Robert Saleh is gone, Joe Douglas is too…but if you want to point to one thing that sent the Jets’ season sideways, consider this conversation Tuesday morning between Jerry Recco and Willie Colon:
“To me, one of the biggest issues this year is the owner not allowing the GM to do his job, which is why the GM is probably relieved that he got the hell out of here and was fired, and the Haason Reddick situation,” Jerry said. “None of us know exactly what happened, but it certainly seems like when the Jets made the trade for Reddick, there were assurances that he was gonna come in and play, and if things went well, we will talk about a deal. He said when he was introduced ‘I’m here to play football,’ and never did – and Joe Douglas, at least outside looking in, looked to me like he was holding firm on that line, and if you’re not abiding by the deal, sit home. And then the owner decides we’re not good enough, we need Reddick, and he has been a ghost. So if you want to draw a line in the sand, it’s one of the biggest issues of this season with Woody Johnson.”
“It’s tough, right, because once Jermaine Johnson went down, if Haason Reddick was already in the building, now you have two bookends, because Will McDonald started to come along,” Willie replied. “You would have to think Reddick would play a lot better, and he only has half a sack. He has done really well being able to set the edge and is physical at the point of attack, but the one thing we saw from him as an Eagle was his ability to get after the quarterback, right? He averaged 10 sacks a season and was a guy you could trust to flat out go get it on third down, and that hasn't happened.”
Okay, so maybe Woody’s meddling is an issue, and to Jerry’s point, he never played a snap for the Jets before this season, so they didn’t owe him anything in those contract negotiations and the holdout, and it didn’t work out for either side.
“To me, if you don't wanna play, don't play, sit home and get fined every day and give up the money that you should be making. That's on you,” Jerry said. “The whole situation stunk, and for whatever reason, the guy that they traded for and the guy that did the press conference when he arrived here, something changed.”
“I think his team failed him, to be honest; his agency didn’t tell him the whole story, and I think you have to give Joe Douglas a lot of credit, because I actually saw him in the offseason and we didn't talk about Haason Reddick,” Willie replied. “A lot of the stories coming out of that building, he was very adamant that we're not gonna have a deal, we’re not gonna talk money until your feet are in place and you're in this building, and it just didn't happen. And then what made it weird was that he was seen like over in Japan or something, like he was taking trips while this team was trying to figure things out and save its season. It seemed like he had his attention elsewhere.”
Of course, the longer it went on, the more out of football shape Reddick was bound to get, which is exactly what happened – but had Douglas been able to hold his line in the first place, maybe we’d never really know the extent of it?
“The owner swoops in and tries to save the day, and blew it, and it didn’t work,” Jerry said. “And then you got a guy in the building in Joe Douglas, who was trying to do it his way; it’s what you pay him to do, and it's a good thing they fired him, because he wasn't allowed to do his job this year, essentially.”
“I think once they fired Rex Hogan, Joe knew it was over for him,” Willie replied. “And we don’t know how true the story is about Woody blocking the Jerry Jeudy situation, if that was a thing, and there’s speculation he benched Tony Adams, but it’s interesting – and I’d like to know if he really was interested in benching Aaron Rodgers while he was hurting the season, because Aaron Rodgers at the beginning of the season to where he has where he's at right now, it's two different quarterbacks. So I think there’s a lot underneath the hood that we gotta find out.”