The New York Daily News's Gary Myers ran a nice piece today with plenty of interesting quotes from a league GM on how the organization has such faith in Rex Ryan's ability to control his players, that they have been given free range to bring in some 'problem' players:
"They think Rex Ryan is a warden, the best warden there ever was, he could take anybody's problems and fix them," one general manager said yesterday. "As a personnel guy, you want to believe that. If you do, then you have carte blanche now to do all these reclamations on these very talented players that for whatever reason were misfits in their place. They believe so strongly in Ryan's ability to handle these kinds of players."
Obviously they are referring to Holmes/Cromartie and Edwards. However like we have said here all along, these are short term deals, our future is invested (or at least it will be) in players like Sanchez, Revis, Mangold, Harris, Brick. Those are the keystones that will hold the structure together. The likes of Holmes/Cromartie and Edwards are the paint samples on the wall. If they fit and look good, they will stay there, if they spontaneously combusted, they will be painted over with a color that fits.
Think of Rex Ryan as the pied piper, if he plays his flute to the right tune, everyone will follow in line, if he goes off note, it could go horribly wrong, the Jets are relying on Rex, and I'm going to as well.
"Obviously, they are loading up to win now," the GM said. "I don't see anything wrong with that thinking. They were close last year. The silver lining with Holmes, Cromartie and Edwards is they are playing for contracts. They've all been embarrassed and humiliated and will be on their best behavior. In the short term, it has a good chance of working. They didn't mortgage their future. Everything they did was calculated. If it backfires, it's not going to sink the ship."
What about chemistry?
"Rex will take care of the chemistry," the GM said. "They figure Rex will keep the inmates together."