New York Jets: Love the team, hate the organization
Being a fan of the New York Jets is no easy task. Along with many other die hard’s, I drag myself to MetLife Stadium and attempt to watch my team hopefully not embarrass itself. Some seasons are easier than others. This was not such a season.
I have lived through many challenging seasons. There were several seasons during my childhood that we could not even give our tickets away. There were seasons where this team started the season very well—but imploded and nosedived into misery. The 2000 season comes to mind, where the Jets started 6-1, but ended 9-7…or the 2008 Brett Favre season—where the Jets had multiple chances to clinch a playoff spot—but ended up losing four of the last five games and again, ended the season 9-7.
So being a Jets fan isn’t easy. It requires a lot of patience, a lot of love and most importantly: a strong stomach.
People ask me, “How can you be a Jets fan?”
Well, that’s an easy question to answer. I’d like to take the time to separate the Jets as a football team and the Jets as an organization—because there is a huge difference between the two.
The Jets as a football team are the guys that play their hearts out, week after week—the Antonio Cromartie’s, the Nick Mangold’s, the LaRon Landry’s, the Sione Po’uha’s—and get nothing but grief in return.
The organization, on the other hand, is filled with corrupt know-nothings that ruin this team on a yearly basis.
Woody Johnson—The Root of All Problems
Is there a worse football team owner than Woody Johnson? This man knows absolutely nothing of how things work behind the scenes of professional football, and he has inexplicably not learned anything in the 13 years that he’s owned this team.
Sure, he was a fan of the New York Jets, and that’s why he purchased this team (or so he claims). But there are millions of football fans out there that also don’t have any business owning a team. The difference with Woody Johnson is that most football fans aren’t born to billionaire families.
Johnson’s unprecedented hiring of a headhunter to help find a general manager just shows his lack of intelligence in this matter.
Perhaps he just doesn’t trust himself. The last general manager he hired was Mike Tannenbaum. We all know how well that turned out. Tannenbaum started out as Director of Player Contract Negotiations, a job that he did pretty well. He soon became Senior Vice President of Football Operations, then Assistant General Manager and then of course, General Manager. An accountant has no business being in charge of talent evaluation, yet that is what happened here.
Johnson of course recently fired him, or maybe the out-for-blood fans and the excruciating media forced his hand. Either way, Johnson has a big hole to fill in his front office. Although embarrassing, it’s probably best that he is not in charge of the search.
Something has to change in this front office. They broke this team.
This team and its fanbase can’t go on like this.
Angie Kozak is the New York Jets writer for The Penalty Flag. Angie has had NY Jets season ticket for 13 straight seasons and counting. She graduated from Penn State University in 2010 with a degree in Communications. Although a lifelong diehard Jet fan, Angie can be outspokenly critical of her beloved Jets. Contact her on Twitter @Angie_Kozak.
I just want to go on record and make a correction for you. Antonio Cromartie has been a terrible cornerback for the Jets until this year. And the only reason he has been somewhat okay was because Revis was out, so that means they didn’t throw to his side that frequently. It was easy to pick on the guys that were filling in for Revis. Just watch Cromartie, he gets burned play after pay, especially against semi-talented receivers. The only reason why this guy ever gets INTs is because he is tall, and it’s usually a big mistake by the opposing QB. I never see Cromartie make an outstanding play to intercept the a ball. When Revis gets back next year watch how Cromartie returns to his terrible pass coverage.
Hi, thanks for reading. It’s my opinion that he really stepped up his game this season. I would hope that he keeps it up next season.
I just want to go on record and make a correction for you. Antonio
Cromartie has been a terrible cornerback for the Jets until this year.
And the only reason he has been somewhat okay was because Revis was out,
so that means they didn’t throw to his side that frequently. It was
easy to pick on the guys that were filling in for Revis. Just watch
Cromartie, he gets burned play after play, especially against
semi-talented receivers. The only reason why this guy ever gets INTs is
because he is tall, and it’s usually a big mistake by the opposing QB.
I never see Cromartie make an outstanding play to intercept a
ball. When Revis gets back next year watch how Cromartie returns to his
terrible pass coverage.
We can’t even get a GM! Hey Woody, you see anything here. Nobody wants your job! What a disgrace. 40 + years a fan and getting more disgusted year by year. Can Rex Start over with new GM and coach. There’s no where to go but up!,
I couldn’t agree more. Woody is an absolute disgrace. Leon Hess–a man who really cared about the team and us fans–is rolling over in his grave.
Seems like Rex really has Woody wrapped around his finger. This rebuilding is never going to work unless ALL of the toxic personalities are eliminated from the front office–Rex included. We have a great opportunity to start completely over and it’s being squandered by a trust fund billionaire that doesn’t know what he’s doing.
Well said. This is really a sad team. I feel like we are going to lose two or three more seasons here with this coach. I really liked Rex when he got here, but he turned out to be a total idiot, a joke , a league wide laughing stock. He couldn’t hold Belicheck’s jock, let alone have to worry about kissing his ring! We will never win a Super Bowl with Woody at the helm…..
I fear this as well. While I do have issues with Rex’s personality, no one is perfect in that regard. What really irritates me are his coaching deficiencies–specifically his on-field coaching, lack of offensive knowledge and his complete lack of tailor-making a specific game plan for different games. As far as I can tell, he has the same game plan for each game, no matter what team we are playing. It’s madness.
What’s worse, not only does Woody seemingly not recognize these problems, he recently stated that next year’s record won’t have an impact on Rex’s job security. If a person repeatedly fails at his job, he should not have that job anymore. That’s how it works in the real world.
I could literally rant about this all day.