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The angry Jets mob will get its wish: Idzik’s a goner
By Steve SerbyDecember 21, 2014 | 1:00am
His crimes against Jets humanity are well documented. So it is Penalty Flag Day at MetLife Stadium on Sunday, when the angry mob gives it to general manager John Idzik, and gives it to him good, and all this Christmas jeer washes over coach Rex Ryan on the last day he gets to coach his dream team at home against Tom Brady, Bill Belichick and the Patriots.
Roughing the GM.
The outrage, directed to Jets owner Woody Johnson, will be painful to witness, four nights before Christmas and all through the crumbling house, but it comes with the territory, especially when a long-suffering fan base that hasn’t won anything in 46 years feels as though it was sold a bill of goods and betrayed.
It seems preposterous that those who feel compelled to throw their yellow flag on Idzik (Fire Idzik! Clean house!) for intentional grounding of the 2014 season will view him as every bit the villain as Belichick, but the embattled GM might want to borrow Bobby Bonilla’s old earplugs just the same, because if Belichick is Public Enemy No. 1, Idzik is No. 1a. Or vice versa.
And if Idzik tries to throw the challenge flag for taunting, for unsportsmanlike conduct, for piling on, he will have the same luck as Knicks coach Derek Fisher attempting to get the official’s attention to call a timeout.
Idzik is Scrooge, walking into one loud “Scrooge you!”
Ryan, for sure, is not without blame. In training camp, when he told his players this was the team he dreamed of coaching and revealed his grand ambition of sweeping the Patriots and ambushing them at home in the playoffs, he never said a peep about being saddled with Dee Milliner and Dimitri Patterson at cornerback. He either trusted quarterback Geno Smith, or was ordered to trust Geno Smith, and never gave Michael Vick a chance. He may have remained the face of the franchise, but everybody could see he was wearing a corporate mask handed him by the GM.
No one, least of all the owner, expected 3-11 when 2013 ended. There was so much joy in Jetville in the visiting locker room in Miami at the end of the regular season when Idzik put his arm around Ryan and bellowed, “This is our coach!” Then the two of them returned home for a press conference where they sat side by side and Idzik pronounced them joined at the hip and both proclaimed their 8-8 Jets an ascending team.
The descent, and eventual crash, began in earnest on draft day, when Idzik used all 12 of his picks and landed two players (safety Calvin Pryor and tight end Jace Amaro) who made minimal impacts. You generally wait three years to grade a draft, but no one, not even Ryan, would dare give him an A-plus grade for passing on one of the best wide receiver classes in a generation — passing on the likes of Brandin Cooks, Kelvin Benjamin, Jordan Matthews, Paul Richardson, Jarvis Landry, Marqise Lee, Allen Robinson, John Brown, Martavis Bryant to complement his free-agent prize, Eric Decker. The draft, remember, was trumpeted by Idzik when he arrived as the lifeblood of the organizational rebuilding blueprint.
Of all his failures, Idzik’s biggest was getting the quarterback wrong. He put all of Johnson’s eggs in Smith’s basket, and look how scrambled they are now. Any hope that the Jets could close the gap on the Patriots hinged on Smith picking up where he left off at the end of his rookie season and taking that next step. Instead, Smith took one misstep after another.
He missed a team meeting, cursed a fan, was mercifully benched, and announced he had shown flashes of being a Pro Bowl quarterback when he returned. All in all, Smith had too many Jets fans yearning for the good old days of Mark Sanchez. Even the bad old days.
It meant that Ryan, whose signature moment was upsetting the Patriots on the road in the 2010 playoffs with Sanchez, had as much chance of overthrowing the Brady-Belichick Evil Empire as Herm Edwards had with Chad Pennington, and Eric Mangini had with Pennington and Brett Favre. Especially with a defense Ryan vastly overrated.
Ryan, who certainly won’t be remembered as a quarterback whisperer, only can fantasize about how it would have turned out differently if he had Brady on his side. But he won’t. At least until he writes his memoirs.
“That’s obviously what you’re looking for,” he said. “You’re looking for the next Tom Brady.
You’re looking for the next Peyton Manning. Those two guys, I always lump ’em both together, because in my opinion, has there really been any better than those two guys? And I guess you can put the [Aaron] Rodgers kid in that as well. But it’s like that’s as good as it gets, but I guess the fantasy thing comes on trying to find the next like that and hope that it hits in your watch.
“Obviously, every team in the league’s trying to do the same thing, you’re trying to get that guy, but we’ll see. And I’m not comparing Geno to Tom Brady, but hopefully he keeps making strides and things like that. But clearly, every team in the league’s looking to find the next Tom Brady. It’s a lot easier said than done.”
There are very few who trust Idzik to find anything better than the next Vernon Gholston. The natives weren’t nearly as restless about former GM Mike Tannenbaum when Johnson fired him at the end of a 6-10 season. The owner has seen the “Fire Idzik” planes overhead and the billboards and inadvertently favorited an angry tweet. He won’t be able to miss the pleas for action from his suite.
The circus was supposed to have left town when Idzik arrived. The Big Top returned with a vengeance.
There is no electoral college to save Idzik. His future most likely will be decided by popular vote, and it will be a landslide.
