From Mangenius to Manmoron

Ah, ah geez guys, guys, I am going to get fired for this

Of course Mangini got fired. The Jets were the biggest disappointment in the NFL this year. The Jags? Look at how beat up their line was. The Boys? No chemistry and their QB went down for 3 weeks. Name any team you want, and none of them will have had the red carpet rolled out for them with a trip to the playoffs at the end of it.

First, the Jets and the rest of the AFC get the luck of the draw with schedule, getting both the NFC and AFC Wests–two divisions whose teams went 21-59 out of their own divisions. But what do the Jets do? Go 3-5 against those teams–let us remember the OT game in Oakland when you failed to score on three possessions. Sure they had 4 games on the West Coast, but so didn’t the Pats, and they went 3-1 unlike the Jets at 1-3.

If that wasn’t enough they brought in a ton of talent in the off-season with guys like Vernon Gholston, Calvin Pace, Kris Jenkins, Alan Faneca, Dustin Keller, Tony Richardson….and then they got the granddaddy of them all, Brett Favre. The QB Jets fans had yearning for since Broadway Joe. It appeared that this team that finished 4-12 would finish at least 8-8, maybe even 9-7.

Then the Jets got the biggest break, er, tear, they could’ve asked for–Tom Brady goes down for the season. The man that made the Patriots go was down for the season with just former 7th round pick Matt Cassel to take over. Then Rodney Harrison goes down in Week 6, followed Adalius Thomas in Week 10 and Tedy Bruschi in Week 14. It got so bad for the Pats that they had to pull Junior Seau off of a surfboard to play. Sure the Pats finishing 11-5 speaks more their resiliency than it does to the Jets collapse….BUT THIS WAS SUPPOSE TO BE THE YEAR FOR THE JETS. Forget the surprising Dolphins and the underachieving Bills, you finished two games behind your chief rival in a year when you should have blown them out of the water.

Oh, and let’s not forget about the second half meltdowns of all meltdowns. You are 8-3 and coming off a win in Tennessee, their first loss of the year. Some are wondering if the Jets are the best team in the AFC and, with their light 5 game stretch to end the season, the team that will represent the AFC in the Super Bowl. Then New York goes out, crawls into bed, and takes the biggest, steamiest dump in its own bed by going 1-4 to close out the season against the Bills, Broncos, Niners, Dolphins and let’s not forget about that awful showing in Seattle.

I mean what the hell. Let’s recap. Light Schedule–check. Ton of talent brought in, including a QB that everyone in NY had been clamoring for–check. Chief rival loses starting QB year with the guy from Lucas coming into play–check. 8-3 with a game lead after week 12–check. And what do fans in New York get? A 9-7 team that finishes two games behind a MASH unit and a team that went 1-15 last year and signed the QB you let go to make for “Broadway Brett”.

It would be nice to see Mangini come back to the Pats. The Hoodie could always use a juice box boy

Brady Injury puts Spotlight on the Jets

In exactly a one month span, the New Jersey Jets went from AFC East bottom dwellers to contenders. On August 7th the Jets added Hall of Fame QB Brett Favre while the Pats lost their Hall of Fame QB on the 7th of September, greatly altering the AFC East landscape. The Jets had already made a host of moves, especially on defense, prior to the change in QBs for the two rivals, and even with the buzz that Favre had created around the Jets (buzz that made the defending Super Bowl champs an after thought in their own town during the pre-season), not too many were thinking anything better than maybe a Wild Card spot. Now, with Matt Cassel under center for the Pats, the expectations for the Jets could not get much higher……..and that may come back to bite them.

Gary Myers of the NY Post wrote an article on September 8th entitled “With Tom Brady done, Eric Mangini, Brett Favre have to win division”. Myers’ believes that the Jets must “win now”, and much of this stems from the one year window in which the Jets, with Favre in (and who knows if he will be around for 2009) and Brady out (who should be back for 2009), have to make some noise in the division and possibly make a deep run in the playoffs……..not to mention generate some noise before they and the Giants move into a brand new stadium in 2010.

As we know, the NY media can be the most critical (and ruthless) in the country of its respective area pro sports teams. After struggling in Fenway in just his 16th career start as a 21 year-old, Phil Hughes was ripped by the NY Post. A related Post article targeted fellow “young gun” Ian Kennedy……both articles came less three weeks into the season. If the NY media gives little slack to two kids who had, at the time, started fewer than 30 games…..combined……it is hard to think they will be any less critical of a team that went from a being 10-6 playoff team to a 4-12 joke, a coach that is already on the hot seat, a future Hall of Fame QB, and a defense that drafted one of the highest rated defensive players in this year’s draft as well as bring in a Pro-Bowl defensive tackle and throw $42 million at new OLB. Even some non-NY media personalities were stating before the Brandy injury that the Jets are in a must win now situation.

However, while the Jets should certainly finish much better than 4-12 as they did in 2007, this is a team that still has some things to iron out. Favre admits he is still not fully comfortable with the offense, Gholston struggled with his transition to OLB during the pre-season and how all of the new acquisitions will mesh together remains to be seen. And despite defeating the pathetic Dolphins by just 6 points this past Sunday……granted the game was in Miami and the Jets were without a kicker…….there are those in the NY media who think the Jets are good enough right now to knock off New England this Sunday. (Even without Tom Brady the Pats bolster a very strong roster.)

The Jets are a contender in the division, no doubt about that, but they are still a team trying to find its identity with so many additions to the roster and the NY media will not be patient. It will be interesting to see how Jets’ players react to articles written about them like those written about Hughes and Kennedy should they struggle in the early going. Even Brett Favre, possibly the most beloved players of our generation (retirement talk aside) is not impervious to the critics. New York is a tough town to play in to begin with…….high expectations make it near impossible.