THE SHEL GAME

Dealing best player among worst moves team has made

The Jets channeled their inner Jets by pulling off a bone-headed move yet again. The team with the single worst roster in the NFL traded away one of their three most talented players because the man in charge backed himself into a corner.

It was Mismanagement 101 on One Jets Drive for a starcrossed franchise still wandering through the wilderness in the hopes of locating a clue.

The saddest part of the team’s decision to trade former Pro Bowl defensive lineman Sheldon Richardson to the Seahawks for middling wide receiver Jermaine Kearse and a 2018 second-round draft pick (along with seventh-round swaps) on Friday? Some of the hearty souls forced to watch this outfit circle the drain have been conditioned to think that this was a smart move.

“We have some good young defensive linemen,” general manager Mike Maccagnan said. “Sheldon was a part of that. But, in return, it allowed us to sort of entertain options there.… Sometimes teams that have needs and surpluses find fits that work well for potential trades.”

The truth is the Jets bungled this situation so badly that some of the green-and-white clad zombies actually felt that this was a good return for a 26-year-old Pro Bowl defensive lineman.

Perhaps the franchise’s history of ineptitude has sapped those fine hard-working folks. Or maybe they just forgot how the Jets got themselves into this mess in the first place. Or perhaps they were simply resigned to the notion that, hey, this is the best we could get for a player who is actually good at football.

There were enough perturbed folks in the organization, however, unwilling to sip Maccagnan’s Kool-Aid, clear-thinking people, who watched a game-changer walk out of the building for a middling pass catcher, who’s never had more than 685 receiving yards in any of his five seasons in the league.

“You don’t let the most talented guys leave… especially at that position,” a team insider said of Richardson. “You try and find a way to make it work.”

These Jets evidently are allergic to good football players.

There weren’t many people on One Jets Drive excited about parting with Richardson. In fact, many important voices were in the dark about this trade until after went it down.

“We should have sent them Hack,” a second source said.

Make no mistake: Maccagnan was not a popular figure inside the organization after this trade. People were ticked off.

Although folks on One Jets Drive acknowledged that Richardson was a bit lax in certain areas, nobody I touched base with questioned his work ethic.

The Jets claim that they want to foster a culture made up of players, who have a love and passion for the game and the team. Richardson embodied that.

“He loves to play the game,” one team source said. “He loves football. He goes hard in practice, plays hard when he’s in there.”

Yeah. The Jets don’t need more of that.

There have been some laughable narratives floating around for the past year.

1) The addition-by-subtraction routine: Richardson was a rogue locker room element. (Not true).

2) The they’ll-be-just-fine routine: The Jets after all are sooooo loaded along the defensive line that they can afford to lose Richardson. (How did that whole letting Damon Harrison walk thing go?)

The aforementioned thinking makes absolutely perfect sense in the Bizarro NFL, where last is first, and 5-11 seasons get wildcard berths.

In that universe, the Jets would be the Patriots. And Geno Smith would be Tom Brady.

In the real world, however, it takes talent to create a sustainable winner. The Jets got rid of some of their most talented veteran players in a strip-it-down-to-the-studs offseason designed to rebuild from the ground up. Along the way, they cut respected veterans David Harris and Eric Decker in June to save a few more bucks.

There was some sense in getting rid of some older (expensive) players early in the offseason to make way for a youth movement, but the Harris, Decker and now Richardson moves are not sound in any sense. Frankly, this is cruel and unusual punishment for Todd Bowles.

To review: The Jets got rid of an accomplished wide receiver in June to save money only to trade one of their three best players 10 weeks later so they could get back a mediocre wide receiver (because the wide receiving corps is terrible). Bold strategy, Cotton. On the bright side, Woody and Chris Johnson will save $5.9 million off this trade. Richardson was set to make $8.1 million this year. Kearse will make $2.2 million.

Bloated wallets aside, the Richardson trade was a microcosm of this regime’s poor planning. Maccagnan boxed himself into a corner by committing big money to Muhammad Wilkerson, who wound up embarrassing the franchise and himself on and off the field last season.

The GM foolishly doled out a lucrative contract extension to Wilkerson last year rather than simply let the defensive end play on the franchise tag in 2016.

Franchising Wilkerson would have created maximum flexibility — and options.

Maccagnan, in effect, could have let Wilkerson walk after last season and kept Richardson through at least 2018 (by applying the franchise tag on him after this season). They could have signed Harrison, who was a first-team All-Pro for the Giants, to Oa long-term deal last offseason. r the Jets could have inked Wilkerson to a team-friendly deal (coming off his underwhelming 2016) and left their long-term options open for Richardson. There were much smarter ways to navigate through it.

“Long term and short term,” Maccagnan said, “we’re still sort of building this thing through the draft.”

Getting draft capital is a lot easier than actually picking good players with it.