Sunday January 1, 2012 marked the beginning of a new year and the end of the NFL regular season. For the New York Jets, it was the final punctuation on a regular season that started with such promise and ended with a disappointing thud. The Jets will now have to figure out if they can fix some their most glaring problems quickly with minor tweaks or if they will need to start more of a massive overhaul to both the organization and team roster. Their decision and the resulting success or potential lack thereof, may change the future direction of a franchise that only holds one Super Bowl appearance to their name.
One decision that most will assume will not be on the list is whether or not to bring back head coach Rex Ryan. Although I do feel that Ryan will need to make some changes to the way that he handles his team to be able to get them to the next level, I would agree with the majority opinion that firing him would not be helpful to the immediate success to the team. For one thing, Ryan is a player’s coach and his players have always seemed to love playing for him. If he were to be shown the door, the front office may lose the complete faith of an already fragile locker room. One thing I would like to see from Rex is for him to temper the bravado a bit and focus more on coaching and tending to the personalities of his team. He needs to get control of the team before the chaos that came to a head during the last game does not show up again next season.
In case you missed it, Santonio Holmes apparently found himself in an argument with teammates during a huddle close to the end of Sunday’s game and the end result was him being benched by someone in the coaching staff. Rex Ryan stated that he had nothing to do with the benching and that he also wasn’t even aware that Holmes had been benched. That is a problem that should not be recreated next year. Holmes was resigned by the team to a five year $45 million contract before the start of this current season and was named as a captain by his head coach. The reports of his recent behavior are not those of a team captain and a source of leadership. Ryan has encouraged the individuality of his players and has refrained from throwing a stern hand into the equation as the team’s head coach. How the team decides to handle Holmes and this situation will be a crucial step towards the 2012 regular season. They simply cannot just let this situation die out over the offseason. They do not have to handle the situation publicly, but the situation must be addressed nonetheless. If not, the locker room may be torn apart even more than it was this season. Financially, getting rid of Holmes is probably not an option as the cap ramifications may prove to be too costly this early into his contract, but it should be something to be considered. Holmes already publicly threw his offensive line under the bus earlier this season, and if it is true that he “quit” on the team during Sunday’s game or even if he just showed a lack of intensity that is normally there, the team may simply need to just rid themselves of a player whose attitude is not worth the talent that he has displayed throughout his career.
Another thing that the team will need to decide is what to do with the offense and its direction. It is already assumed that somehow and some way offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer will not be back next season. In my opinion, it is time for the offense to have a new voice and signal caller. The team has been widely inconsistent on offense over the last few years and this year they had a hard time establishing any sort of identity. Furthermore, quarterback Mark Sanchez has failed to improve under Schottenheimer and although it may be justified for the team to give up on the “Sanchise” as well, it may make more sense to see if he can make any improvement under the tutelage of a different person before parting ways. Quarterbacks in the NFL are hard to come by and the team did give up a lot of both money and resources to trade up and draft Sanchez a few years ago. They should probably give it another shot before admitting the mistake and moving the team into a completely new direction. The team is built to win now with some parts that are now aging so unless a proven quarterback with championship pedigree becomes available to them, it may be wise to try to coach Sanchez up and find improvement.
So what will the Jets do? They could blow it up and start all over again, or they can try to adjust on the fly and make some shrewd moves to help themselves out. I would suggest looking to add some additional veteran leadership to the fold to try to help both the coach and that locker room out. Rex Ryan should go into next year’s training camp trying to set a more disciplined tone and to have a more focused approach. Forget all of the talk, bravado, and predictions. The new motto should deal more with put up or shut up.