered for years but not for the reasons you think.

Rodgers the 40 year old quarterback plays just like a 40 year old quarterback. He is hurting and that has caused his skills to erode

Zuerlein is a 36 year old kicker who has kicked like a 46 year old kicker.

They cut 27 year old Austin Seibert in September. He was picked up by Washington, started kicking for them in the second game. He leads the NFL in field goals, he is 23 out of 25 plus has made all 19 of his extra points. Imagine where the Jets would be with him.

You just got to like Ulbrich’s quote about Zuerlein after the game. Ulbrich said he doesn’t regret sticking with his kicker.

Bye bye Brick, we hardly knew you, that quote should destroy your future HC interviews.

Why is Clemons still on this team. Why isn’t McGregor on the game day roster.

It would be total redundancy to point fingers at any coaches, players or Office staff at this point. We have seen it all, we have heard it all.

The problem lies with the one person who can’t get fired.

NFL expert Woody Johnson, until he sells or actually brings in a football man that has shown he knows what he is doing, this team is doomed.

One of the training camp surprises who won over the fans was Brandon Codrington who the Jets traded to Buffalo. We really don’t know how he felt being traded, but I will be willing that today he is ecstatic to be on the 6-2 FIRST PLACE BUFFALO BILLS.

By the way before yesterday’s game, he was averaging 10.7 a punt return, the Jets Gipson 5.75.

Lastly, a stock tip for any Torch and Pitchfork Brigade member who likes to dabble in the stock market.

Mayflower Van Lines, a professional moving company, their trucks will be causing traffic jams once the season is over in northern New Jersey.

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Hi, I have been a subscriber to David’s extremely well written blog for a while but have never once commented. The mess last night was the final straw. Bobber, you nailed it, Johnson has always been the problem, I am fed up with the coaches and players taking all the blame when all they have been set up to fail. The malaise preceded Douglas, Saleh et Al; as Bobber says it has been a downhill story since Johnson took over. Yet another primary donna, narcissist owner who thinks he knows better than the football guys. If you employ football guys then let them do their f*cking jobs, You don’t know better than they do. This whole fiasco with Rogers was forced upon Douglas and Saleh because Johnson wanted the attention, he’s a desperately sad media wh*re. By no means are Saleh and Douglas blameless but they should at least have been given the chance to do things the way they wanted otherwise why hire them? The litany of errors from Johnson is too long to go into here but this team will never win anything until he’s gone. Apologies for the language but it’s the build up of years of frustration!

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I hear u man as I am sure many others do as well.

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You're correct on nearly all points. McGregor, however, did get some run, as did Watts. I was excited to see those guys getting reps. The Clemons roughing the passer penalty was such a ticky tacky call, but he's got play more disciplined with his hands.

It's not particularly provable, but I think that Woody Johnson is more active than he'd want people to know in the day-to-day decisions. At least Chris was relatively hands off. These two are the epitome of what is wrong in today's America. They're a couple of overprivileged health-care scions who were born with multiple golden spoons in their mouths, and thus, have an absurdly overinflated idea of their competency. Hire a GM and let that person run the team. Don't meddle. He shouldn't be acting like Scooby and the gang. There is no need to play the meddling kids to the crotchety old amusement park owner. He's not qualified to make football decisions.

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Oct 28·edited Oct 28

As a fan you always have hope for your team. The jets have even taken that away for this fanbase. Therte is no hope. Not for this year nor for future years. Imagine if the kicker made all his FGs. The Jets would be 6-2 at worst 5-3. Does that get rid of the mind boggling "too much time" senarios, poor offenseive game plans, poor tackling, a defense that has become pourous, some of your best players regessig ? No it doesnt. Then everyone would be saying "thats the worse 6-2 ecord in the league - The Jets still stink - we can't win.

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Watching my Jets has been painful this season. I want to point out Woody's comment about the locker room responding to Jeff U. more than Robert S. because he'd 'been there (as a player)', intimating something so foolish (as we can now see with the defense JUST FAILING ) that that was a mistaken take. Both comments before mine include the 'you can't fire the owner' statement of fact, make me #3.

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It's more smoke to the idea about Saleh having never been the problem.

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David, u appropriately said they suck. It is truly painful watching these games. I think for the first time in what seems like forever I am going to skip the next game. What is going to happen unfortunately is they are going to win a few more games and then be in a middling draft position and not be able to draft the gud they wud probably like. And as Bobber said, unfortunately they can't fire the owner.

