Are the Jets Tanking?

[stinkypete]

I sincerely hope the Jets are tanking, because they can't possibly tell any self-respecting fan that they are trying to compete.

 

[reflexblue]

I sincerely hope the Jets are tanking, because they can't possibly tell any self-respecting fan that they are trying to compete.

Question, how would anyone tell if the jest are tanking or just playing like the jest usually do?

 

[JetFan79]

I sincerely hope the Jets are tanking, because they can't possibly tell any self-respecting fan that they are trying to compete.

We're Jet fans. Self respect went out the window a long time ago.

 

[JetFan79]

I don't think that's totally fair or accurate to Arizona. The Cardinals had a terrible start to the season and failed to execute on opportunities throughout the season, but they were a very balanced team that was playoff-worthy.

They finished with the #6 offense, #14 on D, and an expected win total of 9.4 based on point differential of +56, the 4th-highest point differential in the NFC. Their record in close games hurt them (3-5-1 in one-possession games), but a few kicks against us and the Seahawks would have put them in contention with the Lions for the wild card, one game back from Seattle.

They were a far superior team to Houston, who went 9-7 despite a -49 point differential. They clearly benefited from being in a ****ty division. Miami and Buffalo meanwhile seemed to finish opposite of where they should have. The Bills finished 10th in offense, 16th in defense, and outscored their opponents by 21 points. The Lolphins finished 17th in offense, 18th in defense, and got outscored by 17 points. Yet somehow Buffalo won only 7 games, while Miami won 10.

As for tanking, I understand why teams think it will work. I just can't think of an example where it worked. There are supposedly two benefits of tanking: you get an elite player you couldn't get without sucking, and you get them at a reduced rate for 4 or 5 seasons.

But even in the NBA, where the benefit of one player is magnified, the last team to win a championship with the #1 pick overall on their rookie contract is the Spurs with Tim Duncan. That team was a solid group that finished near the bottom due to injuries. Adding Duncan to a very good team that also got a healthy David Robinson back was almost unfair.

The thing is to get a top pick, you either have to be absolutely atrocious as a team, terribly unlucky with injuries, or terribly lucky with a trade for a draft pick. In 2o f those 3 scenarios, you may not necessarily be a bad team. But when you tank, you need a really really really REALLY bad team. So even if you win the pick, then your #1 pick is still stuck with a bad team. You need to be able to upgrade all the other spots as well, and that takes time, which often takes so long that it exceeds the second advantage of having a player on a reduced rate contract.

Teams that tend to benefit from that scenario are those that fall into the pick through bad injury luck or good trade luck. The Colts and Luck have been cited as an example of tanking, but that was a team that went to the Super Bowl 2 years prior. They went 10-6, then Manning missed a year and they collapsed, but they still had a ton of good players remaining.

It's also rarer in football for the #1 player to be the best player. So the potential benefit of tanking is also reduced. And the potential impact one player can make is much less than basketball. On the bright side for football, the franchise tag guarantees they can keep a player for a while longer once they find him, even if they don't want to stay. Imagine if Oklahoma could have just franchised Durant.

What the Jets are doing is downgrading like 20 spots in hopes of getting that #1 pick, but they still need to add talent even if they do win the pick. Otherwise they might end up with a David Carr-type scenario where he gets massacred. It will take them 4 or 5 seasons to try and get enough quality players back on the roster to even become competitive.

And that's assuming they don't **** up the pick. But again, this is the Jets. Or maybe the pick will be good, but the total incompetence throughout the roster will affect their development like I believe has happened in Jacksonville up to this point. But to this point, I have not seen a team tank and benefit tremendously from it, and the Jets will be an interesting case.

I was (and I think many others were as well) expecting Arizona to be a legit top team last season, and instead they opened the season horribly.

Houston, yeah... lol, as much as I despised ****zpatrick, Houston made me feel OK about the Jets QB situation.

As far as benefitting from tanking, Indi is a perfect example. I'd kill for a Luck type QB. Especially now! I mean you mention the NBA as a sport where one guy can make a huge difference, but I think the biggest difference maker in sports today is an NFL QB. With all the rule changes to help the passing game and protect the QB, I can't think of a more valuable position now.

If you find a good young QB, you're now possibly set for 20+ years! Now I prefer 80s football with more hitting and less importance placed on the QB, but if these are the rules, I'm OK with the Jets doing whatever is needed to get a QB.

Tank a season? Fine. Trade 5 years worth of 1st and 2nd round picks... fine. Whatever it takes.

In today's game, if you don't have a QB, you're not gonna win. It's that simple. And if you have a QB, you'll always at least be competitive.

 

[convertedpatsfan]

I was (and I think many others were as well) expecting Arizona to be a legit top team last season, and instead they opened the season horribly.

