Even When Exercising Sound Judgement, Jets Look Clownish

Becton’s Rise From Jets Bust To Eagles Cog Shows Coaching Matters

USATSI

The Jets organizational process is always amateur hour, a veritable open mic night where cringeworthy takes get passed off as coherent.

I’m a bit late on this, but the more I keep thinking about how the franchise came to its decision related to Aaron Rodgers, the more baffled I become.

Last weekend, FOX insider Jay Glazer was the first to report that the Jets were going to be parting ways with the 41-year old future Hall of Fame quarterback. That part was sound from both football and financial perspectives and the team made the official announcement on Thursday.

If only that was all we heard. In the middle, things got weird, which isn’t normal anywhere else in the NFL but is par for New York’s course. Whether it was someone from Rodgers’ team (yeah, most likely) or a mole inside the building at One Jets Drive (I could see a misguided PR attempt to embarrass Rodgers on his way out the door), word leaked to The Athletic's Dianna Russini that the Jets were open to running it back with Rodgers under certain conditions. Among the assurances that management wanted were that Rodgers would terminate his appearances on ESPN’s “The Pat McAfee Show” and that he wouldn’t skip mandatory practices. Basically, he would be treated as 1 of 53.

That doesn’t seem like an unclearable bar, so um, the Jets would have been fine giving Rodgers another $35 million or so, extending and expanding the future salary cap pain, to replicate last season’s 5-12 disaster? What are we doing here?

More troubling was that the new regime—General Manager Darren Mougey and Head Coach Aaron Glenn—could have been so wishy-washy about such a monumental decision related to the team’s most important position. How was this not hashed out in advance? What was The 33^rd Team’s first question to candidates? “What should we do about the kicker?”

And if it were me going into such an interview, I would have had a full analysis prepared to make a case either way with conviction. Not, “Well, we might want him back. Let’s talk to him.”

There were so many factors as to why the Jets massively underachieved last season, from ownership meddling, dim-witted roster moves by the departed GM, lousy coaching, and all the way down to the players’ poor execution. That included Rodgers, who had the ball in his hands with several games on the line and didn’t deliver like he used to.

I would put his hamming it up on a talk show and missing an offseason practice low on the above list.

___________________________________________________________________________

Congrats to the three Eagles who were all rookies from Joe Douglas’ 2020 Draft/Undrafted free agent class. Mekhi Becton, Braden Mann, and Bryce Huff will forever be known as Super Bowl champions.

Oddly, Huff, the only one of the trio whose departure as a free agent upset me, wasn’t even on the field last Sunday. He was rendered inactive after a disappointing campaign that saw his sack total go from 10 in his last season in New York to 2.5.

Becton’s ascension from Jets Draft bust to a functioning cog in the Eagles’ offensive machine garnered the most attention. In New York, he struggled with his weight, grumbled when asked to switch positions along the offensive line, and was perpetually injured. He gets to Philly and he plays every game save for the finale when the Eagles rested their starters. Selected No. 11 overall as a tackle—and insisting he’s only a tackle--Becton played all 1,158 of his offensive snaps this season at right guard.

They say a change of scenery can do wonders for a player’s potential to be reached, but that isn’t always the case. Former Jets quarterback Zach Wilson never got on the field this season in Denver.

With Becton, I think he needed to be coached up almost as much as he needed to take better care of his body. Not including the 2021 season when he played about a half of the first game, he had his most efficient pass blocking numbers of his career, dinged with only three sacks during the regular season by ProFootballFocus.com, which also graded him as the league's 13^th-best run blocker among the 62 guards with at least 200 run blocking snaps.

For years, Jets offensive linemen, even the grizzled veterans, have struggled like they had never played the position. Discipline, fundamentals, and adjusting to what the defense was doing in terms of stunts, blitzes, etc.—all of it has been so substandard for so long that it screams for better coaching. They haven’t had a real good one since Bill Callahan left over a dozen years ago. Keith Carter, New York’s OL coach the last two seasons, didn’t see his reputation improve from his feisty prior tenure in Tennessee.

Which is why you shouldn’t blame me if I’m skeptical as to whether new OL coach Steve Heiden, who worked with Glenn in Detroit, will buck this awful trend. An NFL tight end as a player, that’s the position he has coached for all but one season in 2018 as Arizona’s assistant OL coach. And around the circus it goes.

Meanwhile, the Eagles have kept Jeff Stoutland on their staff to coach their o-line since 2013. I think that made more of a difference to Becton than the change in his uniform’s shade of green.