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Multiple General Managers, Multiple Coaches, Multiple QBs and nothing changes, that only leaves one thing The owner. I can’t even accurately express my utter disappointment and contempt I have for the Jets right now. Every year there is hope this year it was different, the hope was real not something we knew in the back of our minds would fade quickly as the games started. Maybe not the Super Bowl but a playoff run for sure. Now here we are I can’t even say SOJ this is worse, the product of the field has no semblance of a team or even look like they have any desire to win. David I love this forum and your writing but I can’t talk about the draft and next year for the next the next 6 months or speculate on who the next GM or coaching staff will be or who we think it will be. I can’t believe it will make any difference the product will remain the same, who would want the job anyway.

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One more thing - David you should post a chart of the salaries for the starters, cap hits, expiring, dead money etc. Then we cna see where they are going to trade to get pics and cap space or how bad this is going to be over the next few years.

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I get your point, can the future be any worse than what we have been going through.

I’ve said this a few times, the only curse is the Johnson’s ownership.

This franchise really needs a top notch football guy in the worse way.

Right now for Jet fans “ The Impossible Dream”

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Steve, the trade deadline is approaching but one has to be concerned selling low. The return on guys like Gardner, “Q”, Smith, Moses, Moseley and others might not be as good as we would hope for.

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They aren't going to unload all of their valuable pieces. A lot of the young guys are prohibitively cost-effective to trade. A GM with a plan can turn things around in a hurry. A sold gold bonus baby quarterback isn't even necessary to start turning things around. This team, with the actual talent in key spots, needs a steady hand and proper leadership unencumbered by a bumbling Mr. Magoo-like owner.

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There's no question about Woody's complete and total mismanagement of the franchise. He is where problem starts and finishes. But that doesn't give poor coaching and undisciplined player performance a pass. I was very much against the Rodgers debacle, and it has turned out exactly the way I thought it would. I hadn't anticipated last year's season-ending injury to St. Rodgers, but that just made the glaring deterioration we are seeing this season all the more potent. There were bad decisions and bad management up and down the entire franchise, which has led to an inevitable housecleaning once this disaster of a season is over. Now it's just a matter of running out the string. I feel that they should start Tyrod on Thursday night, as St. Rodgers is just physically and mentally done. All these little injuries have exacerbated the Achilles injury from last year and you can actually see where he is no longer what he was.

I saw on Fansided where they proposed the Jets trade Rodgers to somebody like Cleveland or Las Vegas, but I doubt anyone would take a flyer on that. He's just not even close to what he once was. I usually DVR the games and Jets Postgame so I can go back and look at things later, but I deleted everything yesterday as there is no longer any point. This season is pretty much done and there will be many changes, but the biggest change that needs to be made is the one that won't be made, and Wood Head will still be the owner. It will be interesting to see who the Jets try to tempt to come in and raise then franchise from the dead, lol. But that probably won't matter anyway.

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Ok, good morning guys. Just watched the Jets postgame show I had recorded after yesterday’s game. Couldn’t watch it last night because I simply couldn’t stomach it. Willie Colon was great with his comments. Anyone interested can go to SNY.com and watch it. It’s a damning indictment on this franchise and it’s on the money

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I clicked on the link, and receive a message that the website is under re-design and not reachable, but it also said "Singles of New York. LOL That doesn't sound like SNY to me.

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Thanks, google worked. I wish I hadn't found it with that long list of interviews where the players all basically said the same crap.

Thanks for the link to the Costello article.

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That’s weird. I got right in. Maybe just Google NY Jet post game show. If that doesn’t work maybe Audacy.com….

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Thanks, Ron!

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Hi David, something not mentioned is how CJ Mosley’s injuries impacted the D. He is the QB of the D. Like Rodgers, he makes adjustments after the call comes from Brich. Think back some years ago when he missed games and the D fell apart. We r seeing that now. Sherwood has been making tackles, but is he setting the line and the LBs like Mosley? There’s a huge difference between tackling at the line or in a gap vs 4-6 yards past the line. That’s what we see now. Mosley has lost a step but his value is huge on that D.

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This is a great thought! The ability of Sherwood to utilize his athleticism to cover sideline to sideline is valuable, but I suppose it's interesting to wonder what kind of impact the leader of the defense being sidelined has on this unit. I noticed that Chaz Surratt was getting a lot of snaps on Sunday, as well.

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Mornin' fellas!

I think most of the posters here understand that I wasn't exactly supportive of the Rodgers plan and was quite skeptical of the idea that this team was Super Bowl caliber. Rodgers is fine, but the negatives outweigh the positives at this point in his career. The audible heavy antics worked better when he was young, spry, and working in an offense that he'd been in for a decade (with teammates who had, also, been in the offense for a decade). It wasn't conducive to copy/pasting over the top of the existing Jets infrastructure, and it feels like that's exactly what they tried to do.

