Where Do New York #Jets Go From Here? (BADLANDS)

Where Do New York #Jets Go From Here? (BADLANDS)

What’s up everybody? Welcome back to your favorite New York Jets subscription podcast, Badlands. I’m your host, Joe Caparoso, joined as always by Connor Rogers, to discuss our 0 and4 New York Jets. We gave Connor a little less than 24 hours to digest the game. I am back on the feed ranting again like a lunatic for the second time in what feels like six hours. Connor, how you doing? How you feeling? I’m good. It’s It’s nice that you and I are doing this on Tuesday night. I know you and Paul had a great show on uh postgame and you guys had plenty of your fury and I blew a gasket on SMY’s postgame. That’s for sure. It’s it’s good to kind of get the we we like to call it what like the breathing room or whatever it is. It’s just as this period of like deescalation. Um I’m good. It’s just, you know, there’s there’s so many questions right now without answers that it’s it’s an overwhelming time. like you can’t, you know, you can’t even walk into your work office and every and I get it. Like people are just, how did this happen so fast? And I think that’s what we’re going to try to do today. I I think my goal tonight, Joe, is to not sit on the like at this desk on this microphone and tell everybody that Michael Clemens is bad and that they’re fifth round picks from Miami stink and like, you know, the things I’ve said 40 times. I think it’s time to just look into, okay, what is an actual thing that can be fixed within a week or two from a coaching standpoint and what are things that, you know, they’re kind of just stuck with from personnel this year. I think that’s the right approach for right now. I think we don’t we don’t need to hit on some of those beats anymore. Maybe we’ll end up covering some in War Room with uh our mailbag that we’ll dig into. I will say the fact that we’re already at the point where my mom is texting me to remember I have three beautiful kids and it’s just football at 6:00 in the morning. Uh, no, it’s not even October yet. Usually that that text comes like in November. I was like, “Yes, I know. It’s just their own for.” She did also say that after listening to postgame, she thinks you and Bart should coach the team. So there we got we have that we have that recommendation. I’ll draft the players and and let Bart do all the coaching. No problem. It’s uh I will say, you know, and I’ve told this on the podcast before and I hope he doesn’t mind me saying it, like it’s wild. This is the fourth year now. I can’t believe it. It’s the fourth year now that I essentially watch every New York Jets game from the moment the kickoff starts to the moment the clock hits zero with Bart. And it’s amazing but also wildly concerning how every single week and play he calls basic things out that they don’t fix. And once again, like it’s I tip my cap the bar, which isn’t shocking with the career he had and all the great things he did not only physically but mentally, but that You know, this is a whole new coaching staff and these things are still happening and it’s it is it’s very concerning. I’m picturing his face watching that one boot from Tua where I’ve never I’ve never seen a defense oversell so hard in one direction that it was it was like a little little Giants play. I was trying to find it on the I was like, you know what, I’m just going to let it sit. Um so the how did we get here? How did this happen? I was thinking about this today cuz I was texting with a few people and it it feels like yesterday. It was 2617 heading into the fourth quarter and I was sitting in Metife Stadium and the sun was shining and I was wondering if the Jets were going to have a 10-point plus win over a Pittsburgh Steeler team that most people think are going to make the playoffs look like they’re going to make the playoffs. What’s happening in the North right now pretty but it’s working. Playing playing Carson Wentz is is a blessing. Um although I I can’t say anything with our team right now. Yeah, but 2617 and it’s like wow like this is a way better first three quarters than even I expected as a generally optimistic guy and since then it has just been a pure [ __ ] slide like we said right you know you have the turnovers the turnovers the ugly loss against Buffalo kind of a weird week of press conferences mostly a dull disappointing Tampa game with a little fireworks at the end and then this game I think the dragging of the mope of that we all felt when Brilen Allen had that fumble. We’re like, “Oh, that might be the game.” We’re fans. We’re allowed to be a little irrational like that. I also get the sense sometimes that a lot of the players, and to be fair, a lot of them are holdovers from the previous regime. Get that sense, too. and eradicating that from the culture. That’s a real challenge that I I think