Houston, yeah... lol, as much as I despised ****zpatrick, Houston made me feel OK about the Jets QB situation.

As far as benefitting from tanking, Indi is a perfect example. I'd kill for a Luck type QB. Especially now! I mean you mention the NBA as a sport where one guy can make a huge difference, but I think the biggest difference maker in sports today is an NFL QB. With all the rule changes to help the passing game and protect the QB, I can't think of a more valuable position now.

If you find a good young QB, you're now possibly set for 20+ years! Now I prefer 80s football with more hitting and less importance placed on the QB, but if these are the rules, I'm OK with the Jets doing whatever is needed to get a QB.

Tank a season? Fine. Trade 5 years worth of 1st and 2nd round picks... fine. Whatever it takes.

In today's game, if you don't have a QB, you're not gonna win. It's that simple. And if you have a QB, you'll always at least be competitive.

Expectations were high for Arizona, but it's a game of inches sometimes. The Cubs were baseball's best team last year, and they had a 5-game losing streak. It's no big deal when you play 162 games, but over a 16-game season, even one or two flukes have a significant impact.

And I think you're missing my point. I don't think Indy did tank, at least to start the year. They didn't get rid of a bunch of good players. They just struggled without their star QB. They were 10-6 the year before, and their 4th ranked offense dropped to 28th without Manning.

That 2012 Colts team with Luck still had Reggie Wayne and their left side of the OL and Freeney, Mathis, and Bethea. They didn't strip the roster bare. So when they got Luck, they had some holes they needed to fill, but not 20 or so like the Jets do right now.

Ditto the Panthers, who went 12-4 in 2008, saw the wheels come off starter Jake Delhomme in 2009 en route to an 8-8 season, then handed the keys to former 2nd-round pick Jimmy Clausen, who destroyed their 2010 season and helped them get the #1 pick for Cam. But that team didn't tank. It had legit weapons on offense like Steve Smith, the dual running backs Stewart and Williams, Charles Johnson and Greg Hardy and Beason on D. They didn't jump up as quickly as the Colts, as their team was older and needed more work, but they filled in some more holes over the years and drafted Kuechly in the 1st round 2 years later and suddenly became much more dangerous.

The point is that these teams didn't strip the roster bare. They just fell into that pick somehow. And so it took them less time to fill other roster spots before they became competitive. Even if the Jets hit on that pick, they need to get 10 or 15 decent starters before anyone takes them seriously, at which point, it will be time for that pick to get his extension.

I agree that a QB is the most important thing, but we don't even know who that will be. There was a time when Leinart was considered the consensus #1 overall pick. And a time when Geno Smith was going to be the first QB taken and teams were talking about tanking to get him. And same with Hackenberg (noticing a Jets theme here...hmmm...). And Locker. And on. And on.

So there's no guarantee tanking will win you anything other than a pretty good player. But if you can't support that player with a roster (see the Saints the last few years with Brees), what does it matter?

 

[JetFan79]

Expectations were high for Arizona, but it's a game of inches sometimes. The Cubs were baseball's best team last year, and they had a 5-game losing streak. It's no big deal when you play 162 games, but over a 16-game season, even one or two flukes have a significant impact.

And I think you're missing my point. I don't think Indy did tank, at least to start the year. They didn't get rid of a bunch of good players. They just struggled without their star QB. They were 10-6 the year before, and their 4th ranked offense dropped to 28th without Manning.

That 2012 Colts team with Luck still had Reggie Wayne and their left side of the OL and Freeney, Mathis, and Bethea. They didn't strip the roster bare. So when they got Luck, they had some holes they needed to fill, but not 20 or so like the Jets do right now.

Ditto the Panthers, who went 12-4 in 2008, saw the wheels come off starter Jake Delhomme in 2009 en route to an 8-8 season, then handed the keys to former 2nd-round pick Jimmy Clausen, who destroyed their 2010 season and helped them get the #1 pick for Cam. But that team didn't tank. It had legit weapons on offense like Steve Smith, the dual running backs Stewart and Williams, Charles Johnson and Greg Hardy and Beason on D. They didn't jump up as quickly as the Colts, as their team was older and needed more work, but they filled in some more holes over the years and drafted Kuechly in the 1st round 2 years later and suddenly became much more dangerous.

The point is that these teams didn't strip the roster bare. They just fell into that pick somehow. And so it took them less time to fill other roster spots before they became competitive. Even if the Jets hit on that pick, they need to get 10 or 15 decent starters before anyone takes them seriously, at which point, it will be time for that pick to get his extension.

I agree that a QB is the most important thing, but we don't even know who that will be. There was a time when Leinart was considered the consensus #1 overall pick. And a time when Geno Smith was going to be the first QB taken and teams were talking about tanking to get him. And same with Hackenberg (noticing a Jets theme here...hmmm...). And Locker. And on. And on.

