by the Jet Report

Tim Tebow and the Jets are arguably an even more dark comedic pairing now than they have ever been. Consider the irony of it all. The job that Tebow covets is only available with Gang Green. The quarterbacks that have been mentioned as cheap veteran competition for Mark Sanchez recently are arguably no better than Tebow. 

If one could toss the drama and media attention that Tebow naturally brings aside, it wouldn’t be an obscene move for GM John Idzik to just keep Tebow. Throw him into the battle for the starting job more seriously than the Jets did last year. After all, he is under contract in what will be a transition year on the field for the club anyway.

Tebow is at worst, the best read option candidate of the QB’s currently on the Jets roster, and many who are poised to be added to it soon. Better than Sanchez would be, and more agile than say, a Brady Quinn is. In the new short passing game that may need the QB to also make plays with his legs, perhaps Tebow is a better route than what an older banged up David Garrard could be over the course of sixteen games too.

Idzik raised the notion on Monday that maybe Tebow won’t be released. As conventional wisdom has the Jets doing in the coming days, because letting Tebow go would ease any of the circus-like atmosphere he indirectly added in 2012.

What if the Jets kept Tebow and really let him try and win the job this time though? Would the move be any more ridiculous than setting Sanchez up to have a fair shot to win his job back is? Which is by the way, the road the Jets seem to be traveling down right now. 

The team with the same owner that was convinced it should give boat loads of cash to Sanchez, one of the league’s worst rated starters over the past two years, is now eyeing fringe backups and has-beens over it’s own backup. An unorthodox gamer who was never given the chance last season even when the club was eliminated in late December.

When it comes to anything ‘Tim Tebow’ though, we all know that there is always more to the story than X’s and 0’s. Always more than simple logic. The same can both be said however, about the Jets. Especially if one has been watching them long enough.

by the Jet Report

SI’s Peter King reports today that the Jets asking price for Darrelle Revis will be a first round pick, but it’s not enough to warrant getting rid of the game’s best cover corner. As long as the Revis legal team can somehow avoid a third contractual confrontation with Woody Johnson, we see no reason why new GM John Idzik should send Revis packing for the potential of some unknown commodity. No matter how highly touted the pick is. 

Revis makes top flight wideouts invisible. Antonio Cromartie, coming off of an outstanding year, is as good of a second tier top CB as one could ask for, but he’s no Revis. Together, the two form the best tandem in football at a time when quality passing teams have become harder to slow down. The Jets held together defensively without Revis, but it would be hard to argue that they won’t be a better secondary with him once again.

An expiring contract in 2013 and his recent ACL tear make the chances of obtaining a treasure chest full of players and picks in return for Revis lower than they would have been, had he finished 2012 healthy. If the rebuilding Jets are truly shopping Revis, then it’s time to ask for a king’s ransom regardless. Gang Green has to make others figure out a reworked long term deal for the rehabbing star before 2014 and risk doing so at a high cost, as opposed to watching Revis thrive elsewhere for less than top level compensation. In other words, keep him, or find a way to obtain enough talent for him, that the trade helps to rebuild the roster all by itself. One or the other.

Perhaps the unconfirmed reports that Woody and Co. are dangling Revis to prospective buyers isn’t quite true. That the chatter was instead a purposeful and indirect warning shot from the Johnson bunker. One whose intended message is meant for Revis implying that “there will be no contract drama this time around. Any extraneous noise will lead to a new address Darrelle, so forget playing hardball. Come ready to make a deal this time.”  

If the reports are in fact true, then Idzik and the Jets can talk and listen when it comes to Revis all they want. As long as they set an asking price for Revis that resembles the level of Revis himself. One that goes way beyond one unproven first rounder in April. No matter how much immediate help the 6-10 club needs.

by the Jet Report

The Jets moved up in the 2009 draft in order to grab the exuberant USC Rose Bowl star Mark Sanchez. Since then the one-time emerging quarterback play has fallen rapidly. Sanchez has time to be rehabilitated emotionally, but new Jets GM John Idzik may already have another plan in mind. One that includes giving the starting job to Matt Flynn. A player that Idzik helped bring to Seattle in 2011.

Flynn signed with the Seahawks in March of 2012. After two monstrous late season games in 2010 as Packers starter (while Green Bay rested god-like starter Aaron Rdogers for the playoffs). When he excited many teams who were in need of a quarterback, by throwing for a combined nine TD passes in eight quarters of play. Results that led to a three year twenty five million dollar deal for himself, to become the future in Seattle. One of those places in need of a fresh start from behind center. 

Then all of a sudden the future of the NFL became something called the “run option.” Used by teams this past year such as the Seahawks and Redskins, who featured young athletic signal callers capable of spearheading it. With Russell Wilson (who shocked many by winning the job from Flynn in training camp) now firmly entrenched behind center for Pete Carroll’s club, many Jets fans are already wondering if Idzik is interested once again in the also-pricey Flynn.

Flynn or no Flynn, Sanchez is now on thin ice as a Jet. The Daily News is already suggesting that the Jets will explore the notion of trading Sanchez, if there is a market for him. Releasing him would work heavily against the Jets cap, but it remains an option. Successful teams do at times take financial hits in order to turn emotional pages inside of their locker rooms. 

