As some Jets fans discuss the possibility of head coach Rex Ryan being set up for failure by his boss, John Idzik, it may be Idzik’s own failures that help preserve Ryan’s position within the organization.\u00a0 Following last seasons 8-8 finish despite media predictions of a possible three or four win season, it became\u00a0clear that owner Woody Johnson is a\u00a0Rex supporter and so he brought his head coach back for another season with a contract extension.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Following Ryan’s extension,\u00a0 Idzik had a rough off-season due to his inactive approach\u00a0in free-agency,\u00a0 coupled with his\u00a0questionable draft picks leading some to question his commitment to winning with Ryan at the helm.\u00a0 While some fans were up in arms over Idzik’s plan, others\u00a0went with the\u00a0more conservative “wait and see” approach.<\/p>\n
When John Idzik told Jets fans that the lifeblood of the organization was going to come via the draft, it was a relief for those who had grown tired of watching\u00a0the organization trade away multiple picks every season while the depth chart was less and less formidable. Armed with twelve picks in a deep draft, Idzik had the opportunity to make a big splash. There were several players available who could have filled the Jets’ needs early on, and with a multitude of compensatory picks, rounds 5-7 would offer the opportunity to draft any way the Jets saw fit. Best player available, biggest need, or just a project who could be brought along, but the early returns are alarming.<\/p>\n
After releasing fourth round pick\u00a0 Jalen\u00a0Saunders today, the Jets are left with only eight of their original twelve picks.\u00a0 While some would expect the 6th\/7th round picks to be shown the door based solely on where they were selected and so many rookies to choose from, nobody expects early or mid round picks to be let go\u00a0so soon by a team with so many needs. \u00a0Aside from Saunders, MLB\u00a0Jeremiah George, a fifth round selection, was poached from the Jets practice squad by the Jacksonville Jaguars.\u00a0 Saunders and George are joined by CB Brandon Dixon (Bucs) and Tajh\u00a0Boyd (FXFL)\u00a0as players who were drafted only a few months ago and are already gone.\u00a0 Dixon and Boyd don’t sting quite as much as Saunders and George given their draft\u00a0slot, but in the modern-day NFL, front-offices place a high value on their mid-round picks.<\/p>\n
Idzik chose to play it safe in rounds one and two, taking arguably the top safety in the draft in Calvin Pryor, and another top rated player at his position in round two with the selection of TE Jace\u00a0Amaro.\u00a0 From that point on, it got a little bit dicey.\u00a0 CB Dexter McDougle, a talented player, was selected in round three and was considered a reach by most analysts because\u00a0of his lack of playing time due to injuries in college.\u00a0 McDougle then suffered a season ending injury during training camp and Jets fans will have to wait another year to find out if he was worth the selection.\u00a0 The McDougle selection\u00a0was followed\u00a0by another\u00a0pick that was considered a reach\u00a0when\u00a0the Jets\u00a0took Saunders with his first of three fourth rounders and again, left many questioning the logic.\u00a0 At 5′ 9”, Saunders was viewed as a punt returner who could have been selected\u00a0much later.\u00a0 WR Shaq\u00a0Evans followed and wound up on IR with McDougle.\u00a0 OG Dakota Dozier was the next pick, and one for which Idzik was praised.\u00a0 While still a work in progress as a converted small school offensive tackle, Dozier is likely at least a year away from contributing.\u00a0 George and Dixon would follow the Dozier selections and are now drawing paychecks elsewhere, while WR Quincy Enunwa\u00a0sits on the practice\u00a0squad and awaits the outcome of a domestic violence charges brought against him by a female companion.\u00a0 DE Ik Inemkpali\u00a0and OLB\u00a0Trevor Riley were selected around the Boyd pick.\u00a0 Inemkpali\u00a0impressed in the pre-season but hasn’t seen the field due to injury, and Reilly has gotten some reps to give OLB\u00a0Calvin Pace the occassional\u00a0breather.\u00a0 So, if you’re keeping score at home…that’s twelve picks, eight remain with the organization, two of those eight are in injured reserve.\u00a0 That leaves six who are eligible to play, one of those six is awaiting the outcome of a police investigation, one has yet to see the field due to injury, one is playing sparingly\u00a0while another watches from the sidelines.\u00a0 Pryor and Amaro\u00a0are the only regulars and while Amaro appears to be on the upswing, Pryor hasn’t shown much in the very early going.<\/p>\n
All of this, while ESPN is reporting that some members of the organization are unhappy with Idzik’s approach to free-agency and the void he left at WR and CB just adds to the noise.\u00a0 So while Woody Johnson has never pretended to be a “football man”, one has to wonder how much he can ignore when it appears that the fans, media, players, and some members of the front-office are reportedly turning on Idzik.\u00a0 If Rex Ryan has more support from the players and executives than Idzik, could that make\u00a0the second-year GM the odd man out?\u00a0 \u00a0As the poor decisions mount, and the blunders become more apparent, the “wait and see” crowd has waited, and it’s quite likely they’ve seen enough.\u00a0 Will Woody Johnson be far behind?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As some Jets fans discuss the possibility of head coach Rex Ryan being set up for failure by his boss, John Idzik, it may be Idzik’s own failures that help preserve Ryan’s position within the organization.\u00a0 Following last seasons 8-8 finish despite media predictions of a possible three or four win season, it became\u00a0clear that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":19846,"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-26562","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\/2013\/05\/Rex_Idzik.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peLffi-6Uq","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26562","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=26562"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26564,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26562\/revisions\/26564"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}