Ridzik.
By Steve SerbyDecember 21, 2014 | 1:00am
His crimes against Jets humanity are well documented. So it is Penalty Flag Day at MetLife Stadium on Sunday, when the angry mob gives it to general manager John Idzik, and gives it to him good, and all this Christmas jeer washes over coach Rex Ryan on the last day he gets to coach his dream team at home against Tom Brady, Bill Belichick and the Patriots.
Roughing the GM.
The outrage, directed to Jets owner Woody Johnson, will be painful to witness, four nights before Christmas and all through the crumbling house, but it comes with the territory, especially when a long-suffering fan base that hasn’t won anything in 46 years feels as though it was sold a bill of goods and betrayed.
It seems preposterous that those who feel compelled to throw their yellow flag on Idzik (Fire Idzik! Clean house!) for intentional grounding of the 2014 season will view him as every bit the villain as Belichick, but the embattled GM might want to borrow Bobby Bonilla’s old earplugs just the same, because if Belichick is Public Enemy No. 1, Idzik is No. 1a. Or vice versa.
And if Idzik tries to throw the challenge flag for taunting, for unsportsmanlike conduct, for piling on, he will have the same luck as Knicks coach Derek Fisher attempting to get the official’s attention to call a timeout.
Idzik is Scrooge, walking into one loud “Scrooge you!”
Ryan, for sure, is not without blame. In training camp, when he told his players this was the team he dreamed of coaching and revealed his grand ambition of sweeping the Patriots and ambushing them at home in the playoffs, he never said a peep about being saddled with Dee Milliner and Dimitri Patterson at cornerback. He either trusted quarterback Geno Smith, or was ordered to trust Geno Smith, and never gave Michael Vick a chance. He may have remained the face of the franchise, but everybody could see he was wearing a corporate mask handed him by the GM.
No one, least of all the owner, expected 3-11 when 2013 ended. There was so much joy in Jetville in the visiting locker room in Miami at the end of the regular season when Idzik put his arm around Ryan and bellowed, “This is our coach!” Then the two of them returned home for a press conference where they sat side by side and Idzik pronounced them joined at the hip and both proclaimed their 8-8 Jets an ascending team.
The descent, and eventual crash, began in earnest on draft day, when Idzik used all 12 of his picks and landed two players (safety Calvin Pryor and tight end Jace Amaro) who made minimal impacts. You generally wait three years to grade a draft, but no one, not even Ryan, would dare give him an A-plus grade for passing on one of the best wide receiver classes in a generation — passing on the likes of Brandin Cooks, Kelvin Benjamin, Jordan Matthews, Paul Richardson, Jarvis Landry, Marqise Lee, Allen Robinson, John Brown, Martavis Bryant to complement his free-agent prize, Eric Decker. The draft, remember, was trumpeted by Idzik when he arrived as the lifeblood of the organizational rebuilding blueprint.
Of all his failures, Idzik’s biggest was getting the quarterback wrong. He put all of Johnson’s eggs in Smith’s basket, and look how scrambled they are now. Any hope that the Jets could close the gap on the Patriots hinged on Smith picking up where he left off at the end of his rookie season and taking that next step. Instead, Smith took one misstep after another.
He missed a team meeting, cursed a fan, was mercifully benched, and announced he had shown flashes of being a Pro Bowl quarterback when he returned. All in all, Smith had too many Jets fans yearning for the good old days of Mark Sanchez. Even the bad old days.
It meant that Ryan, whose signature moment was upsetting the Patriots on the road in the 2010 playoffs with Sanchez, had as much chance of overthrowing the Brady-Belichick Evil Empire as Herm Edwards had with Chad Pennington, and Eric Mangini had with Pennington and Brett Favre. Especially with a defense Ryan vastly overrated.
Ryan, who certainly won’t be remembered as a quarterback whisperer, only can fantasize about how it would have turned out differently if he had Brady on his side. But he won’t. At least until he writes his memoirs.
“That’s obviously what you’re looking for,” he said. “You’re looking for the next Tom Brady.
You’re looking for the next Peyton Manning. Those two guys, I always lump ’em both together, because in my opinion, has there really been any better than those two guys? And I guess you can put the [Aaron] Rodgers kid in that as well. But it’s like that’s as good as it gets, but I guess the fantasy thing comes on trying to find the next like that and hope that it hits in your watch.
“Obviously, every team in the league’s trying to do the same thing, you’re trying to get that guy, but we’ll see. And I’m not comparing Geno to Tom Brady, but hopefully he keeps making strides and things like that. But clearly, every team in the league’s looking to find the next Tom Brady. It’s a lot easier said than done.”
There are very few who trust Idzik to find anything better than the next Vernon Gholston. The natives weren’t nearly as restless about former GM Mike Tannenbaum when Johnson fired him at the end of a 6-10 season. The owner has seen the “Fire Idzik” planes overhead and the billboards and inadvertently favorited an angry tweet. He won’t be able to miss the pleas for action from his suite.
The circus was supposed to have left town when Idzik arrived. The Big Top returned with a vengeance.
There is no electoral college to save Idzik. His future most likely will be decided by popular vote, and it will be a landslide.
Ridzik.