So there's no guarantee tanking will win you anything other than a pretty good player. But if you can't support that player with a roster (see the Saints the last few years with Brees), what does it matter?

I don't really hate the roster at the moment. Dropping the aging expensive vets made complete sense. Why keep 'em around when young guys could be developing in a year you don't really care about?

Dline and Safeties seem set for many years. There's been a huge youth movement at LB the past couple years. Oline is looking at least competent.

The WR corps will likely need a flashy free agent next season. Forte will probably be gone, so we'll also need some RB help. And of course CB is still a ???

Overall though not a horrible spot for a young QB to develop in. He's gonna have a good D, solid oline, a couple solid weapons (Enunwa/Powell) and a whole lot of cap space.

It's a very young and talented (at spots) team. Think there are only 5 guys over 30. One of which is a long snapper and another is Mccown.

Imo, they're finally "rebuilding" correctly. They'll give Hack a chance, but if he sucks, they brought in the best QB in the business at getting top draft picks.

 

[Bill Lee]

As far as benefitting from tanking, Indi is a perfect example. I'd kill for a Luck type QB. Especially now! I mean you mention the NBA as a sport where one guy can make a huge difference, but I think the biggest difference maker in sports today is an NFL QB. With all the rule changes to help the passing game and protect the QB, I can't think of a more valuable position now.

If you find a good young QB, you're now possibly set for 20+ years! Now I prefer 80s football with more hitting and less importance placed on the QB, but if these are the rules, I'm OK with the Jets doing whatever is needed to get a QB.

Tank a season? Fine. Trade 5 years worth of 1st and 2nd round picks... fine. Whatever it takes.

In today's game, if you don't have a QB, you're not gonna win. It's that simple. And if you have a QB, you'll always at least be competitive.

Two things you are not taking in to account:
1) There is no Andrew Luck caliber QB coming out next year
2) It is the Jete front office making the pick and they can't find their own asses with both hands.

 

[Bill Lee]

I don't really hate the roster at the moment.

Delusional as usual. The roster ain't that bad, all we need is a QB -- right..

One NFL exec says Jets have 'worst roster in a decade' -- and he might be right

Verdict?

The Jets probably have more upside from that perspective than those three teams, but they are also the WORST of these teams in terms of having players who can reliably contribute right now. If they went head-to-head against these other teams, the older teams would walk away with wins in our opinion.

So, yes, the Jets have a great case for the worst roster in the last decade.

Yeah, says you, he says we have more upside. That's more upside than the ten worst teams in the last decade, Jete Fan 69. And you know the Jetes are going to blow up the coaching staff in the next 12 months, you can take that to the bank. Wash, rinse, repeat. Maybe the next regime will bring back Fitzy again.

 

[Tunescribe]

Imo, they're finally "rebuilding" correctly.

 

[JetFan79]

Delusional as usual. The roster ain't that bad, all we need is a QB -- right..

I previously mentioned the weak points. Why suggest I said otherwise? WR is a big one now. Releasing Marshall and Decker all but guarantees we're gonna struggle for a while to find goto weapons. Quincy has been a great development, but he's not some top tier #1 who can lead a team by himself. So it's time to let the young WRs develop and worst case, use some of the cap savings to pick up a nice WR FA next season.

CB should be better this year. Hard to be worse than last, but Claiborne isn't the definition of reliable and only signed a one year gig. There will have to be some developments at CB to sure up for 2018.

RB... if Forte could have been released this year with some cap savings, I'm sure he would have been. But there's no sense since we wouldn't have saved anything. I can't see him being kept around much longer. However Powell will probably be here a while, so we'll have to pick up a complementing RB for 2018 as well.

So as far as 2018 looks now... awesome? No. But hardly the worst roster. As far as 2017 could have looked, probably not bad if you add back Marshall, Decker, Mangold, Harris... but why waste the money on aging vets when there's no QB? The Jets FO made the right decision imo.

Even if the Jets have the worst roster now (which I don't think they do), they did it willingly, and I don't mind it given the circumstances.

One NFL exec says Jets have 'worst roster in a decade' -- and he might be right

Verdict?



Yeah, says you, he says we have more upside. That's more upside than the ten worst teams in the last decade, Jete Fan 69. And you know the Jetes are going to blow up the coaching staff in the next 12 months, you can take that to the bank. Wash, rinse, repeat. Maybe the next regime will bring back Fitzy again.

Coaching staff? Not sure. The moves now make it clear they're not expecting to win. I suppose Bowles and Co will he judged on how the young talent (Safety, LB, WR, oline) develops. If things go how I expect/hope (rough tines early and then gradual improvement), I think Bowles gets to hang around for 2018 to see what he can do with a roster put together to win.

