Joe Douglas spoke to the media yesterday right after the trading deadline passed. We live in a time where words are often used to fit certain narratives. So rather than breaking this up quote by quote, I thought it made sense to post the full transcript from the interview.<\/p>\n
Opening Statement:<\/strong> Brian Costello, New York Post: Joe, I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve thought a lot about the last off season and what you maybe could have done to make this roster better. In hindsight, do you think you didn\u2019t strike enough of a balance between long-term goals and short-term goals in terms of building this team for 2020?<\/strong> Connor Hughes, The Athletic: Joe, how would you assess Sam Darnold\u2019s play this season and what do you think of his future with this team in 2021 and beyond?<\/strong> Rich Cimini, ESPN: Joe, this is arguably the worst season in franchise history, and the fan base is pretty fed up. I mean, what could you say to give them confidence that things are going to get better?<\/strong> Al Iannazzone, Newsday: Joe, how do you assess the job that Adam (Gase) has done?<\/strong> Bruce Beck, WNBC: Joe, what is your vision for this team? Like, how do you win? What will it take to win? When do you win?<\/strong> Connor Hughes, The Athletic: Joe, do you believe that you made a mistake letting Robby Anderson walk in free agency?<\/strong> Rich Cimini, ESPN: Can you say for sure now that Sam will be your starting quarterback next year?<\/strong> Andy Vasquez, The Record: Joe, you talked about the player development. How much do you worry about confidence when you guys are losing like this? Starting with Sam, where do you think he\u2019s at there, and then with other young players being in this kind of environment where you aren\u2019t able to get the wins?<\/strong> Rich Cimini, ESPN: Joe, when you took the job on the first day of your first press conference, you said there was a sense of urgency to build a team with a quarterback on his rookie contract. How does that square with what you\u2019re doing now, which is basically giving up players for future draft picks?<\/strong> Connor Hughes, The Athletic: Joe, has this situation that you came into, trying to kind of rebuild the Jets, has it been more of a challenge than you expected coming into this?<\/strong> Connor Hughes, The Athletic: Just a quick follow-up, Joe. This past off season, you were one of the more, I should say, less aggressive teams in free agency. This coming year you\u2019re projected to have more cap space than any other team in the league. Do you anticipate being more aggressive in the top line of free agency this coming year after sitting out a little bit this past off season?<\/strong> Brian Costello, New York Post: Joe, what do you say to the school of thought that at 0-8, this team is not going to go to the playoffs. You guys would be better off losing the rest of the way, getting the number one pick of in the draft. What do you think of that?<\/strong> Rich Cimini, ESPN: Joe, in your opinion, can this team get to where you want it to be with Adam as the head coach?<\/strong> Rich Cimini, ESPN: So, you\u2019re saying he\u2019s part of the solution then?<\/strong> Al Iannazzone, Newsday: Joe, do you feel the same about Sam, that with the right pieces around him, if you do a better job of getting those weapons, that he\u2019s the quarterback that can take you where you guys need to go?<\/strong> Connor Hughes, The Athletic: Joe, then going off of that and believing that if you surround him with more talent, he can be a top tier quarterback, and ultra-talented I think is what you said, why not commit to him definitively as your quarterback in 2021?<\/strong> Andy Vasquez, The Record: Joe, one of the things, if Darnold does have the kind of talent you think he does, quarterbacks are supposed to be able to kind of overcome some of these situations, maybe not having the guys on the offensive line or the weapons, but offensively, you guys just aren\u2019t anywhere near any other team in the league. How do you kind of resolve that?<\/strong> Connor Hughes, The Athletic: I think with the way this season has gone, Joe, and the way that the record and the losses have kind of piled up, teams look at the possibility, or fans I should say, look at the possibility of number one pick and see the opportunity to potentially draft Trevor Lawrence at number one or number two if you guys were there. Is that something that you guys are not considering drafting a quarterback with a first round pick this coming season?<\/strong> Brian Costello, New York Post: Joe, a couple of questions on Chris Herndon. There was a report that you guys were shopping him today. Number one, is that true? And number two, just the way his season has gone, how surprised are you at how he\u2019s played?