Joe Benigno may be retired, but you know he’ll never be done gracing the airwaves with his Jets takes.
The former WFAN legend joined Zach Gelb on Wednesday to discuss the team that has brought him nothing but pain for decades, and how for the first time in what seems like forever, Joe is actually feeling optimistic about the direction of the franchise.
“For the first time since Bill Parcells became a head coach in 1997, I am actually going into a season feeling confident about the organization I have,” Joe said. “I love Robert Saleh. I couldn’t believe they hired this guy. If they asked me the one guy I would want to hire to be the head coach, it would have been Saleh. When they had him in the building and then he left the building, I said ‘Oh my God, are they gonna do this again?’ But when they wound up hiring him, I was delirious.”
But for Joe, that optimism will quickly return to dejection if the Jets wind up pulling off a blockbuster trade for Deshaun Watson. If Joe B was in Joe Douglas’ chair, he wouldn’t pick up the phone and call Houston, even if it meant bringing in one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL.
“No, absolutely not,” Joe said. “I am absolutely not giving up a king’s ransom, you know, your first born, for Deshaun Watson. As much as I like him…I wanted them to draft him in the first place, but not now. I know he’s 25 years old, but I’m not giving up three No. 1 picks for Deshaun Watson. Absolutely not.”
Joe has watched the Jets build up multiple assets for the future while the current steam stumbled through a disastrous 2-14 season, and wants to see Gang Green use those assets to build a Super Bowl contender from the ground up rather than ship it all to Houston for Watson.
“They built up all this draft capital, they have a lot of money under the cap…I’m not giving it all away for Deshaun Watson,” Joe said. “I’m just not doing it.”
Joe doesn’t believe the Texans will trade Watson anyway, but in the event that he does become available, even the temptation to get the franchise its first superstar quarterback in decades isn’t enough for Joe to part with the assets that the team has collected through all the painful losses. So he’s standing firm on where he thinks the Jets should go in their rebuild process.
“I was thinking about it, but no, let’s go get our own quarterback,” Joe said. “Draft this kid from BYU if you think it’s the right move, but don’t go giving up the store for [Watson]. I know he’s 25, I know how good he is, I get it…But I’m not doing that. You build teams through the draft, so go out and do it. I have confidence that they’ll do it.”
Follow Ryan Chichester on Twitter: @ryanchichester1
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