Get ready for Triple-A aircraft.
The word around the 2021 team is “development,” as this year is more about experiencing young players and seeing the progress they are making to winning big in the coming years.
As for 2021? Get ready for a long season, Jets fans … again.
“We welcome the urgency that everyone wants to win, but at the same time this can’t affect your decision-making over the long-term goal of winning championships for extended periods of time,” coach Robert Saleh said. “This urgency in the past has led to outbreaks of success and failure. We are trying to reverse this, as far as we have long, long successes.
“So while the fan base and all of that is much appreciated and we want that tension, at the same time it’s not something that pushes us to make a mistake that affects the longevity of this organization.”
This is how a rebuilding team should proceed, but it can’t be easy to hear for fans who have now spent 10 seasons with no playoff appearances and five years without a winning season. The message that came out of Florham Park on Wednesday was that this season will be measured by the good development of players, like quarterback Zach Wilson, not by the number of wins and losses the team has, just like a minor league baseball team. .
“The goal is to improve every week,” CEO Joe Douglas said. “The goal is to play solid football, establish the line of fight and really develop as the year goes on. I think when you see the character of this team shine in the first part of the training ground, I think you will see it shine as we move forward during the season.
Douglas was told he wasn’t talking about making the playoffs or going to the Super Bowl, and he laughed and said, “Good try.”
Rex Ryan’s days predicting the Super Bowls (and approaching ones) seem like something out of the Paleozoic era these days. The Jets of the last eight years have been like that stretch of highway that is under construction forever.
The 2021 Jets have a younger cast than the Mickey Mouse Club. They are ready to have eight newcomers in important roles. When Douglas described this year’s success, he seemed like a judge of preseason games when progress is more important than the scoreboard.
“The success will be to see how we come out as we did in the preseason and play well, play fundamental football with a lot of intention, with a lot of passion, with a lot of explosiveness, with a lot of violence, as the coach says, and watch us it develops as the year goes on, ”Douglas said.
Saleh was asked if he thinks this year is about short-term pain on the road to long-term gain.
“No, not necessarily,” he said. “There are a lot of similarities, I’ll let you look, in terms of teams that have followed our lead and been successful. But there is always, with rookies and a young team, that there will be growth because there will be so many moments, aha “But what you will see is a group of young men playing with the absolute tail. They run, they hit and they are happy to play this game.”
It remains to be seen how patient fans will be with this team. Saleh has had a good honeymoon since he was hired in January, as fans were delighted to have anyone other than Adam Gase. But will this fade away as losses increase?
Douglas is in his third season as a GM (though only his second low season), and the team has gone from 9 to 23 on his watch, which he acknowledged was not good enough. Douglas said that despite the focus on development, there is a mindset of winning within the Jets.
“Now we’re all focused on winning,” Douglas said. “We are all focused on doing what is best for this organization this year and in the future. What I’ve been preaching since I’ve been here is that we want to do it right. We want to build this foundation the right way, so that it is a long-term success and not just a flash. I feel good about how much we are at the base of this team to move forward.