The Jets are completely tone deaf to fans’ righteous anger
Jets fans are angry. Jets fans are hurting. Jets fans are fed up. Jets fans are ticked off.
It is understandable after a 5-11 season. They are tired of watching other teams in the playoffs. The postseason drought is now six years. Season-ticket holders have not seen a home playoff game since 2002. The Jets have played just four home playoff games since moving their games to New Jersey in 1984. Next week the rival Patriots will play their fourth home playoff game since 2014.
Yet the anger resonating through the fan base right now does not seem to be shared by the Jets’ leadership. Owner Woody Johnson said many of the right things on Thursday, but general manager Mike Maccagnan delivered another mealy-mouthed session with reporters.
These meetings between the media and the Jets’ GM never create much news. Maccagnan is irrationally afraid to say anything that might tip off the competition. (Psst, rest of the NFL: The Jets need a quarterback. You didn’t hear it from me.)
But Thursday, Maccagnan had a chance to show some leadership to his fans, show how upset he was with this season and let them know what he is doing to fix it. Instead, he talked about the long-term plan and how happy he was with some of their young players.
Asked point-blank about fans’ anger, he tried to empathize, but also emphasized “the plan.”
“The only thing I can say to Jets fans is, we’re like them. These losses hurt,” Maccagnan said. “We can’t get [to success] fast enough, but we also have to do it in a judicious way that makes sense and to build a team that is consistently good.”
Now, Maccagnan won’t be judged here by how well he communicates with fans or reporters. His fate lies with how he picks players. But it would be nice for Jets fans to get a little passion from Maccagnan or coach Todd Bowles, who delivers his own lifeless press conferences during the season. The only time you saw any fire from Bowles is when he cursed during a few postgame press conferences this year.
My inbox and Twitter timeline are filled with fans saying they are fed up with the Jets, longtime season-ticket holders saying they are done, and yet I never sense the same level of disappointment from those inside the organization.
Fans lived through six years of Rex Ryan and don’t necessarily want someone who is just going to win the press conference, but fans loved Ryan because they could relate to him. Ryan felt like the guy who might be in the row behind you at MetLife Stadium.
There has to be a happy medium between what the Ryan era delivered publicly and what the current one does. No one needs Super Bowl guarantees, but a little passion would go a long way.
Maccagnan had the perfect chance to show some on Thursday when asked about an ESPN report that quoted an anonymous Jets coach saying rookie quarterback Christian Hackenberg “couldn’t hit the ocean.” It was a perfect time to denounce whoever that cowardly coach was and say the Jets won’t tolerate that kind of thing and they would punish the coach if they discovered who it was. Say Hackenberg is “our guy” and we don’t feel that way.
Instead, we got milquetoast.
“I’m not going to sit here and debate or refute an anonymous source,” Maccagnan said. “My feeling is, as an organization, what you want to do is focusing on developing the players you have in the building. That’s going to be a primary goal and focus.”
Not exactly Knute Rockne rallying the team.
Again, in the end, wins and losses are going to be what defines Bowles and Maccagnan. But when the losses outnumber the wins like they did this year, it would be nice for Jets fans to feel like that bothers the GM and coach as much as it bothers them.