Gang Green Nation
Woody Johnson’s tangible day-to-day mismanagement of the Jets is more important than explosive anecdotes about Madden ratings.
The top story in the New York Jets fanbase at the moment is the explosive expose written by The Athletic earlier in the week which raised the curtain on the team’s dysfunction behind the scenes. Owner Woody Johnson’s erratic management style in particular was put under the microscope in the piece.
I have to say that I believe a lot of the analysis about the article has missed the mark.
As happens with every major negative story that is published about the Jets, a portion of the fanbase immediately dismisses it. The motives of the writers and their sources are immediately called into question. People question whether the anecdotes within the article are false.
In reality nobody knows the motives of the article’s authors or their sources other than those people. Could they have axes to grind? Of course.
Of course it is also true that a person can have less than pure motives and still be telling the truth? Absolutely.
There are so many anecdotes in the articles, and the nature of some of them is so explosive that I wouldn’t be surprised if a few were lacking critical context. If you were to tell me not everything played out exactly as described in the article, I could believe it. Maybe the true nature of Woody Johnson bringing up Madden rankings in the context of player evaluations was much more benign than the article presented. I can’t prove or disprove that. Nobody really knows except the people involved.
What I find difficult to believe is that none of it is true. More importantly, there is so much smoke regarding the organization’s dysfunction, that it is tough to believe there is no fire. Could everything reported in this story (along with multiple previous exposes from The Athletic) be false? It strikes me that it would be very difficult to make up a mountain of stories this high and for the Jets to have minimal ability to refute them.
In fact, I would guess there are probably a lot more stories out there of the organization’s dysfunction waiting to be told. In reality, this article is asking us to believe a theme we have seen with our own eyes.
There are certain parts of the story that are just objective fact.
On the Dec. 3 episode of McAfee’s show, Rodgers, in reference to the 12-2 Detroit Lions, talked about how much of a difference it makes when owners back their coaches and general managers both privately and publicly. The next day, he was asked by members of the media if he felt that Jets ownership operates in that way.
“Is that a rhetorical question?” Rodgers said. “I cited an example I’ve seen. There were other examples in Green Bay, both for and maybe not, as for whoever was in charge. But I think it’s an important part of ownership to hire...
