NY Jets: How Bizarre

The Jets entered tonight's game with the Dolphins with nothing on the line.  No playoffs, no winning season, nothing at all, other than next year's jobs.  They had decided earlier in the week they would start Geno Smith the rest of the way.  It was an odd decision in that Michael Vick had two out of three games with a 100+ passer rating, just one turnover, and a nice win against the Steelers to his credit in just three starts, while Geno had a win against perhaps the league's worst team, the Raiders, zero games with a 100+ passer rating, and only one game out of eight without a turnover.  Vick was pretty clearly the better quarterback in what amounted to an ugly contest, yet Geno was named the starting quarterback the rest of the way, barring catastrophic developments.  The only logical explanation was that the Jets brain trust did not see Vick as a viable option in the future and wanted to use the remaining five games to evaluate if Geno had any future with the organization.

Now comes this abomination of a football game.  277 yards rushing and the Jets find a way to lose.  OK, they weren't expected to win anyway.  But what about evaluating Geno?  Sure, the Jets running game racked up 210 yards in the first half, so you might be reluctant to go away from it.  But how about the second half?  The Dolphins completely sold out against the run in the second half, putting eight and nine men in the box every play, daring the Jets to pass, leaving a cornerback they picked up off the street midweek one on one on Eric Decker all night.  The strategy worked well, as the Dolphins largely contained the Jets' rushing game in the second half, limited the Jets to three points, and ultimately took the lead.  Through all this, what did the Jets do?  They threw the ball two times.  TWO TIMES the entire second half up until the final two minute drill when running was no longer an option.  Tell me, how in the heck is it possible to evaluate a quarterback when you don't allow him to throw the ball?  What evaluation process was going on here?  Wow Geno, looking really good handing the ball off.  Smooth exchange.  You go guy.

Yes, the Jets are still trying to win the game, and the running game was working big time, for a half.  But when it inevitably cooled off in the face of all out run stopping fronts by the Dolphins, don't you need to change things up a bit and let Geno throw the ball?  Up until tonight the least amount of passes in a single game by any NFL team was 15.  The Jets broke that record with just 13 passes all night, and with two minutes to go they had only eight.  Had the Dolphins not managed to take the lead no doubt the Jets would have finished the night with eight passes.  What purpose does this serve?  What could the coaching staff possibly have learned about Geno tonight?

If you are going all out to win games, then put in the quarterback you trust, which is clearly not Geno.  If you're instead going to go all out to learn as much as you can about a young quarterback who maybe, probably not, but maybe, still has a slim chance to develop into a decent quarterback, then dang it, do your evaluating. Let him throw the ball and don't worry about the wins and losses.  Evaluate.  Incredibly, inexplicably, in a move only this complete train wreck of an organization can manage, the Jets chose to do neither.  They chose not to try to win by putting the best quarterback out there.  And they chose not to try to evaluate Geno by letting him pass the ball.  They had two clear choices, both of which at least had some merit to them, and in a this can only be the Jets move, they chose to do neither.  Instead they chose not to try to win the game AND not to try to evaluate Geno.  It is such an incredible epic fail the decision is just inexplicable.  There is only one way to describe what happened tonight.  LOL 2014 Jets: What the @#$%%@ was that?