The New York Jets are at rock bottom. Again.
When NFL teams struggle, oftentimes the blame is directed towards the quarterback, the head coach, or both.
But Gang Green’s problem is much larger than Aaron Glenn or Justin Fields. It goes all the way up to the top. Woody Johnson needs to sell the team.
In 2000, Johnson bought the Jets for $635 million using the money he inherited from his father’s mega corporation, Johnson & Johnson. Had it not been for nepotism, Johnson would never have been in this position. The team is currently valued at $6.9 billion. That means Johnson has profited 10 times what he paid for the team.
The Jets currently have the longest postseason drought in the NFL, dating back 15 years since their last appearance. A prominent coaching agent quoted in an ESPN article covering the 25th anniversary of Johnson buying the team said, “Woody can’t make a good decision.”
Glenn had zero NFL head coaching experience coming into this season. He has made highly questionable decisions, letting time expire on numerous occasions and going into halftime when the Jets had a chance to score. As recently as their Week 7 matchup against the Carolina Panthers, he chose to punt the ball away on what would surely be the Jets’ last chance to level the score in the game.
Instead, they dropped to 0-7.
“I like our fourth down plan,” Glenn said after that game. “It obviously didn’t work out. But yeah, I like our fourth down plan going into this game.”
There is a questionable level of inconsistency that the Jets would plan to go for a fourth down on the first possession of the game in field goal position, when Gang Green’s veteran kicker has yet to miss all season. Then, at the next two fourth-down junctures, Glenn elected not to run a play and punt the ball away. Mindboggling.
Some of these choices have been inconceivable given the team’s struggles this year. Glenn came in this year a defensive specialist, yet the Jets are yet to recover a fumble or interception all season.
Jets quarterbacks this season have been sacked a league-worst 31 times. Breece Hall, who was slated for a big year, is finally coming around at the halfway mark. He had struggled to find gaps and break out for many big runs this season until their dizzying Week 8 comeback win over the Cincinnati Bengals.
With Garrett Wilson out, there is a gaping hole in the quality of the team’s wide receiving corps. A major oversight in management. Lazard has struggled with staying healthy throughout his entire professional career, and everyone else is largely unproven at this level.
Yet Fields was benched at halftime in Week 7, then called out by Johnson to create a quarterback controversy that was only settled when Tyrod Taylor was unable to go in Cincinnati because of an ankle injury.
Taylor, the career backup, came on and threw two interceptions. Fields is yet to throw one all year. Tyrod Taylor has a worse QBR and completion percentage and is on pace to take the same number of sacks that Fields has taken this season. Giving up on New York Jets quarterbacks mid-season has never worked out. Geno Smith, Sam Darnold, and Rodgers have all flourished on their new teams.
“I understand the nature of the quarterback change. We needed a spark. I felt it was the right time to do it. It was my call,” said Glenn. “It has to be the mindset of our offense to not give up interceptions.” Glenn was referring to Taylor’s two picks, but failed to explain what Taylor has done this season or in his career to prove himself any better than Fields.
Has Fields played bad games? Sure. But let’s take a minute to analyze who he is working with. There are currently zero players on Fields’ offense who have ever made a Pro Bowl. Very few on this roster have made a playoff game in their NFL careers.
Johnson then had the audacity to come out and say his quarterback can’t complete a pass.
“It’s hard when you have a quarterback with a rating that he’s got,” Johnson said. I mean, he has the ability, but something just is not jiving.”
Newsflash, Woody: Fields has the most passing and rushing touchdowns on the team this year. Glenn sent away Aaron Rodgers, according to Rodgers himself, who claimed to have flown in from California for a meeting with the Jets about his future, only to find out that his exit from the organization was a foregone conclusion.
“I mean, literally, I’m talking to the GM about something — and he leans to the edge of his sheet and goes, ‘So do you want to play football?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m interested.’ And he said, ‘We’re going a different direction at quarterback,’
said Rodgers while describing the interaction on air with Pat McAfee. “Twenty seconds in. What I thought was gonna be a couple-hour meeting turned into like a 15-minute meeting, and I walked out of there. But yeah, that was a strange meeting, for sure.”
Rodgers has played well in Pittsburgh so far, has won a Super Bowl, and is a future Hall of Famer. If Rodgers said he was interested in staying and Johnson cast him away with Glenn, how can Johnson point the finger anywhere but at himself? The lack of accountability for decisions that Johnson has the final say on is an embarrassment. Jets quarterbacks have been scrutinized as long as I have been alive, and look where it has gotten this franchise.