Instead of the patient, methodical route, they opted for a get-rich-quick fix and, unsurprisingly, it blew up in their face. Who exactly "they" is in this case is more difficult to ascertain. I'm of the opinion that there is a fair amount of Woody Johnson and his desire to have a star quarterback in the NYC market in this dumpster fire. Joe Douglas and Robert Saleh made their own unique contributions to this crappy team.

Douglas has built a pretty good scouting department that's done a good job of unearthing talent at a number of different positions. They've done a great job developing unheralded linebackers and defensive ends, revitalizing various JAG ("just a guy") defensive linemen, and finding diamond in the rough special teams aces. They've even hit on a number of their picks, be them first rounders or mid-rounders. The weakness, however, has been impatience along the offensive line, always seeming to opt for prohibitively priced and overvalued (based on name recognition) veterans in addition to the big mistake they could never recover from (the ENTIRE Zach Wilson saga...coaching choices, scouting choices, mentorship choices....just everything was bad). A lot of this infrastructure is still there. They just need a steady hand to refine the good parts and fix the bad parts.

Robert Saleh, on the other hand, developed a stellar defense with impeccable leadership on that side of the ball, a fast and violent playing style that was attractive to prospective players, and a tight-knit camaraderie that, given a league-average offense, could've made some noise. On the other hand, he fumbled the leadership infrastructure of his first shot at the offense (leaving the senior position on Mike LaFleur's staff unfilled, and as a result, leaving a huge friggin' void in the support system for his young impressionable quarterback), seemed averse to making changes to what wasn't working during the season (again....on the offensive side...), and developed a scary bit of paranoia last season that, likely, contributed to his weird and eventual fatal relationship with the unofficial GM (Rodgers). I don't think he ever lost the pulse of the majority of the locker room, but he clearly wound up in a power-struggle with Rodgers for ultimate leadership of this team. He made a ton of mistakes, but the Rodger-related ones were ultimately what lost him his job.

All of this is to say that Woody should sell the team and, maybe, go find a new hobby. Also, Saleh and Douglas weren't any less qualified from any number of other coach/GM combos who've come through the NFL. Leadership, however, was mandated from the top and this team was never allowed grow organically. I hope don't try to sell everything off. It isn't necessary. Rid themselves of Rodgers, Hackett, and that entire Rodgers-centric supporting cast, and this team could grow. That dude is a cancer and stunts the growth of a lock room.

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Second episode of Hard Knocks last year, Saleh let Rodgers take over the whole practice, Saleh was all smiles, he came a fan not a HC.

He didn’t realize that in the long run he was giving up his job.

No matter the denials, the man behind the curtain, The Woody of Oz, is pulling all the strings.

Supposedly Mangini was getting pissed about his interference, started to ignore him, next thing you know Mangini fired.

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David, I just read the link to the Costello article of the NY Post, and that stat with the Jets losing while holding the Pats to under 250 yards and having no TOs is worse. Here's what Costello posted:

"This is from Football Perspective – the Jets scored 20 or more points, committed no turnovers and held the Patriots under 250 yards. From 1940 until Sunday, teams were 756-0 when they hit those three metrics. The Jets snapped that streak."

756 teams managed to win those games! The Jets are the first to lose, and probably will be the ONLY team ever to lose in a situation like that. They are a complete and utter joke. We've all wasted our energy, time and lives rooting for this cursed franchise.

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I'll keep my reply short. As a fan, I re-installed X to get all the Jets stats and behind the scenes info again. I've uninstalled X again. It's just better this way.

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David, sorry that you were sick this weekend! I'm sure that the Jets made you even sicker. I feel sorry for you guys. I laughed when I saw the Jets had lost yesterday. I just laughed again when I saw the statistic that out of the 221 games since the Packers lost to the Seahawks 14-12, had no TOs and held the Seahawks to under 250 yards, and the Jets were the first team to lose in that span. The other 220 teams found a way to win. That is sooooooooooooo Jets. This team is cursed. I can't even get angry or upset about them any more. It's just more and more incredulous that any organization could be so inept for so long. The NFL really should put Jets fans out of their misery and fold the franchise. It's an embarrassment for the NFL, the city of New York, and to the game of football.

I'm sorry guys, but I'm at the point that as long as Woody Johnson owns the team, I hope that they NEVER win another game. Maybe if they go 0 for the next 51 games, Woody will become disgusted and tired of his "toy" and will sell. Then maybe there will be some hope for you guys. You deserve the best, and deserve to see the Jets win multiple Super Bowls after all of your years of suffering, but I truly believe that it will never happen as long as Woody owns the team, and may never happen because the team may be cursed. AFAIK, the Jets' lack of luck and just incompetence where everything turns to shit, is unheard of in professional sports. I'm not sure that there's even any amateur teams out there that have had the sting of ineptness and bad luck that the Jets have had.

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