The Tank Debate

Edition #546

Good morning ☕

I hope everyone had an incredible Christmas. It's significantly more tiring as an adult, especially when you're hosting and have two young kids. I'm looking forward to getting back to work for a little break.

We'll get back into our flow over the coming days but today I just wanted to send a quick newsletter as we have a short week with Joe Flacco and the Cleveland Browns on deck. I also just wanted to address the great tank debate that rages every year on Twitter…X…Facebook.

Robert Saleh was asked why the Jets didn’t reach out to Flacco following the injury to Aaron Rodgers, considering they’d previously worked with him: "We love Joe, first and foremost. We spent a couple of years with him. Love him, love the way he prepares, really pumped for him with the success he's having. But it's just the decision we made, in terms of the quarterback room, the way we developed it over the course of OTAs and training camp. That was just the decision we made." Should the Jets have signed a better backup? I’d argue they should have done that in the off-season and they absolutely could have made it work with the cap. But Joe Flacco wouldn’t be having the same success with the Jets as he is with Cleveland based on the offensive line alone, but he’d certainly have offered more than Tim Boyle and now Trevor Siemian.

Robert Saleh was also asked about the roster construction in 2023: "When you have a Hall-of-Fame quarterback, you're going to build it around his strengths. Period. That's a very common thing throughout the league. It's not just a Jets thing. But could we have done things better? And I'm talking about myself and the coaching staff with regards to, 'All right, here's our worst-case scenario, now what?' Absolutely. And it's something that we'll make sure that we do a heck of a lot better with in '24." - So that’s basically the Jets admitting that they didn’t plan for the worst-case scenario, which is of course…Aaron Rodgers getting injured. We can almost guarantee that the Jets will be signing a better backup for 2024.

Talking of which, Trevor will get the start against Cleveland after Zach Wilson failed to clear concussion protocol. It’s a huge shame as the last three games would have given the Jets even more evaluation time, but they’ve had years and hundreds of practices to get a grip on who the real Zach Wilson is. When all is said and done, I expect the Jets will trade Zach this off-season.

Here is the full injury report and Cleveland has their entire roster listed. For the Jets Jeremy Ruckert will likely miss this week and Robert Saleh said that they were waiting to see how the day went before deciding if they need to sign a new kicker. Greg Zuerlein is having a Pro Bowl season, so he would be a big miss for the Jets.

Aaron Rodgers was asked about his roster spot on the Pat McAfee show and he confirmed that he had requested to remain on IR so as not to take someone’s roster spot. Nick Bawden was waived to make space for Rodgers, but that was completely procedural. Bawden was re-signed as soon as he cleared waivers. Some tried to use this as an example that Rodgers was selfish, which was a bit ridiculous. Now it’s been revealed the Jets overruled Rodgers, which is nice to hear they’re willing to do that. Maybe when Rodgers speaks in favour of signing some more of his mates, the Jets will overrule that too.

Robert Saleh was asked to reflect on his time as the Jets HC considering he’s now been confirmed as the coach next year: "It's been a grind. Everybody closes their eyes and imagines success right away, but we knew there was going to be a process. Obviously, we all felt great coming in this year with all the expectations and hype that's around the football team -- and that was awesome. "It hasn't gone the way we obviously wanted, but it doesn't mean that the goal of winning championships is over. I still think we've got a really good football team. I've said it before: I think we've built a championship roster. There's a lot of things that we've learned through adversity over the last three months since Aaron's injury that will help us." - I’m not sure I agree they’ve built a championship roster, they’ve built a championship defence, championship special teams and brought in a championship QB…but the offence is not an Aaron Rodgers away from being a championship offence.

Here is the draft order with two games to go. The Jets have a 62% chance of receiving a top-10 pick, but any chance of a top-5 pick has largely disappeared. According to ESPN, the Jets now have a 0.8% chance of picking 1-5. This brings me nicely to the main theme of today’s post.

This is a conversation that I have on a yearly basis. Usually, the Jets are eliminated with 3-6 games to go, so you’re left with a decision to make and I want to hear your thoughts on this.