The Jets signing A would be AWESOME.
That move would strip them BARE.
It would leave them about ONE injury away from 6-10.
That's one way to look at it, OTG. But I do agree with those who say that having the #1 LCB and #1 RCB in the entire NFL will allow Rex Ryan to dial up more exotic schemes and a higher percentage of all out blitzes.
First of all, all of these 'experts' who said the NYJ were in cap hell were apparently wrong, or at least not as right as they thought they were. I recently saw that they were about 5-7 million over. A well respected poster told us this morning that they are only 1 million over. I suppose the answer likely lies somewhere in the middle, depending on how these sources are computing the numbers, but I had assumed it was way worse. Look at a team like Dallas, who is almost 20 million over the cap--I expected the NYJ to be somewhere closer to the 10 million over range, so it appears as though they may not be as bad at a lot of us once thought. With the cap creativity that they have, the stout defense, and now they are not only aggressively going after their own FA's, they are targeting highly qualified NFL vets to improve the team. To be completely honest, I can't see how retaining Holmes, and adding Asomaugh is considered 'a good thing' from a rival's standpoint.
Apparently, as I said in another thread, they are escaping cap hell every single yr in various forms, and banking on doing the same thing next yr. They are robbing Peter to pay Paul--so to speak, and we all assume that it will eventually catch up to them, and that very well may be true...but to WHAT extent, and exactly WHEN are 2 important questions. Will it be before or after they continue to make improvements? Will they make a strong run at an actual SB or two before they pay the piper? And to what extent, will they actually pay the piper? Considering that every yr their free agent needs change, along with an increased salary cap etc--will they continue to restructure and spread out bonuses over future yrs?
I'm not sure that I share the same "enthusiasm" as you do about it. Because any improvements may actually make them a decent team one of these days (even though I really don't consider them 'that' decent of a team right now). Added competition from the rival divisional team that has gone farther than us in 2 consecutive yrs is not too great to me---although I can respect your views, and you certainly have a point. You may very well be right, I am only thinking aloud, and wondering about a different angle.
To bottom line it---I am wondering if their creativity vs the cap isn't doing them a little better than we think, or give them credit for? It is, after all possible that they could continue to dodge cap hell by re-establishing their team, all the while giving Sanchez time to grow up/mature + keeping a very good defense. They may continue to have to make some tough decisions over the next few yrs, but I wonder if they will still field a very competitive team. One of the good posters here claims that he thinks the cap increases significantly around 2014 or so, and I wonder if they may get some relief from that rule too. One way or another, they are going to be competitive--at least in my opinion. I really don't want them to get Asomaugh at all. Many teams will try and figure out a gameplan to combat the lack of being able to throw at all, and I think they will just continue to adapt over the course of the yr. It seems to be tough enough right now to beat them, as we've only done in 2 times in the past 5, and I think this perceived move would make it even tougher.