With the Ravens win over the Detroit Lions Monday night, the New York Jets miss out on the playoffs for a third straight season. Head coach Rex Ryan has put together another solid run defense, ranking in the top five in the NFL. Their passing defense was awful, ranking 25th in the league.
We know by now that Ryan is one of the best defensive coaches in the league. A coach is only as good as his players, and unfortunately, Ryan can't make moves to decide who is or isn't on his team. However, rookie General Manager John Idzik can. Why didn't Idzik acquire a mid-tier receiving threat to counter Santonio Holmes and an often injured Stephen Hill? Especially if Idzik wanted his man to succeed-- Yes, HIS man. Geno Smith.
After two seasons marred by the poor --unless you compare those seasons to Smith's current season-- play of Mark Sanchez, Idzik figured it best to go out and draft a rookie quarterback to compete with Sanchez for the starting role. Was it really a competition? In Week 3 of the preseason against the New York Giants, Sanchez went down with a season-ending shoulder surgery on a meaningless play in a meaningless game. At least, it was meaningless to everyone except for Ryan and Idzik. Ryan needed Sanchez in there to make it look like there really was a battle for the quarterback position. To anyone not blind to what was really going on, Idzik was making sure the Jets continued a quarterback battle while in reality he held in hand the power to decide the starting quarterback. Everyone who wasn't oblivious knew Idzik's decision was made in the third round of the 2013 NFL Draft. Sanchez was a scapegoat, and when he went down with an injury, no one would've asked questions on if the right quarterback was starting, until Smith's play was so bad, the Jets lost three straight, and were finally eliminated.
The Darelle Revis trade is another move made by John Idzik that still has lingering questions. You could've had another season of the Revis and Cromartie defensive back tandem, but instead gave him to Tampa Bay. While the Jets did acquire Defensive Rookie of the Year candidate Sheldon Richardson because of the deal, they also acquired cornerback Dee Milliner to try to replace Revis. Milliner has been a joke. A cold-hearted, under performing joke. Milliner was benched multiple times after starting games, missed games with injuries, and failed to intercept a single pass in his rookie season. Often times when the Jets defense got beat on deep pass plays, Milliner's man was on the receiving end. Look at Week 15, against the Carolina Panthers, where Milliner's inability to shed a block caused the Jets to surrender a 72-yard touchdown to DeAngelo Williams on a screen pass. Granted, Ed Reed took a poor angle, and David Harris lost Williams in man-to-man coverage, but Milliner got straight up manhandled for being a seventh overall pick in the draft. Without the Revis trade, the Jets would've passed on Milliner, and only gotten Richardson, a solid deal which also would've improved their defense against the pass.
While you might say that Revis' numbers aren't that impressive in Tampa Bay, consider that Revis is one of the NFL's best shutdown corners. Shutdown refers to the ability to shut down a high threat wide receiver in man-to-man coverage. The Buccaneers mostly play zone coverage, which explains why Revis was never headline news this season in Tampa. Plus, Tampa Bay started 0-8.
While Rex Ryan will most likely be fired at the end of the season for failing to make the playoffs for the third straight season, it is ultimately the changes--and lack there of at the wide receiver position-- that John Idzik made that cost the Jets a playoff spot. Ryan will merely take the blow for turning a preseason 4-12 team into an 8-8 contender this season.
