The time is now for agonizing Jets
Eight is enough.
Eight years without a playoff berth is enough.
The Jets have their young franchise quarterback, they have the head coach they wanted to coach him, they have the general manager the coach wanted alongside him.
New York is starving for a team not named Yankees to embrace.
Give New York that team.
Give New York a playoff team, finally.
This season doesn’t necessarily have to be about toppling the Patriots.
But why can’t it be?
Nobody passed a law that says no one except Bill Belichick and fortysomething Tom Brady are allowed to win the AFC East, even if it seems somebody did.
Enough is enough.
As Jets veterans report for training camp on Wednesday, they should know that there are no super teams in the AFC, and that includes the defending champion Patriots.
Long-suffering Jets fans deserve better than to be forced to answer questions like these:
Aren’t you sick and tired of being sick and tired? Sick and tired of hearing how the Patriots have appeared in nine Super Bowls this century and won six? Of watching the Patriots capture 10 consecutive division titles?
Sick and tired of hearing how the Giants have won two Super Bowls this century? Of wondering why it’s been 51 damn years since your team’s one and only Super Bowl championship?
The 2016 Rams were 4-12. Sean McVay took over in 2017 and Jared Goff, in his second season, took off and the Rams were an 11-5 playoff team. The 2017 Bears were 5-11. Matt Nagy took over in 2018 and Mitch Trubisky, in his second season, took off and the Bears were 12-4 and a playoff team.
Why not Adam Gase and Sam Darnold and the 2019 Jets?
The hopes and expectations for Darnold are higher than they were for Mark Sanchez, for Geno Smith, for Ryan Fitzpatrick, for Bryce Petty, for (gasp) Christian Hackenberg, for Josh McCown.
For the Jets to be who they think they are, it will be imperative for Darnold to take the second-year quarterback leap and it will be imperative for Gase to prove that he is the beautiful offensive mind that Peyton Manning swears he is given the degree of difficulty of an imposing early schedule — the Patriots twice, the Browns, the Cowboys, the Eagles and the Jaguars after Week 1 playing host to the Bills — that will demand the Jets start no worse than 3-4.
It will be imperative for Le’Veon Bell to chip off the rust of his one-year layoff and help Gase accelerate Darnold’s development and change the complexion of an offense that has question marks on the offensive line, no No. 1 wide receiver and no tight end Chris Herndon (suspension) for the first four games.
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It will be imperative for bombastic defensive coordinator Gregg Williams to unleash his brand of hell and field a swaggerlicious defense that can be feared even in the absence of an elite pass rusher.
It will begin on Thursday on the field when Williams fills the Florham Park air with X-rated braggadocio that will compel Jamal Adams and Leonard Williams and new defensive quarterback C.J. Mosley to defend every last blade of grass to challenge Gase and Darnold every day and likely ignite a testosterone-fueled brawl or three under the hot sun.
The arrival of Gase and Williams, with their relentless raging intensity, will make for an Animal House summer with rabid alpha dawgs barking on both sides of the ball … starting with Bell on offense, Adams on defense.
There have been six new Eras of Good Feeling since the Patriots dynasty began in 2001-2002: Herm Edwards and Terry Bradway … Eric Mangini and Mike Tannenbaum … Rex Ryan and Tannenbaum … Ryan and John Idzik … Todd Bowles and Mike Maccagnan … now Gase and Joe Douglas.
Gase and Douglas must show up undaunted by the tortured history of the franchise — the Mud Bowl, the Fake Spike, the Buttfumble, IK Enemkpali breaking Smith’s jaw in the locker room, Belichick resigning as HC of the NYJ after 24 hours on the job …
“Every year’s a new year,” Gase told me when he was hired. “It’s that year. That year you’re going into, you need to focus on that year. What happened the year before, the year before that, 10 years before that, it doesn’t matter.”
Even 50 years before that. But eight is enough.
