New York Jets proprietor Woody Johnson made some headlines on Tuesday by offering some support for head coach Aaron Glenn, whereas additionally throwing his workforce’s quarterback and massive free-agent acquisition — Justin Fields — beneath the workforce bus for his or her 0-7 begin.
It’s the kind of factor you don’t usually hear from an proprietor, particularly simply seven video games right into a season.
Make no mistake, the Jets’ quarterback state of affairs is a giant drawback.
The Glenn experiment may additionally be an issue given how little progress the workforce has constituted of Week 1 to Week 7, and the way Tyrod Taylor didn’t actually enhance issues when he entered the sport on Sunday. It looks like it should be a one-and-done situation here with the pinnacle coach.
The Jets have lots of issues, once more, however the greatest drawback of all of them is the person that retains pointing the finger at everyone else within the group. It is Johnson. He is the issue, regardless of how a lot he tries to maintain passing the buck on to different folks.
Johnson stays widespread denominator via years of failure
There’s a purpose dangerous groups that stay dangerous are at all times in that place. The rationale normally resides on the prime of the group. The Jets are exhibit A for the way this occurs.
Johnson initially bought the Jets in January 2000, and has owned the workforce ever since. Within the 25 years since his buy, the Jets have had simply 9 profitable seasons, six playoff appearances, 5 10-win seasons, one division title, no seasons with greater than 11 wins (a mark they reached one time) and 0 Tremendous Bowl appearances.
The furthest they reached was back-to-back AFC Championship video games in 2009 and 2010 beneath former head coach Rex Ryan and quarterback Mark Sanchez.
That isn’t lots of success. For those who have a look at it from a collective, big-picture viewpoint, the Jets’ 174 common season wins beneath Johnson’s possession are twenty sixth out of 32 NFL groups. Their six playoff wins are nineteenth, whereas their 12 complete playoff video games are solely twenty fourth.
They haven’t really appeared in a playoff sport since their most up-to-date AFC Championship look in 2010. A 15-year playoff drought within the NFL is sort of unthinkable given the parity of the league and the way the system is ready as much as assist groups quickly enhance.
The Jets haven’t been capable of determine it out.
Underneath Johnson’s possession the Jets have had 9 totally different head coaches, together with three that caught round for 3 years or much less. They’ve had seven totally different basic managers, 26 totally different quarterbacks begin at the least one sport and 10 totally different quarterbacks begin at the least 10 video games. That features 4 totally different quarterbacks taken within the first spherical (Chad Pennington, Sanchez, Sam Darnold and Zach Wilson) and three extra taken within the second spherical (Christian Hackenberg, Geno Smith and Kellen Clemens).
Aside from some temporary flashes of success with Pennington and Sanchez, all of them failed in New York. A few of them (Smith and Darnold) went on to seek out extra success after leaving the Jets.
The purpose right here is that the scapegoats maintain altering.
It is at all times a unique head coach that’s the drawback, a unique basic supervisor, a unique quarterback. All the primary figures within the group maintain altering and taking the autumn for the workforce’s failures aside from the one particular person on the prime that’s in the end accountable for all placing all of them into place.
Johnson has not solely confirmed he’s incapable of choosing the right folks to guide his group, he has additionally merely created a dropping tradition and dropping atmosphere.
Dropping breeds losers, and that’s all of the Jets have recognized beneath Johnson’s watch. No head-coaching change, basic supervisor change or quarterback change goes to repair that so long as he’s making the choices and setting the tone.
They’ll do away with Justin Fields, they’ll hearth Aaron Glenn they usually can draft one other quarterback on the prime of the draft. They’ll do all the identical issues they’ve stored doing for 25 years and counting. They usually can even watch the outcomes all keep the identical. They’ll additionally watch all of these folks go away for a greater group and discover extra success.
