The Jets aren’t done. But at 2-6, they’re getting closer to yet another non-playoff season.
And you can blame it on the owner of the team.
For most dysfunctional teams, you can — and should — blame the owner. Bad teams stay bad because bad owners make bad decisions.
And there isn’t a damn thing fans can do about it.
Less than three weeks ago, Jets owner Woody Johnson fired coach Robert Saleh. The Jets were 2-3. The move came on a Tuesday, only six days before the start of a two-pack of prime-time games, first against the Bills and then against the Steelers.
Saleh hadn’t lost the team. He’d lost the owner. And that’s not nearly enough to justify an in-season change.
To make matters worse, the team shed its top defensive mind, while its defensive coordinator got thrust into the interim coaching role. With the team already struggling, the impact wasn’t what Johnson had hoped it would be.
But what did he expect? He acted impulsively, after his team lost a game in Woody’s home away from home — the home to which he hopes to return if the election goes his way and he gets re-appointed as ambassador to the U.K. He either got bad advice or ignored good advice given.
The proof is in the performance, or lack thereof. The team stinks. They keep losing. The wheels are coming off. The plane is in a nosedive.
It didn’t have to be that way. They were 2-3. Would they have won the three post-Saleh games if he hadn’t been fired? Probably not. But they would have at least won one, and possibly two. At 3-5 or 4-4, they’d be alive for a stretch run.
And a stretch run wouldn’t be all that crazy, since the team potentially would be improving as the quarterback who didn’t play much last year gets more comfortable with the other players on offense and as they get more comfortable with him.
Instead, the Jets are 2-6. It gets better (worse). The Texans come to town in only three nights.
So Happy Halloween, Jets fans. The trick is your team, and the only treat will come the moment another failed season officially ends.
