What people get wrong about Jets-Giants comparisons

When the New York Giants upset the Philadelphia Eagles on Thursday night, Jets fans around the country became furious.

Here was a Giants team on the edge of firing its head coach and general manager, somehow finding a way to upset the defending Super Bowl champions by three scores.

The Jets, meanwhile, already changed their head coach and general manager in January, but it hasn’t altered their run of losing. Gang Green sits at 0-5 heading into a London contest against the Denver Broncos.

How were the Giants able to rebuild their team so quickly? Why has it seemingly taken the Jets longer to discover a winning formula than their cross-town rivals?

These are the questions being asked by Jet fans and analysts around the league.

Those same questions, though, ignore some of the obvious differences between the G-Men and Gang Green.

What people miss about Jets/Giants woes

It seems to be taking the Giants less time to field a competitive roster than the Jets.

That is the main argument people have used to criticize Gang Green as they stumble through an 0-5 record.

The most glaring difference between the two teams comes at the quarterback position. The Giants were able to draft their hopeful quarterback of the future in Jaxson Dart, who excelled on Thursday night, while the Jets are still trying to find a quarterback they can trust.

But people are missing a key part of the discussion surrounding the quarterback disparity.

The Jets’ long-standing problem is their inability to create the necessary structure for developing young quarterbacks. They consistently hire defensive-minded head coaches and leave their young signal-callers to coordinators.

That is what separates the Giants and the Jets right now. Big Blue’s head coach, Brian Daboll, has worked with quarterbacks for decades. He understands how to develop them.

The Jets, meanwhile, have hired just one offensive-minded head coach over the last 20 years, and that was Adam Gase. Whenever they have drafted quarterbacks in the 21st century, they’ve taken them with defensive-minded head coaches leading the way.

Chad Pennington had Al Groh. Mark Sanchez and Geno Smith had Rex Ryan. Sam Darnold had Todd Bowles. Zach Wilson had Robert Saleh.

Not a single young Jets quarterback was paired with a forward-thinking, offensive-minded coach.

It isn’t about the Giants being ahead of the Jets right now in their respective rebuilds. It’s about the G-Men understanding the needs of a young quarterback when they start their careers.

If you get the quarterback right, it’s a lot easier to develop the rest of the team and turn them into winners.

The golden rule of the NFL

There is one rule that each team must understand going into a new season.

You must have either a top-five quarterback or a top-five roster to be in contention for a Super Bowl.

The Jets, obviously, have neither.

The Giants aren’t there yet, either. Big Blue certainly hopes they have their solution at quarterback, and Dart’s play has changed opinion on Brian Daboll, but this is still the signal-caller’s rookie season.

There’s no guarantee Dart’s strong play will continue for the remainder of the year, or even throughout his career. Good rookie seasons can turn into career nightmares in a flash.

As much as people want to clown the Jets for not finding their quarterback yet, or taking too long to solve their losing woes, the Giants have struggled just as much with organizational stability.

But at the end of the day, the Giants have what it takes to anchor a good football team: a young quarterback supported by an offensive-minded head coach. As long as Dart continues developing, the Giants will be competitive, as they showed on Thursday night.

If the Jets want to move past jokes about other teams going through rebuilds quicker than them, they must understand that getting the quarterback right and surrounding him with the right coaches is the one separator.