Countless hours of blood, sweat, and tears were the infrastructure. Avoiding as much school work and family time was the key. Daydreaming about the accomplished mission could not be helped, as destroying the final boss was the ultimate goal for many kids who lived in the late 1980s and/or early 1990s.
Looking back now, in our so-called “wiser” years, we realize that those moments weren’t as heart-palpitating as previously thought. Still, the first time an NES kid saw Bowser or Ganon announce his presence with the utmost authority, sweaty palms were activated.
This thing must be defeated. I mean, really … how else could a hero think?
The lovely Zelda’s life, held captive by Ganon throughout the entirety of the game, was dependent upon victory … my victory.
If a hero is what she needs, then a hero is what she will indeed receive.
Though we’re referencing something that’s obviously fantasy and wholly meaningless in the grand scheme of life—a video game—those final boss moments from our youth don’t suddenly become any less real. And the idea surrounding the “hero complex” doesn’t become any less important.
Despite a lack of real-world connectivity, the emotions were indeed raw, and that’s exactly what the New York Jets must remember while handling their current affairs.
Learning from past mistakes
Yes, Jets fans, I get it; what I’m about to reference is as painful as it gets.
Harken back to the 2022 NFL season for a moment. Try to place your mind in that very time period, and think about how the Jets’ season unfolded.
The young Jets were the talk of the NFL following their stunning 27-10 Week 6 victory over the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field.
Then-rookie Sauce Gardner and company donned the Cheeseheads in the postgame while simultaneously putting the league on notice. The young Jets had officially arrived.
What happened shortly after the game is the critical call-out, however. Responding to a Rich Cimini tweet, then-Jets wide receiver Elijah Moore had no problem filling the world in on his unhappiness over a lack of targets.
“If I say what I really wanna say … I’ll be the selfish guy… we winning,” Moore said. “Grateful! Huge blessing! All I ever wanted. [Bittersweet] for me em but I’ll be solid. So I’ll just stay quiet Just know I don’t understand either.”
Let me get this straight: Your team wins, moves to 4-2, and does so in the face of very low expectations coming into the season, yet your immediate reaction is to vent frustration on a social media platform? Is this real?
Teams with legitimate leadership do not allow something like this to happen.
I’ll say it one more time: This does not happen on a team with sufficient leadership in place. Period.
Whether it’s leadership in the locker room, within the front office, or on a coaching staff, a second-year receiver that hasn’t accomplished a damn thing in his professional career does not do something like this. And for those rare times when something like this happens within a winning culture, that individual is sent packing quicker than Borat from a proper dinner party.
From an outward and public standpoint, I think both Joe Douglas and Robert Saleh handled the Elijah Moore situation correctly. They both had his back while maintaining that he was a “competitive” kid and that they weren’t looking to trade him.
From an actual standpoint, based on what transpired, I think they handled it terribly, and that boils down to a lack of leadership. It’s an unacceptable move on the part of the young player—something that requires drastic action.
Jets fans didn’t like what I said about it, mainly because I suggested that the Jets should immediately trade him, no matter the return. Sure, trading a second-round weapon for nothing is a tough pill to swallow, but the penalty for standing too firm severely outweighs cutting one’s losses.
It’s not personnel; it’s coaching
Is there anybody in this world who would actually make the argument that quality coaching wouldn’t win with the Jets’ current personnel? For those who place the majority of the blame on Douglas’s personnel decisions, tell me how 99% of the football world got it wrong.
How did nearly everybody in and around the NFL believe this Jets roster was loaded with talent coming into the 2024 season (and previously, even)? Were they all wrong? Did everybody simply make the same mistake per talent evaluation?
Or, could some of the intangibles—most of the stuff we don’t see with our own two eyes—be lacking within the organization, such as the actual coaching and leadership qualities that lead the entire football operation?
Granted, Joe Douglas wasn’t perfect in the personnel game. No general manager is. But by and large, when comparing his draft classes, free agency signings, and the overall personnel job in six years against the rest of the NFL, the proof is on his side.
