Based on his team’s performance through the first three games of the 2014 season, general manager John Idzik has\u00a0some reasons to be\u00a0pleased with what he has seen despite their 1-2 record.\u00a0 Just a few weeks ago, a\u00a0decimated secondary\u00a0had\u00a0fans up in arms over what was to come.\u00a0 Having to face offenses led by Aaron\u00a0Rodgers and Jay Cutler was apparently going to be too much for the Jets to compete with.\u00a0 There was no\u00a0way that second-year QB Geno Smith was going to be able to keep the Jets in these games without a superstar target to throw to.\u00a0\u00a0We heard for weeks that the Jets were going to be blown out because they didn’t sign Darelle\u00a0Revis\u00a0and a host of other free-agent cornerbacks…and\u00a0 then they played the games.\u00a0\u00a0In Green Bay, Smith threw\u00a0what should have been a late game-tying touchdown that was wiped out due to\u00a0miscommunication between the Jets and the officials, and that was followed by a heartbreaking loss at home to the Bears, again with a shot to tie in the closing seconds.\u00a0 Two losses against potent offensive attacks that the Jets still had a chance to win or tie on their final possession was better than most expected, and while a loss is still a loss in the NFL, teams with\u00a0 young quarterbacks like Smith, should always be looking at the big picture and that’s exactly what John Idzik should be doing.<\/p>\n
Idzik has made it clear that his intention is to build this team through the draft, but it would also be foolish to ignore the needs of a team whose strengths are among the best in the NFL.\u00a0 Through the first three games of the season, the Jets\u00a0have the top ranked\u00a0defense against the run, and barring injuries,\u00a0there’s no reason to expect them to finish out of the top-5 in that category by season’s end.\u00a0 On the other side of the ball, the Jets rank second in rushing despite Chris Ivory\u00a0splitting carries with Chris Johnson who has struggled after a strong showing in week one.\u00a0 Having a team that could realistically finish among the league’s best in rushing the ball and stopping the run, should not be ignored.\u00a0 These aren’t characteristics of a team that’s re-building, but the sign of a team that could be only a couple of players away from being able to make a deep playoff run.<\/p>\n
Through their first three games, we’ve seen that the Jets are a different team when Eric Decker is on the field giving Geno Smith the closest thing he’s had to a number one receiver since\u00a0coming in to the league.\u00a0 According to ESPN stats and info, through his first two games, Smith completed 73.5% of his passes\u00a0with Decker on the filed, and just 27.3% with Decker on the sideline.\u00a0\u00a0Decker, still battling a balky hamstring, will\u00a0probably\u00a0be week-to-week\u00a0until he’s given ample time to rest up and fully heal.\u00a0 With that in mind, the Jets have two options.\u00a0 More emphasis on the running game with Ivory getting the bulk of the carries and allowing Bilal Powell to share carries with Johnson when Ivory gets a breather, or Idzik could try to pry a receiver away from a team that will clearly not be contending this year.\u00a0 Vincent Jackson, 31,\u00a0and his $11 million salary with 0-3 Tampa Bay would probably be the best of the bunch, and if other possibilities arise in the coming weeks, the Jets should be willing to make a deal that could propel the Jets from\u00a0a fringe playoff team, to a legitimate contender.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Based on his team’s performance through the first three games of the 2014 season, general manager John Idzik has\u00a0some reasons to be\u00a0pleased with what he has seen despite their 1-2 record.\u00a0 Just a few weeks ago, a\u00a0decimated secondary\u00a0had\u00a0fans up in arms over what was to come.\u00a0 Having to face offenses led by Aaron\u00a0Rodgers and Jay […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":24663,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,1337],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-26501","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-featured-editorials","8":"category-home-slider"},"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/John-Idzik-Field.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peLffi-6Tr","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26501"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26508,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26501\/revisions\/26508"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}