<\/strong> Bob Glauber, Newsday: Joe, I know that you and Adam both report individually to Christopher (Johnson), so you wouldn\u2019t necessarily have Adam\u2019s fate in your hands, but there\u2019s a fairly good chance that there might be a new coach next year, which makes you the guy who\u2019s kind of like the last man standing. If that were to happen, do you feel confident that you can kind of handle, there\u2019s a lot of pressure with that, just you\u2019re the guy building this team really from the ground up potentially. Do you feel confident that you can kind of handle that pressure and do you welcome that pressure?<\/strong> Dennis Waszak, Jr., Associated Press: Joe, with some of the trades that you made and some of the moves with McLendon and Avery, and even with Bell, you talked earlier about being impressed by how the locker room has stayed together. While making those moves, was there some concern that getting rid of those guys, who were looked at as leaders might upset that kind of balance moving forward, especially with 0-8 and getting rid of some of these guys who have kind of provided that leadership?<\/strong> Connor Hughes, The Athletic: A quick positive question for you, Mekhi Becton, the kid you drafted in the first round, I mean, he looks about as good as advertised. Could you just talk a little bit about his development to this point, what you\u2019ve seen from him and what you kind of believe is his ceiling potentially as now that he\u2019s actually played some NFL games?<\/strong> Bruce Beck, WNBC: Joe, what\u2019s the focus for these last eight games?<\/strong> Al Iannazzone, Newsday: Would you like to see Denzel (Mims) and La\u2019Mical (Perine) featured and targeted a little more? I mean, I know Frank (Gore) is still getting his touches, but would you like to see them featured more?<\/strong> Chris Ryan, NJ.com: Joe, was there any scenario where you would have potentially moved Quinnen Williams before the deadline, and kind of a follow-up just, are you confident that he could be the guy that you build this defensive line around?<\/strong> Joe Douglas spoke to the media yesterday right after the trading deadline passed. We live in a time where words are often used to fit certain narratives. So rather than breaking this up quote by quote, I thought it made sense to post the full transcript from the interview. Opening Statement: Good evening, everyone. I\u2019m […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":52695,"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":[213],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-52961","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jet-news"},"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Joe-Douglas.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peLffi-dMd","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52961","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\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52961"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52962,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52961\/revisions\/52962"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nGood evening, everyone. I\u2019m going to keep my opening statement short, so we can get to your questions. In the last three weeks, we\u2019ve made tough decisions to move on from four players, Le\u2019Veon (Bell), Steve McLendon, Jordan Willis, and Avery Williamson. It was great having these guys a part of our organization. They all worked hard. They were invested in the team. On behalf of the Jets, I want to thank them, and I want to wish them the best with their new teams. My message for the fans, we\u2019re all frustrated with where we are right now, but everyone in this building has to own it. This record, it belongs to all of us. It\u2019s incumbent on each of us to figure out how we can improve it. And I certainly take my fair share of the responsibility. When I spoke to you guys in training camp, I was not being disingenuous about my optimism of where this team was going. Unfortunately, this hasn\u2019t played out as we all thought it would. I know you guys have a ton of questions. I want to be very clear: we win and we lose as a team, and that\u2019s all of us. That\u2019s front office, that\u2019s the players, that\u2019s the coaching staff. I will say that I\u2019m very proud of the way this locker room has stayed together. They continue to put the work in, each and every week, each and every practice, every time they stepped the field, it\u2019s with max effort, so I want to thank them for that. It\u2019s a real testament to this coaching staff and these players in the locker room. Unfortunately, it just hasn\u2019t materialized in the wins for us this year. Through the first eight weeks, the players and coaches, they\u2019ve all stood up here, they face tough, fair questions, and I\u2019m going to do that myself tonight. One of the things that I am excited about moving forward is that we finally had all of our rookies together