Jets need to use this season as learning experience instead of pretending it was an anomaly
New York Jets head coach Joe Douglas at the end of the season press conference on Monday, Jan. 8, 2024. Credit: Tom Rock / Newsday
FLORHAM PARK, N.J.
There was a strange disconnect in the vibes at the Jets’ facility on Monday as the players cleaned out their lockers and the coaches and front office dived into the offseason. A team just 24 hours removed from putting a period on the end of a mostly disappointing season — one that under normal circumstances should have resulted in a call to the Property Brothers for a complete demo and renovation — instead was, for the most part, excited about its future.
It may have been Black Monday for the rest of the league’s also-rans, but for this team, there were an incongruous number of rainbows.
The head coach and others were grinning and gushing over how the quarterback, whose season-ending injury derailed just about everything the team had expected to occur, had spent the last few weeks as the best player on the practice field.
The quarterback who brought — and continues to bring — so much drama and ancillary attention from his non-football words and actions preached to the entire organization about eliminating distractions (without a hint of irony).
Terms such as “championship defense,” “championship offense” and “Super Bowl” were casually tossed around like the beanbags that routinely fly through the facility during cornhole games.
Almost to a man, and in the face of all evidence to the contrary, the Jets insisted over and over that they are “close.”
“It’s really not as far away as it looks right now,” general manager Joe Douglas proclaimed. “I think we are in a position to succeed moving forward.”
It was as if the last four months hadn’t even happened. As if the calendar had skipped from the giddy excitement of Sept. 10, 2023, and gone straight to the optimism about the coming season on Jan. 8, 2024.
It’s hard to blame the Jets for wanting to completely erase 2023 from their collective memories. It was, by almost every metric, eminently forgettable. And, considering the lack of significant changes that losing teams typically endure to their staffs and leadership on the day after the regular season ends, there isn’t any evidence that reputations or resumes were at all tarnished.
Those 10 losses that were just endured? The 3-7 record since the start of November? The 13th straight season without a postseason appearance?
Poof. Gone. Or at least distanced from.
Tight end Tyler Conklin said the season and all its shenanigans felt as if it took place “two years ago.” Aaron Rodgers said it had the feeling of “a lost year,” particularly for him and his inability to participate in it, but on Monday, no one seemed to be putting much effort into trying to find it.
Except it did happen. It wasn’t a bad dream sequence. The Jets really went from a summer spent toasting and crowning themselves to an autumn and early winter full of football futility and folly, and now they are right back to raising glasses and expectations again.
There are valuable lessons to be learned from 2023 that the entire organization would be wise to heed. Among the obvious: Don’t rely on just one player to carry the team. Don’t make roster and staff decisions based on that one player’s desires. And don’t overestimate depth on the offensive line.
Those, it seems, have been learned, and Douglas took appropriate ownership for mistakes and miscalculations that were made. Whether corrective measures will be taken regarding them or this was simply a public display of half-hearted remorse remains to be seen.
But there are other less concrete areas in which the Jets absolutely can use a lot of schooling. On dealing with spotlights, on taming their unearned hubris, and in recognizing that in a business in which do-overs rarely come along, they are extremely lucky to be afforded this mulligan.
“Obviously, we are all going to be on the quote-unquote hot seat next year,” Rodgers said. “It’s gonna be an important year for all of us. I love that. I think it’s fantastic. We should approach it that way every year. It’s a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately [league].”
That’s easy for him to say. He’ll be in Canton by early next decade no matter what happens here. The rest of these Jets need to remember that they haven’t done anything. They may have acquired Rodgers, but they don’t share his legacy. Not yet.
Ironically, it is the younger generation that seems to understand that better than the more established leadership within the organization. The few true frowns and grousing about 2023 came in recent days from Garrett Wilson, Sauce Gardner and Breece Hall. Wilson went so far as to call this past season “the worst year of my life” and said losing “takes a toll on you.”
“What happened this season can’t happen again,” he said. “It’s gotta be better.”
They are the few who look at what just happened to the Jets for what it was: A total failure.
Getting Rodgers back on the field in 2024 will help everything. But the Jets can’t allow themselves to believe that it will cure anything.
As C.J. Mosley noted after expressing his requisite excitement over Rodgers’ return next season: “It will take more than just him to help us win football games . . . The more we understand that he needs us more than we need him, the more we can get this thing going.”
There weren’t any true consequences. But let that be the biggest takeaway, and then maybe this past season can have some redemptive qualities after all.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
