As the Giants and Jets seasons came to an end on New Year’s Eve, we can all put a long and tumultuous football season for both locals behind us. The last 17 weeks has felt more like 10 years and aside from a brief flash from the Jets it was largely field with irrelevant football.
That needs to change in 2018 and I think both franchises made the right decisions on Friday to try and bring about that change. As the Giants made it official at a press conference on Friday morning that Dave Gettleman is the new General Manager you have to love what you heard from Gettleman. He is an old school football guy that is looking to try and win right away. Eli Manning sill be back playing quarterback for the Giants in 2018. They are looking to improve the offensive line and hope for more health as well. They need to bring in a coach as well that gets it and understands what it means to be the head coach of the Giants. The ability to handle the media and his team and to win and i believe Gettleman understands what he needs as his head coach.
The Jets made it official as well as they gave contract extensions to both Head Coach Todd Bowles and GM Mike Maccagnan. For the Jets, they made the right decision. I get that Bowles is on pace for a second consecutive 5-11 season, however this year was different. The Jets had little to no expectations coming into the season. As both Woody and Chris Johnson states before the start of the Jets season, the Jets were not going to judged by wins and losses. Bowles and his staff were going to be judged on effort and how the young players developed over the course of the 2017 season. If that is the measuring stick, then how do you not bring Bowles back?
For all those that say Bowles should have done better, his two quarterbacks have been Ryan Fitzpatrick and Josh McCown and he has gotten solid quarterback play from them in two of his three seasons as Jets Head Coach. They are limited however and there were numerous reasons how they ended up wearing the green and white.
For those that say Bowles has not developed a quarterback or fear that he can not. Let me ask you this, is Bryce Petty or Christian Hackenberg fair examples to criticize Bowles or his staff about quarterback development? I think it is not. Petty is highly inaccurate and has all the looks of a backup quarterback. Hackenberg was given every opportunity to succeed and it is ultimately on the individual player that he failed.
I am not going to tell you that Bowles has done an amazing job. What i am saying is that he dod not deserve to get fired. He needs to be given a roster with a solution at quarterback instead of a question mark. He has worked and sacrificed his entire football life for this opportunity and to properly judge him and fire him off of this season would be unfair. I don’t care about his press conferences or his demeanor on the sideline. He deserves to come back, but next season is not about effort, but wins and losses.
For both locals, Friday was a good day in what turned out to be a lost season. They hope it leads to success in 2018. Only time will tell and some of the next decisions made by the front offices will be the most important in determining ultimate success or failure.