is just going to take time because it’s hard for me to believe that that sideline or most of that sideline did not get that pit in their stomach to be like, “Well, here we go again.” And that kind of changed the game and that shouldn’t happen because they played just so poorly, right? the turnovers, the special team errors, the kind of stuff that you never expect to see. And they’re still kind of like hanging around in this game. Miami is, you know, not that good. So, you know, I try to I try to look ahead a little bit and I’m not going to pick them to win a game until I see them win a game. But Dallas has flaws. Panthers have flaws. Bengals have flaws. Broncos are going to be a tough trip. They’re going to have all these other games this year. I I didn’t see anything adjust. And maybe this is me just trying to talk myself into it before the game where I’m like maybe they’re going to rotate their linebackers more. Maybe they’re going to do this. They played it very straight up with their personnel, right? They just kind of move the next guy down on the dev chart. It was very straightforward. Now they could digest a quarter of the season. What, you know, where where do you go from here? Because we I while I said last night that there will be a conversation about this being one and done, I did also say I don’t think it will be one and done. And I’m not disagreeing with that. I would not say they should be one and done after four games. I think that as bad as an embarrassing as it was last night, still a leap too far. So, we’re we’re probably in bed with these guys for at least two years, right? Best case, worst case scenario, however you want to frame it. I think that’s the fair baseline expectation. What do you do these next 13 games? And more like and what’s fair to expect that they could do that maybe they showed some signs of doing at different parts of these four games? Well, I think right now what you need to figure out is, and this is very urgent in my opinion, was the Steve Wilks hire just a miss, right? I mean, and well, let me be very clear here. The Jets defense has problems that can be evaluated in a vacuum away from what Steve Wilks is trying to do. But at the same time, you can look at what he’s trying to do and just sit there and be like, “Wow, I I get why it hasn’t worked in the NFL at a couple stops previously.” And where it’s not like you have shortcomings, right? And here’s the little secret about the NFL. At least 30 of the defenses have shortcomings. Yeah. But what you do as a coach is you build a scheme and a game plan week by week that supplements or aids your shortcomings and funnels the offense into your strengths. And it’s a league with the way the rules are and the structure of the game and how everything is. Defensively, you’re going to probably lose more than you win. That’s that’s kind of how the league is set up. But what the Jets are doing right now is that it feels like they are never winning. That’s the problem. And it just like Wilks his pressures don’t get home to the point of where blitzing is almost rendered useless at this point. They there’s just there’s a lot of issues. They when they play man coverage they are getting shredded. A 20 was nine for 11 against man coverage and had two touchdowns against man coverage. Baker was 10 to 12 and one of the two incompletions was an egregious drop. Like, yeah. The thing is they want to be an aggressive man coverage defense, but the problem I have is, okay, so you want to be that, right? And you could sit there and a lot of people that want patience will be like, okay, well, they they don’t have the personnel yet. Well, the biggest contract he gave out was to a quarterback. And I’m talking about Sauce. Like, say what you want about Sauce, who’s been very up and down already this year, and giving up a touchdown on a fourth down to Darren Waller when you’re, you know, the highest paid corner in the league. That’s a whole another can of worms that I have issues with, but it is what it is. The Jets went out and basically said, “We’re gonna make sauce the highest paid corner in the league.” Okay. And then we are going to also go give a number two corner high-end money. Yep. And the the and he was a third round pick on a corner and then trade for another corner. Right. So, and I do think Brownley and Aari Thomas fit what they want to do in man coverage better than Stevens and Michael Carter right now. Carter just must be I feel like his body’s failing him because he just doesn’t look like the guy earned earned that extension. Yeah. So, you know, and that’s a tough spot for any player. But Stevens like that they made their bed with that one. That’s why I have such a problem with it. And then you look at I I hate their fronts. They’re so stubborn with their fronts. They just whether it’s Clemens and it’s McGregor