Speculation sometimes surfaces that players in general wouldn't want to play for various teams unless they are grossly overpaid. The New York Jets are at times prominently mentioned among such teams. An interesting anonymous poll of NFL players was recently released by ESPN regarding this issue. The poll asked NFL players the following question:
The only way I’d play for ____ is if they doubled my salary.
Here are the top five teams in terms of least desirable destinations for NFL players, ranked by the percentage of players who filled in the blank with the respective teams' names:
Some interesting things here. The list is dominated by bad teams, with the exception of the Green Bay Packers. Apparently the lure of playing for a good team is outweighed by playing in frigid Green Bay, the smallest market in the NFL. The list is also dominated by what many would consider to be some of the less prominent cities in the NFL. More prominent cities like New York and Washington D.C. are nowhere to be found on the list, despite fielding some bad teams.
The takeaway for
Jets fans may be that despite some of the known undesirable factors of playing here, from sky high taxes to high cost of living to a less than stellar team track record, the poll appears to indicate that players do not consider the Jets one of the worst destinations. This is good news, as it may put to rest the notion that most free agents would have to be grossly overpaid to come to this team.
You can read more about the poll
here.