In the end, however, he ultimately assembled a collection of talent rather than an actual team. That happens when the coaching is insufficient and/or the leadership is lacking within the organization.
Who in that locker room stood up to Elijah Moore when he spouted such nonsense after Green Bay? Who, in that locker room or on the coaching staff, shut down the notion that the team was crumbling after Alijah Vera-Tucker and Breece Hall were lost for the year in Denver after they moved to 5-2?
Who in the organization steadied the ship when young players (i.e. Elijah Moore) and fans were rabidly attacking Mike LaFleur?
Think about LaFleur for a moment, and ask yourself if he truly deserved to be fired. There he was, a young offensive coordinator who learned under Kyle Shanahan, who came to New York with Saleh, and whose weekly game plans were incredibly refreshing.
From the trap-pitch-option that sprung Breece Hall to a long-distance touchdown run in Green Bay to the imagination witnessed with Braxton Berrios involved, LaFleur was asked to overcome an insane number of injuries and a young quarterback trying to figure things out on the fly.
Oh yeah, he was also asked to run an offense within the constraints of an incredibly conservative game-planning vision (i.e. Saleh). And make no mistake about it: I understood why Saleh would go that route—as he wanted to win football games—but it did him and the organization zero favors as it related to developing his young quarterback with a stern eye on the future.
Nonetheless, was it Saleh’s decision to oust LaFleur? Was it Douglas’s? Or, was it somebody else’s?
Of course, it starts at the top
Once Mike LaFleur was sent packing, the main question on my mind was as follows: Had this Jets regime finally reached the point where they weren’t running things of their own volition?
Despite the majority of Jets fans wanting LaFleur gone—hey, this is nothing new, as the offensive coordinator is always the No. 1 villain in the fans’ eyes—I wondered if the owner had injected himself into the decision.
First and foremost, this is Woody Johnson’s team. He can do what he pleases.
At the same time, that doesn’t mean he can do what he wants while not hearing the response from fans and/or media outlets.
According to The Athletic, Mr. Johnson reportedly started immersing himself in football operations as early as last spring. No matter how badly Woody wants to win football games, he must ask himself this one critical question: Is that the leadership the New York Jets need to turn this thing around?
The latest and most rabid headline coming from fans these days is, “Sell the team.” Although I wholly understand the sentiment, there’s also very little leadership quality in that tired, old line.
What’s the point of that? Seriously. Will that incline Woody to actually sell the team? Or, considering what we know about, would it have the opposite effect, having him dig his heels in the stand that much more?
So, in a unique way that also carries zero responsibility for this brutal situation, Jets fans can ponder the leadership issue at hand and perhaps even stand up in a way that promotes quality leadership attributes.
When Joe Douglas arrived, with Vice-Chairman Christopher Johnson in charge, things looked up. When he traded the disgruntled Jamal Adams to the Seattle Seahawks for a haul, things looked fantastic. When he sent Sam Darnold packing, things felt even better.
Now, the Jets take flak for Darnold’s solid play this season. Did the USC product suddenly figure things out? Or, maybe, just maybe, he finally found himself in a great situation, one with tremendous offensive coaching and leadership qualities abound.
Had Douglas drafted Tristan Whirfs over Mekhi Becton, would the Jets currently be contenders? Had he bypassed Zach Wilson and stuck with Darnold, would they be for real in 2024?
Hardly.
Even Mekhi Becton, the busts of all busts, is suddenly playing well in the league. And yes, you guessed it: He’s doing so because he’s playing within a quality coaching structure that’s led by quality leadership.
To even consider personnel decisions as a problem is to overlook the most significant issue at hand—one that, if not addressed, does not allow for a semblance of future success.
How can they possibly fix this?
With Mike Tannenbaum and Rick Spielman leading the New York Jets general manager and head coach search—a topic that I have strong feelings on, in its own right—Woody Johnson needs a hero.
The only potential way Woody will find that hero is if he first rights some of his own wrongs. Or, at the very least, the only way he does so is by righting many of the perceived wrongs (that so many NFL onlookers already believe about him and the Jets as an organization).