on the field October 21st after dealing with injuries, and it\u2019s really good to see these guys progressing. I want to say the coaching staff\u2019s done a tremendous job getting these guys ready, especially in a unique year. We still have eight games left, so there\u2019s a lot of time for us to see improvement with everyone, not just the rookies. Ultimately, to build the team and the culture that we need and want, the focus of this organization is going to remain on player development. I believe we have a solid group of young players here mixed with veterans. They\u2019re all invested in the growth of this organization. Over the last few months, we\u2019ve been able to improve our draft capital. As we sit here now, currently, we have nine picks this upcoming draft. We have nine picks in the next draft. Of those picks, (nine) over the next two years are going to be in the top three rounds, so that gives us a lot of flexibility and a lot of opportunity moving forward to really improve the talent on this roster. But ultimately, again, for us to get to where we need to be, we have to continue to develop and invest in our players moving forward.<\/p>\n
\nI think we had a focus on what we going to try to attack in the offseason. That was on the offensive side of the ball with o-line and skill players. Ultimately, for a lot of different reasons, it hasn\u2019t materialized this year on that side of the ball. But these guys, unfortunately, we\u2019ve only had three games where our starting five offensive linemen have played together. The three wide receivers that we envisioned being our started three, they played zero games together. I\u2019m not making an excuse about injuries, that\u2019s just the simple fact. It\u2019s really hindered the continuity of our offense. Again, we\u2019re going through this off season, we\u2019re going through what our processes were in the offseason and trying to figure out what we can do better moving forward.<\/p>\n
\nYeah, my thoughts on Sam are the same now as they were then. Sam\u2019s an ultra-talented quarterback. I really can\u2019t say enough about his grit and his toughness. Ultimately, I\u2019ve got to do a better job of putting talent around Sam and we have to develop some kind of continuity within the offense moving forward. The silver lining is that there are eight games left and we have guys coming back healthy, and so hopefully, we can do that over the last eight weeks of the season.<\/p>\n
\nYeah, I hear you. Everyone here is frustrated. I know I touched on that in the open remarks. My message to the fans would be, as frustrated as we all are, please give these players and the staff the support as best as they can throughout the season. These guys go out and they give it their all every day in practice, every time they touch the field. Things haven\u2019t worked out. I can tell you guys that there\u2019s a lot of good people here, and we\u2019re doing everything that we can to make sure that we keep bringing in the right type of person and the right type of player. And then more importantly, develop that player in terms of not only on the field but off the field.<\/p>\n
\nI\u2019m going to say that this is not all on Adam. Again, I have to do a better job of surrounding him with better players and better weapons. We\u2019re in this together. I\u2019m going through and thinking of everything I can do to try to help Sam, or help Adam. The goal is to get this fixed together.<\/p>\n
\nI don\u2019t think my vision has changed from when I first stood in front of you guys. I think it starts up front, and I think it starts with the offense and defensive line. That\u2019s going to lead to the rest of the team, and so we really have to win the line of scrimmage first. We have to add explosive playmakers. We have to get after the passer. We\u2019re going to have to have guys that cover well. Those are all the things, I mean, that\u2019s what the successful teams in the National Football League are doing. We have to get better, faster. And so, that\u2019s on me. We\u2019re looking at everything we can possibly do to improve all those areas.<\/p>\n
\nI\u2019ve thought about Robby a lot. As you guys know, there\u2019s thousands of decisions that come across your desk during the year. And I go back, and I look at what I could have done better in that specific situation. I thought our guys did a fantastic job of really analyzing every position group\u2019s market value leading up to free agency last year. I think what went wrong with us and Robby, we thought the Robby\u2019s value was going to be even greater than he signed for in Carolina. And so, I think that\u2019s on me ultimately, and that\u2019s on us moving forward to get a better handle on every player\u2019s market value. Honestly, we would all love to see Robby here, doing what he\u2019s doing, but I tip my hat to the success he has. But obviously, we don\u2019t want to be in the business or losing good players.<\/p>\n