and it’s Baron and whatever player on the edge when Germaine’s out that they have to play. I can only say it. So, you know, for a while I was wondering, am I just being like a Madden coach right now when I kept saying, why don’t you try a front that has Briggs, Quinnon, and Harrison Phillips on it? And the guys agreed with me on pregame last night. And those are two guys that played within the trenches in the most brutal division during an era of brutal NFL football. Play a bigger front. Yeah. Play your best 11. Get your best players out. They refuse to get their best players out on the field. I I think and then what you have to really figure out that’s probably like this might make Jets fans ears bleed while they’re listening to this, but you have to be honest with yourself right now. If they stay on this trajectory, and I don’t think they’re going to finish 0 and 17. That’s not what I’m saying. But say they win three games, and I actually still don’t think I think they’re going to win five games or whatever it is, four games, I don’t know. You need to figure out, do you trust these guys to make the [ __ ] number one pick? Number two pick. I mean, I’m serious. That’s a when when I was on my way home last night, the things that were crossing my mind was like, and you think the worst during these times, I was like, one, if these guys are picking in the top three and they plan on taking a quarterback because Tennessee is so bad that there’s a world where Tennessee is one of those teams ahead of you in the top three, they’re like, then you have the power to flip into their pick because you’re the closest pick where and whether it’s a Dante Moore, we’re not going through the 40 quarterbacks today because this thing is wide open right now. You need to know, do you trust these guys right now? And what like and they have a lot of time left this year to to earn that trust, but right now you you don’t you don’t. And then the second thing that crossed my mind was and and maybe this is a jump right now and there’s a lot of time to still change this, but this first month of the Glenn era just sadly reminds me so much of the Joe Judge era with the Giants. It re like it really does. And I’m not saying that can’t change, but it just felt like that summer Judge was such a drill sergeant hard ass and the old school people bought into it. And then when you get your teeth kicked in, it the message doesn’t ring the same. You’re not good at anything specifically, right? They give away games on special teams. They’re one-dimensional on offense. When they’re playing from behind, they’re in huge trouble. And the defense is horrible. Like the defense is is horrible schematically and from enough of the personnel. You know, the guys you give a pass right now are like Quinnon, Harrison Phillips, uh McDonald’s rushing the passer, but he’s only playing like 50% of the snaps right now. It’s kind of crazy when you look at that breakdown. Yeah. So that’s it. So yeah, I think and that’s a dark place to think. And I’m not saying it’s going to be the Joe Judge era, but that’s what the first month has felt like from like a a feel and perception base. And then I Yeah, the thing that my mind goes to is if they’re picking as high as they are and they need a quarterback, do you trust these guy? Don’t do what teams have done like when the Bears just took Caleb Williams with a deadbeat coach. Yeah. It was just a waste of a year. It was a waste of a year and then it felt like Caleb Williams needed this, you know, resurrection. this summer. I’m not saying this is a oneand done. I’m just saying like if I owned the organization, these are all the things I’m now watching for the next couple months. Yeah. I was thinking today because this is this is where our minds have to go to this. I was like, what is the most likely thing to happen based on just recent NFL history and Jets history and what’s most likely mathematically to happen at this point is they’re probably going to go four and 13 or five and 12. They’re probably they’re probably going to pick somewhere between four and seven. Maybe like closer to four. Probably not any like lower than seven. Maybe there’s a world they get a break and pick two or three. That regime mathematically is most likely to take a quarterback because it’s smart for them to do from a job security perspective. And because everyone wants their own guy, that quarterback is likely to go into a fake competition with Fields and start sooner rather than later. They’ll keep Fields as sort of the bridge quarterback and you have you have the second year anyway. And then you get to the point of the second year where, you know, this is kind of where Sol and Douglas got to, right? They had this disgusting first year where the defense is terrible. They’re four and 13. There’s really nothing to hang your hat on. You