The clock is ticking on Jets GM Joe Douglas
NEW YORK (PIX11) -- As we are a couple of days into the Jets' off-season, we are distracted by everything going on with the Aaron Rodgers/Jimmy Kimmel feud.
Let's focus on where the real pressure is for the 2024 season. It is the General Manager, Joe Douglas.
With a coaching staff that is all coming back but has shown severe limitations in game planning, creativity, accountability, and just overall results, Douglas needs to drastically improve this roster for next season to make up for those deficiencies.
There are a few different pathways: the draft, free agency, and trades. The Jets have around $16 million in cap space as we speak, they do not have a second round draft pick, which is going to the Packers.
What they do have is a 40-year-old quarterback coming off Achilles surgery and a window of two years to try and snap a 13-year playoff drought and to try and win a Super Bowl.
In five years with the Jets, Douglas' record as GM is dreadful at 27 and 56. He has not had a winning season running the Jets and is back because Aaron Rodgers gave him and the coaching staff a lifeline.
When he met with the media, he owned it. Owned the fact that the roster failed. Owned the fact the team did not handle adversity well, owned the losing, and said moving forward, it is all about winning.
How nice.
The clock is ticking. He has one year.
That is it.
The pressure is on to win next season and learn from the failed process and talent evaluations from the past five years and drastically improve in year six.
That is the job.
You have your quarterback. Now, you have to build the team around him to win and hope that this coaching staff, led by head coach Robert Saleh, can learn and improve as well.
For the Jets, that needs a lot of things to go right for an organization that is known for everything going wrong.
Joe Douglas was brought in as GM to change all of that and it has been more of the same. He now has one year to get it right.
Until next time, New York, I'm Marc Malusis.