Here Come The Warm Jets: Season Wrap Up

In the spirit of trying to be positive in 2008, the less said about the final Jets game of the season the better.

What can be amusing, though, is to read through all of my Here Come The Warm Jets posts, so you can see someone go from cautious optimism to abject depression laced with profanity in only four short weeks! This is strangely familiar to fans of the New York Jets.

Of course, the dark humor of a 4-12 season is that the draft becomes that much more fun when the team has a higher pick. It's far more tantalizing to picture Chris Long or Darren McFadden or Jake Long or Glenn Dorsey in a Jets uniform than to try to figure out who the best fit is at the 24th pick or some such thing.

There will be many interesting decisions for this offseason:

1 - What to do about Chad? So far, they say they'll keep him around, in competition with Kellen Clemens for the starting job, since Clemens wasn't exactly inspiring in his starts this year. I think I may prefer this, over trading him for a fourth round pick or something like that. What do you really get in the fourth round, and is it worth the possibility of having to see Marques Tuiasosopo trot out if Clemens gets hurt?

2 - What to do about Jonathan Vilma? Most assume they'll trade him. But what can they get for a linebacker coming off a bad knee injury? Is it enough to compensate for the fact that he was a first round pick only a few years ago?

3 - Who can they get to fix the offensive line? There is cap money to spend, and the line stunk this year, and no team can win with an offensive line that stinks, I don't care who the QB or RB is.

4 - Will Mangini prove to be a long-term good coach, or a one-hit wonder? How he responds to a bad year will be very telling.

5 - Will they make another Pete Kendall-like mistake, and let another good player go for no reason besides (not really that much) money? Coles is asking for an extension, as are a few other key players. The early indications are that they'll be smarter this time, lesson learned, but this is the Jets, after all, so we'll see.


That'll be it for Here Comes The Warm Jets, until the draft in April, or if some other huge thing happens (free agent signing, trade, etc.) that warrants comment. I hope for a better season in 2008, so these columns can be full of sunshine and flowers, instead of the usual gloom and over-use of the word "fuck." Because that what 2008 should be all about.