I'm actually really looking forward to seeing them play and develop this year. Much more so than wanting to see a older and better team last year waste away with Ryan POS Fitzpatrick at QB.

2016 was a waste that made me want to stick red hot needles in my eyeballs. (Have I mentioned I hate Ryan Fitzpatrick?) While 2017 is looking like a great development year that should be a blast to watch.

 

[Bill Lee]

Even if the Jets have the worst roster now (which I don't think they do), they did it willingly, and I don't mind it given the circumstances.

The circumstances in your delusional view is that there will be a payback for tanking, which is far, far, far from guaranteed. Look at the Colts. They sucked for Luck and they still suck because the rest of their roster is largely crap, and there is no Andrew Luck in college ball this year.

Basically, the Jets are the Browns without the boatload of draft picks. They need at least two more years of sucking to get to where the Browns are now.

Coaching staff? Not sure. The moves now make it clear they're not expecting to win. I suppose Bowles and Co will he judged on how the young talent (Safety, LB, WR, oline) develops.

They will be judged on how ugly things get on the back page of the NYDN. They're toast.

If things go how I expect/hope (rough tines early and then gradual improvement), I think Bowles gets to hang around for 2018 to see what he can do with a roster put together to win.

You're proving that you're delusional. A roster put together to win in 2018? WTF! Right now they're being called the worst roster in the league for the last decade. They're years away from winning anything. There is no Andrew Luck walking through the door. What's coming out this season is far closer to the next Geno Smith than the next Andrew Luck.

I'm actually really looking forward to seeing them play and develop this year.

As my friend's dad used to say, there's a seat for every ass...

 

[JetFan79]

You're proving that you're delusional. A roster put together to win in 2018? WTF! Right now they're being called the worst roster in the league for the last decade.

"... they're being called the worst roster ..."

Ha, and I'm delusional? Last year most "experts" and fans (including guys here) said the Jets had to re-sign ****z. Many also said the Jets D could be top 5.

Stop listening to what "they" say.

 

[Deus Irae]

Even if the Jets have the worst roster now (which I don't think they do)

Which teams have worse rosters?

 

[bbobbo]

If you go to any Pats/Jets games this year and Hack is their QB lookout.




In all seriousness they weren't plugged in when making this pick. This guy had one year of pretty good tape and just fell apart in spectacular fashion.

i think hackenberg might just need a pair of glasses:

 

[varjao]

Overall though not a horrible spot for a young QB to develop in.

Dude, come on, yes it is a terrible spot for a young QB, it's the Jets we are talking about.

Two things you are not taking in to account:
1) There is no Andrew Luck caliber QB coming out next year
2) It is the Jete front office making the pick and they can't find their own asses with both hands.

If the Jets had the #1 pick in the year Luck came in they would have tried to outsmart the league and drafted RG3. Actually at a certain point there was a legitimate question about that, Colts went with the sure pick.

 

[Ross12]

This is the PERFECT example of the jealous, pinheaded Patriot hater's pretzel logic. BB really hasn't won anything without Brady. BB should have kept starting Bledsoe. Then he'd be a better coach, right asshat? BB gets no credit for starting and sticking with a 2nd year QB drafted in the 6th round, getting to the Super Bowl against the greatest show on turf(14 point underdogs) and going for the jugular with a minute left, against the prevailing wisdom of the John Maddens and the rest of the country. BB gets no credit for the icewater calls that gave this raw, green QB the confidence to make the plays CALLED by BB's staff.

Nah, BB is really not a good coach...according to the braindead, degenerate legion of sub-mongoloids known as JETE Nation.

Well said, Joker... I was thinking the same. The "he hasn't won 'anything' without Brady" logic dumbfounds me... Yeah, Brady's a legend, but he wasn't nearly the player he is now in his sophomore season. He had some of his core attributes then (namely decision making and the clutch gene), but he wasn't an insanely amazing QB. BB not only won the franchise's first title that year with that version of Brady, but he beat the greatest show on turf. Sophomore Tom Brady wasn't playing D against Warner, Faulk, Bruce and Holt. Sophomore Tom Brady didn't make the decision to try to win it all in the final minute. But somehow BB's performance then is now judged as though 2016 Tom Brady was on the team, and he certainly was not.

 

[Brady_to_Moss]

No they are just....the jets

 

[Ivan]

Throwing a game is without question the worst thing you can do at any level of sport. Yet somehow throwing a season is no threat to the integrity of the game?

Doesn't get more screwed up than that.

Throwing games effects everything in terms of playoffs, who gets in and doesn't, seeding, and ultimately the course of the outcome if the season. It's bullsh.t and they should get screwed for it.

They won't


But they should

 

[JetFan79]

2017 Jets team pic...

 

[Joker]

wrong again, Jete fan...try THIS instead...