get to the second year, you’re seven and four and it’s like, well, we figured everything out except for the quarterback, so we’re going to give you the Hail Mary pass to go get the quarterback. That of course doesn’t work out. What is th is this regime going to get the quarterback right where that guy and they do enough in the second off season to be seven and four at some point in the season and be six and five and be in the mix and be like all right like you know again if the Jets if Zack if Mike White doesn’t shatter his ribs that year that Jet team probably goes nine and eight or eight and nine and gets knocked out wild card weekend and that maybe we’re not talking about the drought anymore whatever it is what it is but that’s kind of your standard trajectory but it is the Giants. Yes. Like, hey, we randomly made the playoffs a couple years ago, but what did it matter? Exactly. And then it’s like this is like and many years and we’ll spend a lot of time talking about this. There’s not a slam dunk number one quarterback. There’s a lot of different opinions out there. I still think plenty of quarterbacks are going to go in the first round. Yeah. And there’s going to be there’s a lot of time left and it’s kind of just going to come down to like are they going to pick the right one? And does Tanner Angstran and the rest of his offensive staff know what they’re doing with him? Are they going to put a proper number two receiver opposite Garrett Wilson to give this quarterback every chance to succeed? We know he’s going to come into a good offensive line. I think I think Armell and Membu looks like a stud. I think the rest of the unit the line the line is good really well. I I just don’t get the that’s one of the things I will stand up for. I I don’t get the chirping on the Jets line. Jets offensive line is not a problem at all. What do you What you want them to protect for 12 seconds? Yeah. A lot of times these sacks are and you could see they did actually a good the Blitzers feel there’s like a lack of communic and this field’s pros and cons. He made one of the most maybe the best touchdown run I’ve seen a Jets quarterback ever make maybe I mean I don’t know this been a better one. Uh but he’s also going to have brain farts from time to time where a lot of those sacks I think end up being on him and I think they called actually did a decent job calling out what some of the issues were on the broadcast and Glenn on this there was a lot of interesting sideline banter in this game. You saw Glenn yelling at Angstrand being like, “Chill out with the motion because nobody can get set.” Which is a bigger problem in conversation. They like 17 illegal shift penalties. That’s right. Yeah. Thank you, Alan Lazard. Another illegal shift penalty. Um you saw I saw Fields like kind of not yelling at Simpson, but like it was more of like don’t take that personal foul for me. Like we don’t need that right now. Although again, I we still love Simpson. It doing his thing a little bit. And then at the end, I you have Garrett Wilson like very intently talking to Aaron Glenn effectively being like, “Trust me. Give me the ball.” Like, “This is how we’re going to win.” And he’s right because he’s a nice thing to shout out. Again, another positive. Garrett’s gotten better. And he was already really good, but he’s gotten better. He’s much smoother. He’s smarter after the catch. His field awareness is a lot better. Like, he’s a star. He’s been worth every dollar. Shout. He’s he’s officially somehow underrated because if you think like you think of Garrett Wilson and you’re like wow in a high octane offense he’s probably a 1500 yard player every year. Yeah. And he’s still going out and putting up numbers in this this version of the offense. And I I thought Felix was fine last night like that. That’s who he is like right. And when they let him throw a little bit he had a couple nice moments in the second half. He looked he looks tight and weird with the weird release in the first half where he’s throwing like the kickoff passes. if he could get that under control, he he wasn’t the why they lost last night is what I’d say. So, I I wandered a little bit from the topic where I just what I’m just praying to see in these final 13 games because I really want to see this work for Aaron Glenn as for obvious reasons, but being a fan and being someone who would like to see a guy who has some history here succeed although again that stuff matters less and less as the losses pile up. I When is he really going to do something that speaks to the accountability? When is he going to make his first big

Joe and Connor give their takes on what went wrong for the #Jets against Miami, vent about the team’s continued flawed decision making and discuss potential solves in the current situation…

FULL episode at www.patreon.com/BadlandsTOJ