Connor McGovern Praises Jets Front Office for Getting Rid of Some ‘Bad Apples’

Over a month after NFL free agency started, Connor McGovern remained a free agent. Many of us thought he’s likely played his last game in green and white, but despite the drafting of highly touted and promising rookie Joe Tippmann, when the curtain comes up on the Jets 2023 season next Monday at Metlife against the visiting Bills, Connor will be snapping the ball to the man who hopes to lead the Jets out of a decade of purgatory.

Entering his 4th year with the Jets, the former Broncos man has seen a real transformation in the locker room:

“When I first got here, we were young; we had some talent here and there,” he told reporters through a Zoom call “What Joe Douglas, Robert Saleh, and their teams have done to get this locker room to where it is now is remarkable.”

McGovern joined just before the 2020 season, a year when the Jets went 2-14 and were a Braden Mann tackle away from having the opportunity to draft Trevor Lawrence. Instead, the Jets have built the team up, waiting patiently for a veteran QB to become available once it became clear that Zach Wilson wasn’t ready to lead the team to the promised land.

Over the last few years the Jets have added potential superstars in Garrett Wilson and Sauce Gardner, budding stars like Breece Hall, Jermaine Johnson and Alijah Vera-Tucker...now they’ve added the veteran leadership of Aaron Rodgers, making the Jets an attractive destination for players like Dalvin Cook.

It’s not just the additional talent though, McGovern believes that the Jets have found locker room harmony, in part because Joe Douglas and the front office rid the lead of bad apples:

“Yeah, it has been a complete 180,” said McGovern “They have done a really good job of getting rid of the bad apples. I don’t know how you want to call it—a cancer or somebody rotting the bucket in the locker room.”

I think it’s a little unprofessional to start hypothesizing on the players he’s talking about, but I imagine we all have a relatively good idea when you look at players who have been ousted from 2020-2023.

At the moment all of this is just talk. We’ll see how effective the build project has been as the season progresses, starting Monday night against the AFC East favourite Bills.