\nLook, I mean, we\u2019re trying to get through the next eight games. I mean, again, my feeling on Sam hasn\u2019t changed. We have to do a better job of surrounding him with talent.<\/p>\n
\nYeah, those are the things you think about especially when you\u2019re talking with young players, your own especially quarterbacks, how a player is going to handle being thrust out on the field and handling adversity. I think you take that on a case-by-case basis depending on that player\u2019s mental\/psychological makeup. I think where we are now, we have a lot of rookies that we are encouraged about, we have a lot of rookies that we think are made of the right stuff mentally, psychologically, and we\u2019re excited about those guys moving forward.<\/p>\n
\nRight. I certainly haven\u2019t done a good enough job of surrounding Sam with the weapons he needed last year or this year. I\u2019m looking at what I can do better moving forward in terms of making sure that we have the right skill and the right protection for him.<\/p>\n
\nNo, I came in with my eyes wide open. I knew the obstacles here, but I also knew that there was a lot of good people here, and I still feel that way. I\u2019m excited about the draft class we brought in. I\u2019m excited about the draft capital we have for the next few years. And I\u2019m excited about bringing in the right type of people while also putting together comprehensive player development plans for each and every player to make sure that we\u2019re absolutely doing the best. I mean, at the end of the day, our job is to serve these guys, to serve these players, and that\u2019s doing everything we can to help them as a player and a person.<\/p>\n
\nYeah, you\u2019re right. I mean, part of what we\u2019ve done is try to put ourselves in a better financial health moving forward. I think we\u2019re on our way to doing that. But ultimately, I think when you look at successful organizations, no matter what the sport, you don\u2019t see a lot of teams that build long-term success by buying their way out of it. You see the teams, the organizations, that have long-term success, they draft well, and they develop their players. I think that\u2019s the model moving forward. I think that\u2019s our vision moving forward. And we have the opportunity to strike in free agency and having that flexibility, but not none of this is going to work if we don\u2019t draft and develop these guys, especially with the assets we added last year and then this year.<\/p>\n
\nThat\u2019s not our thought process. That\u2019s not our thought process. We\u2019re focused on the New England Patriots and we\u2019re focused on getting better every day. As clich\u00e9 as that sounds that\u2019s, that we\u2019re focused on.<\/p>\n
\nYes. Ultimately, like I said, I have to do a better job for all these coaches and players, and the hope is that we can fix these problems together and be here together for a while.<\/p>\n
\nYes.<\/p>\n
\nAbsolutely. Absolutely, I am. Sam\u2019s played with, I know I touched on it earlier, but I feel like he has a different set of wide receivers every week. We\u2019ve had almost a different set of offense linemen out there every week. It\u2019s important to surround any quarterback with talent. I think you see the flashes of what he can be, and they\u2019re really special. Let\u2019s not forget that Sam\u2019s a 23-year-old quarterback that is maybe one of the toughest quarterbacks I\u2019ve ever been around. So, no, I\u2019m very excited about Sam.<\/p>\n
\nI have no problem saying that he is our best quarterback and our quarterback for the future.<\/p>\n
\nYeah, I think the quarterbacks that can overcome poor offensive lines and poor skill guys or those positions that aren\u2019t playing up to par, I think there\u2019s maybe very few of those type of players. And again, Sam\u2019s a 23-year-old quarterback that\u2019s still developing. He\u2019s still getting better. I do see improvement with our entire offense, but I will say that. Again, I said this in one of our talks last year, it starts with having good periods in practice and putting a practice together, and it starts with having a good quarter and putting a half together. And I think the last two weeks we\u2019ve been able to put to good halves together, we just need to turn those halves into games.<\/p>\n
\nOne, I wouldn\u2019t really get into any of our draft plans right now, and I wouldn\u2019t be able to comment on any college players. Again, I mean, we\u2019re focusing on Monday night.<\/p>\n
\nFirst, no, we were not shopping Chris. We received no calls on Chris, so I think there was some misinformation out there on that. Secondly, look, I mean, I feel like Chris has been a little snake bit since his car accident in terms of the injury last year, the suspension and this year just hasn\u2019t gone the way he envisioned, I\u2019m sure, which you could say that for 51 or 52 other guys on our team as well. I know Chris, no one cares more than Chris. Chris comes out to practice, gives his all every single day. And so, like for most of our team, the practice hasn\u2019t translated into Sundays.<\/p>\n
