Welcome to the New York News, whether you care or not I have been given the power to vent about any and everything New York sports. Luckily for you I plan to mix it up, bringing you all things sports not just that contained to the 5 boroughs. Just a little background about myself. For better or worse I’m New York through and through, growing up ON Long Island I was raised into a life of sports misery. Being a Mets, Jets, Knicks and Islanders fan I have never witnessed any of my teams reaching the pinnacle. I have never seen sustained success, only flashes in the pan that resulted in heartache or immense failure that lead to mockery. I dream of the day I’ll be able to see one of my teams win it all, but when it comes to the Jets it seems that dream is nowhere in sight.

One For The Books

The Jets finally got into the win column on Sunday with an electric 39-38 victory over Joe Burrow Flacco and the Cincinnati Bengals. It wasn’t the cleanest of victories but it was the first time this year you could say the Jets were playing like a cohesive unit. The defense got stops when it needed to and the offense finally came to life accumulating over 500 yards. The recent anemic offense rushed for 254 yards and Justin Fields passed for 244 yards and 1 touchdown. More impressively, they scored 23 points in the 4th quarter (2nd most in team history), on the back of Breece Hall’s 3 TD performance (2 Rushing, 1 Passing). I’m trying not to overreact because they played a sieve of a defense known as the Cincinnati Bengals, but they played an equally as bad defense three weeks ago in the Dallas Cowboys and aside from garbage time they couldn’t string anything together.

Aaron Glenn, Math Guy

In an ode to his former employer, Aaron Glenn coached this game like he was hungry for knee caps. He was probably just hungry for a win, especially after all the off the field antics this week with Jets owner Woody Johnson comments about the team’s quarterback situation. Nonetheless, scared money makes no money and when you’re 0-7 entering the day there’s no reason not to put it all on the line. AG successfully went for the 2 point conversion twice in the 4th quarter, cutting the deficit and ultimately setting up the game winning extra point when the Jets scored their final touchdown with 1:54 left in the game. This was such a breath of fresh air for me because as a Jets fan it just always feels like these sorts of end of game situations go against us. In the words of Kevin from The Office, “It’s just nice to win one”.

Despite Being a Dumpster Fire The Jets Should NOT be Sellers at The Trade Deadline

With the trade deadline approaching next week I think most logical fans would say that this is a lost season and the Jets should try to move whatever assets they can to stockpile picks for the future. There are 3 problems with that, 1) I’m tired of being logical 2) this is the same story every year (how do you build from the draft if you keep trading away pieces?) 3) this team has too many pieces that SHOULD work together to start blowing things up now. The main piece in question is running back Breece Hall, who aforementioned had probably one of his best games as a pro this Sunday.

I understand that an expensive running back is a luxury, and not how you start a rebuild in the present day NFL, but I believe that Breece Hall is too dynamic of a player to trade away for pennies on the dollar. Trading Hall now, in the last year of his rookie contract, would most likely yield a 4th – 5th round pick. Although we’ve been stockpiling depth at the position, drafting running backs Braelon Allen and Isaiah Davis back to back in the 2024 draft, I do not foresee these guys replacing the production you would lose from moving on from Hall quite yet. Secondly, having a three headed monster in the backfield is a good way to guarantee longevity for all of these guys going forward. 

To further justify extending Breece Hall, the Jets have a young, solid and inexpensive offensive line book ended by two first round draft picks, Olu Fashanu in 2024 and Armand Membou in 2025. As of right now these two seem to be absolute studs who put on a clinic on Sunday.

Again, I know it was the Cincinnati Bengals, but it’s progress and hopefully a tandem we can look forward to for years to come. Adding in 3rd year C/G Joe Tippmann who’s been serviceable at guard, the Jets have a young core of big men that hopefully can stick together for years to come. I suspect the Jets will move on from center Josh Myers and guard John Simpson at the end of the season, opening up Tippmann’s return to center which I believe is his more natural position. Question marks still surround the injury prone Alijah Vera-Tucker, but when healthy he’s shown to be an above average guard. Hopefully, they can bring AVT back on a team friendly team and he can stay healthy to thoroughly solidify the offensive line for the foreseeable future. 

We all know the elephant in the room is the quarterback position, it has been since at least 2010. Justin Fields has been everything we expected, below average at best. He’s by all accounts a great guy and I want him to succeed, but we all know he’s not the quarterback of the future. It’s more than likely that the Jets will be picking in the top 3 of next year’s NFL draft and it’s more than likely that pick will be used to take a quarterback (here we go again). I, for one, would feel a lot more confident trying to develop another young quarterback if we had a solid running game and an explosive safety valve to rely on. Breece Hall is key to that success and even though it’s against recent convention I think the Jets need to resign him. 

Some others who have rumors floating around them are defensive brother duo Quinnen and Quincy Williams. I absolutely love watching these two play, Quinnen is such a game wrecker on the interior D-Line and Quincy is a missile at linebacker. Right now, I don’t see any reason to move on just yet from Quinnen. Yes, he has a hefty cap hit and yes he’s probably their most valuable asset but any team looking to add him is going to be a serious contender, so whatever first round picks they could receive will most likely be late in the round. Odds are you’re not going to find anyone of Quinnen’s caliber drafting in that spot. He has 2 years left on his deal so I would hold out hope for one more year to try to turn the ship around. As for Quincy, I would like to see him stay as well. He says he wants to be a Jet, he really developed into the player he is as a member of gang green and I’m sure he wants to keep playing with his brother. If the Jets are going to move either one of the Williams, lets just make them a package deal and let them ride into greener pastures together.

Long story short, the Jets are missing pieces and clearly the most important one is the quarterback, but they do have a lot of home grown talent. It’s a product of drafting well and aside from one position the jets have hit on a lot of players in all rounds all over the field. So often these guys just get moved before ever being able to build anything in the Big Apple. At some point you have to break the cycle and just go for it, again I know they’re missing the most important player on the field. But maybe if they can create a situation where a future QB draft pick can succeed the Jets might finally become a competent football team.

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