When I saw Jets general manager John Idzik in the press box on Sunday, I wanted to check his back for a string. After all, he is the newest piñata in town.
Idzik seems to be getting the blame for everything that is wrong with the Jets. I fully expect to hear next that he drove Geno Smith to the movies on Saturday afternoon.
Though Idzik deserves criticism for not addressing the cornerback position well this offseason, this 1-4 mess is not all on him. There is plenty of blame to go around for what is transpiring — and guys who have been around longer than Idzik and Smith should be the first ones we look at.
Let’s start at the top.
Owner Woody Johnson interrupted his Aspen skiing vacation on Dec. 31, 2012, to fly back to New Jersey and fire general manager Mike Tannenbaum. That day he also met with coach Rex Ryan in Ryan’s office. The two men sat at a round conference table in the middle of the room and Johnson informed Ryan that he was keeping him as the head coach. Three weeks later, Idzik was hired and one of the most uncomfortable arranged marriages was made.
The Jets offices are divided by floor. The bottom floor of the Florham Park headquarters is where the coaches’ offices are — along with the locker room, trainers’ room and meeting rooms. The second floor is where the executives are, along with marketing, business, media relations and other departments not directly related to football. Since Johnson’s decision to keep Ryan and hire Idzik, it has felt like those two floors were operating under different missions.
Upstairs, Idzik and Co. set out to change the culture of the Jets. They made it clear there would be no quick fixes. Idzik’s plan is to build through the draft, add low-priced free agents to fill some holes and one or two top free agents a year. The plan is one many good teams follow. The key to the execution is being able to identify talent. The early returns for Idzik have not been great, but it only has been 20 months since he took the job. He deserves more time before we declare him an incompetent judge of talent.
Downstairs, the coaches have been worried about their jobs for two years now. Ryan received an extension after last season, but it only contained guaranteed money through 2015, meaning he could be fired after this year with little financial repercussions.
Johnson put his team in this sort of limbo with the decision to fire Tannenbaum and keep Ryan. He should have fired both and started over at the end of the 2012 season or kept both for one more year to see if they could right the ship. A compelling argument could be made for either.
Instead, now you have Ryan in his sixth season fighting for his coaching life while Johnson and Idzik are preaching patience as they slowly build a roster. Fans (and probably Ryan) see $24 million in cap space and scream about the holes on the 2014 roster. Idzik sees the $24 million and knows he will have that next year to give Muhammad Wilkerson an extension, possibly bring back Jeremy Kerley and David Harris on mid-level deals and then spend on one or two top-tier free agents. If Idzik had a second-year coach working for him, it would be an easier plan to accept.
That brings us to Ryan.
Everyone seems to want to excuse Ryan because of a lack of talent. But this defense has eight first-round picks on it. The defensive line may be the best in football. And it is easy to prematurely rip apart Idzik’s drafts, but the foundation of this team should have arrived before 2013. Under Tannenbaum, Ryan had plenty of say over personnel and he made his share of mistakes evaluating talent. Don’t forget the Jets selected a cornerback in the first round in 2010, but Kyle Wilson is unreliable, which helped create the void at the position. There are no players on this team from the 2008 or 2009 drafts. Wilson is the only one left from 2010 (John Conner just returned last week, but was gone for two years).
Ryan’s teams seem to have the same problems every year. He has not developed a quarterback, or really any offensive players. The offense has not had an identity since 2010, vacillating between Ground and Pound and relying on the pass. The defense disappears when it matters most. They commit stupid penalties.
All of this falls on Ryan.
So, take your swings at the Idzik piñata this week. It’s all the rage. But save a couple of swipes for Johnson and Ryan, too.
That didn’t go well
I surrender. I give up. You win, Giants fans.
I stupidly wrote the Jets had regained control of the town after the Giants looked terrible against the Lions in Week 1 and the Jets showed promise against the Raiders. The headline was: “Why the Jets are clearly the best team in New York.”
Clearly, I was wrong.
Giants fans have reminded me of that column over the past 10 days by filling up my inbox and my Twitter mentions. WFAN host Joe Benigno seems to feel I have more to do with the Jets’ four-game losing streak than Geno Smith does.
When I look back on it, I made two terrible miscalculations. Smith looked like an improved quarterback through training camp and even in that Raiders game when he completed 82 percent of his passes. Since then, it has been a weekly regression.
On the flip side, Eli Manning had a terrible preseason and looked lost against the Lions. Since then, it has been a weekly progression.
The other mistake I made was believing Tom Coughlin would not be able to turn the Giants around. Coughlin did a masterful job of steering the Giants through crisis mode … again. On the other side of town, Rex Ryan has not figured out a way to quiet the storm around the Jets … again.
So, I’m out of the comparison business. I’ll go back to covering the Jets and let Paul Schwartz handle the Giants.
Now, with Matt Harvey back I really think the Mets could take over the town next year …