\nWell, I mean, there\u2019s pressure every single day when you walk in the building. My mind hasn\u2019t even gone there on that scenario you just brought up. My focus is helping Adam solve the problem and working together to do it. And so obviously, I think we\u2019re all confident in our abilities, but I\u2019m focused sort on solving these problems with Adam.<\/p>\n
\nNo doubt there was concern. And that\u2019s a good question because especially when you\u2019re talking about a guy like Steve McLendon, a guy like Avery, those are discussions that we did have. How is this going to affect the rest of the team? I think ultimately, the decision was made. Look, we have, in those two guys cases, we have good rooms. And what I mean by that is we, the D-tackle room is a very good room with high quality people and high quality players. We have guys like Quinnen (Williams) and Foley (Fatukasi), Nate Shepherd. John Franklin-Myers has really come on. We felt good about doing that because of the quality of player and person we had in that room and the same at linebacker, with guys like Neville (Hewitt), Patrick Onwuasor on his way back, Bryce Hager, Harvey Langi. We felt good about the quality, person and character, which gave us the ability to do what we thought was best for the team long-term.<\/p>\n
\nYeah, I think everyone\u2019s excited about Mekhi. I think Mekhi\u2019s obviously turned heads with his sheer size and strength, and I know Mekhi\u2019s as upset as anybody about where we are right now. And he truly cares, and he truly wants to help. I think he is a player that is going to help us long-term. We\u2019re excited about working with him every day, because you\u2019re talking about a young man that loves football. He\u2019s very smart, he\u2019s tough as nails, and has a rare size and athleticism. And still, he\u2019s just scratching the surface of what he can do physically. There\u2019s a lot of desire from him to want to be the best player that he can be, so we\u2019ve made it our mission to sort of bend over backwards to try to help him reach his goals.<\/p>\n
\nYeah, I think the focus is improvement. The focus is as simple as that sounds, the focus is improving every day. Like I said before, putting good practices together, putting good quarters together, putting good halves together, putting good games together. We need to simply do better, and that\u2019s the focus right now, and just seeing the progression of all of our young players, whether they\u2019re a rookie, first- or second-year player.<\/p>\n
\nYeah, I think you\u2019ve seen an uptick in La\u2019Mical\u2019s playtime the last two weeks and excited about that. Before I get into those too, Frank has been an unbelievable veteran to have on this team. The leadership that he brings on a daily basis, how vested he is to help, not only the offense, but the entire team, and especially young guys. He\u2019s taken La\u2019Mical under his wing. Those guys love football so much. For him, being where he is in his career and a Hall of Fame running back, the fact that he comes out every day and he has the attitude of excited rookie, and the way that he\u2019s taking these guys under his wings is phenomenal. But yeah, La\u2019Mical, excited about his progression moving forward. Obviously, he brings an explosive dynamic, he helps in the pass game. He has ball skills. Denzel, I think the last few weeks you\u2019ve seen some positive things from him. And so especially for a guy like Denzel, who\u2019s really had two weeks of practices prior to playing in two games, I mean really this is almost like the end of training camp for him in terms of the amount of actual professional football reps that he\u2019s had. We\u2019re really excited about seeing his progression these last eight games and what he brings in terms of his catch radius and ball skills, route running.<\/p>\n
\nYeah, that was another situation similar to the Herndon question I answered. I think there were a couple wrong reports on what we would entertain for Quinnen. And I was able to have really positive conversations with both him and his agent, and just clarify that we were not shopping Quinnen and what our vision for Quinnen was. And so, my perspective on Quinnen is, Quinnen plays a premium position at D-line. Like I said earlier, offense and defensive line matters. It\u2019s the foundation of what we want to be. He plays a premium position at D-line. He\u2019s an interior pass rusher, that I think has gotten better every week. And he\u2019s not a good person, he\u2019s a great person. I think the focus is to keep as many of those people around as possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"