Could a Sanchez for Flynn deal be in the works with Idzik now at the controls? The answer could lie in part within the vision of Marty Mornhinweg, who was named the Jets new offensive coordinator today. Mornhinweg has called the plays for the Eagles for the past six years. He has worked alongside a mobile quarterback in Donovan McNabb, a run-first QB in Michael Vick, and a pocket passer in Nick Foles. Having seen all three style first hand, the new Jets play caller may lend a valuable hand in leading Idzik towards a direction that will serve the Jets best going forward. 

If both elusive speed and arm strength is what Idzik now covets after seeing Wilson succeed as a rookie, Flynn will not be the right fit. He is clearly not as mobile as players like Wilson, Robert Griffin III or Colin Kaeperick are at the position, and his arm strength will never be considered among the elite.

However Flynn’s efficiency in the west coast style, proven briefly in Mike McCarthy’s system, could potentially make him a vast upgrade over Sanchez. Whose QB rating was ranked 30th in 2011 and 31st in 2012. Justifying a move to a player Flynn who could provide stability in the short passing game as a short term transition makes sense on some level, even if it were not the long term solution for Idzik’s new organization at the position.

If a deal that involved Flynn meant moving Sanchez came to fruition, the result would sadden any diehards who still believe that Sanchez had the ability to become a franchise quarterback. Had he been surrounded by the right talent, and developed properly by many ex-coaches. Whose failure to do so played a part in their respective firings.

It won’t be long before the fate of Sanchez and the mystery of who will be the starter, is addressed. As the process of rebuilding the Jets flawed roster finally begins. Matt Flynn’s name will certainly surface regularly as part of that conversation. From now until a choice by Idzik and the Jets is made.

by the Jet Report

The New York Jets flipped the script from self-pitying losers to Super Bowl contenders during Rex Ryan’s first two seasons. As the 2012 season has slipped into oblivion, though, warm fuzzy feelings related to how the honeymoon originally felt, have become harder to conjure up. It has become fashionable nowadays, as the 6-9 Jets close their season on Sunday, to question whether the club is better off now than it was four years ago. When Woody Johnson replaced Eric Mangini and Brett Favre with Ryan and Mark Sanchez. Three major issues still plague the Jets. What type of head coaching persona best fits the team going forward, who the QB should be, and how the Patriots can be toppled.

Many people forget that Mangini was once perceived as the “Mangenius.” A brilliant Bill Belichick disciple during his first season (in 2006 when the 10-6 Jets returned to the playoffs after a 4-12 year under Herm Edwards in 2005) whose rigid, secretive, and stoic ways only became a detriment when the Jets crashed late in 2008.

Ryan then came barrelling through the doors in 2009 as the loud, brash, AFC Championship-level coach. A made for media character seemingly prepared to lead the organization out of it’s “Same Old Jets” mentality permanently. His present-day state as the humbled, neutered uber-loyal figurehead, has some diehards who all once loved him, wondering if he is the right man for the job going forward.

With reports surfacing now that the Jets are already searching for a new GM to replace Mike Tannenbaum, the Jets will once again be staring down a predicament they faced in early ’09 regarding the HC postion: What type of mindset, X’s and 0’s approach and personal skills best fit a model that aims for long-term success.

In 2008 out of nowhere, Brett Favre replaced Chad Pennington at quarterback in training camp. The shotgun wedding with the future hall of famer started out beautifully, but ended in disaster. As the 8-3 Jets fell victim to a stubborn Favre. Whose undisclosed arm injury left the club (that eventually fell to 9-7) hostage to a consecutive game streak that Favre refused to relinquish.

The Jets were happy after that late season crash to let Favre head to Minnesota. Mark Sanchez then became the franchise quarterback and instant starter after being selected in 2009.  After a modest yet victorious start that began with a 4-2 playoff record in just two seasons, Sanchez’s career has gone from promising to second string. 

With or without a new GM calling the shots, the Jets, as they did following the Favre experiment, appear ready to finally give up on the notion that Sanchez can guide them without challenge for years upon end. A new starter for the Jets in 2013 almost seems like an inevitability at this point.

Then there are the Patriots. In ‘08 the Dolphins shocked many by winning the AFC East. This thanks ironically both to Pennington’s guidance as the new Miami QB, and something the innovative Dolphins called the Wildcat formation.

That anomaly of a year aside, the Pats have been the NFL’s most successful regular season team for over a decade. As well as the biggest thorn in the Jets side. Having won the division in ten of the last twelve years.

They are 11-4 this year. With a legendary head coach in Belichick who is as motivated to win as he was when he first left Bill Parcells and the Jets at the podium in back 2000, in order to rejoin Robert Kraft in Foxboro.

The Jets and Ryan believed that by now, they would be the ones in the penthouse. So much for wishful thinking. Soon the  Jets will again assume the unenviable role of having to view their own their parts based on what it will take to overtake Brady and Co.

After the Buffalo game ends, the GM question is answered, and the Tim Tebow error is dealt with, the Jets will have to answer the same three key problems they had hoped to solve in January of 2009. “What type of coaching style best suits us now, who should be the quarterback, and how do we finally take down the Patriots? “

BRAYLON TO JETS NATION: LET’S ROCK

“Woke up with a huge smile on my face. Enough said. Jets nation let’s rock.”

Jets WR Braylon Edwards, via twitter this morning.

MAYBE WE ARE ALL JUST IDIOTS

The endless cycle of Jets insanity that spans decades and generations, from fan to coach to player, can only mean one thing. Braylon Edwards might have hit on something bigger than he even meant to, on twitter last week. Maybe we are all just idiots. One big happy family of blithering idiots.