In my humble opinion, Woody must be as forthright and honest as possible when publicly speaking. His voice must showcase at least some passion for his football team—something diehard Jets fans can relate to.
He also must confess his own sins, if only within and to himself, while publicly holding hat-in-hand.
The great Leon Hess struggled mightily prior to throwing his hands up at the end of the Rich Kotite era. Yet, after that disastrous one-win 1996 season—after he spent mega-bucks in free agency—he brought hat-in-hand to Bill Parcells while letting the football world know he looked towards the Big Tuna to show him how to win.
In short order, that’s exactly what Parcells did. He turned out to be the hero those Jets needed, and the culture Parcells established lasted long after he left.
Admittedly, in today’s league, I’d take the offensive head coach if all else is even. Unfortunately, for the Jets, nothing is even.
Considering that, give me the hard-nosed football man.
Robert Saleh wasn’t even close to the guy needed to appropriately handle an Elijah Moore bitchfest. He also couldn’t even dream of handling the development of a young quarterback.
Sure, I’d admit there also wasn’t enough veteran leadership in the locker room, as C.J. Mosley’s quiet presence wasn’t nearly enough, but the coaching staff set zero accountability standards over the course of several seasons. (If anybody has to look further than the team’s brutal penalty statistics, shame on you.)
Go get Mike Vrabel. And if he’s not interested, go get Brian Flores. In a perfect world, I’d urge Woody to hire the general manager first, but however it goes down, the one attribute that must be at the forefront is what’s been alluded to in this entire article …
Leadership.
It’s never about one player or position
Not even a great like Aaron Rodgers can save an organization without sufficient leadership. Granted, this Rodgers isn’t nearly the same individual as the Hall of Fame Rodgers is, but my goodness gracious to your soul … if you actually believe Rodgers is important in this entire mess.
If anything, he represents the undertaker, not the murderer. His mere presence makes it painfully obvious that the organization is mired in desperate straits, as opposed to killing it himself.
He believed in Robert Saleh, and I’d be shocked if he isn’t regretting that as a serious miscalculation, similar to how Joe Douglas feels. And don’t get it twisted: Douglas isn’t off the hook either. Despite my rave reviews of his personnel job in New York, he failed in other key areas of the general manager role—those directly relating to … yup, you guessed it …
Leadership.
Bringing in the disgraced Nathaniel Hackett to replace Mike LaFleur while simultaneously kowtowing to Aaron Rodgers isn’t a great look, no matter the circumstance. But hey, they were just “one quarterback away from greatness,” after all.
Who’s decision was that? And even if nearly all of Jets land was on board with the idea, was the organization united on the idea?
Worse yet, how did the idea that the Jets were simply “a quarterback away” from competing begin to spread like wildfire? I get it from a fan perspective, thanks to the defense’s stellar numbers in 2023, and overall frustration since 2010, but let’s not act like several factors inflated those “numbers.”
Conservative game plans and overall game flow drastically alter reality (by way of statistics). Todd Bowles’s defense is always at the bottom of the league in passing defense, yet that doesn’t necessarily mean his coverage is league-worst.
Why? Well, it’s because he sells out to stop the run as much (if not more) than any defensive coach I’ve ever watched. That vision produces such results, similar to Saleh’s vision, which made it impossible to develop a young quarterback and ultimately breed a true balance between offense and defense—thus helping negate any harsh feelings between the units within the atmosphere of the practice field, game field, and locker room.
Again, yes … it’s about leadership.
Woody, please become the hero Zelda needs, and do so the correct way (none of this Game Genie crap), while constantly reminding yourself that Zelda represents millions of disgustingly frustrated and heartbroken fans.
Harken back to the organization you initially purchased in 2000, and fully realize that its tremendous football health was due to the leadership qualities imprinted onto the organization courtesy of a singular man at the top of the football hierarchy. Furthermore, make sure you realize that period also fooled many into believing that either no talent or overrated talent was in the building.
Please, Woody, avoid the “hero complex” at all costs. Instead of putting your hands on as many areas as possible, throw everything at identifying and securing the actual “hero” that you and the New York Jets desperately need.
… one that brings leadership and accountability to the table.
