Jets could make big move in AFC East with nemesis out of the picture
The Jets’ most annoying, irritating and fantastically brilliant nemesis is finally out of their hair.
Tom Brady’s announcement Tuesday morning — that he won’t be returning to the Patriots — gives Gang Green real hope for the first time in the better part of two decades. Foxborough’s Evil Empire has officially fallen, leaving the keys to the AFC East kingdom up for grabs.
The Jets, stuck in a seemingly endless cycle of rebuilding, have a true opportunity to climb the divisional mountaintop now that Bill Belichick will actually have a mortal playing quarterback in 2020 (and the near future). Elvis has left the building. It’s enough to make Joe Douglas and Adam Gase giggle uncontrollably with glee if not for other challenges that shouldn’t be overlooked.
In case you forgot, the Bills actually made the playoffs last season. Buffalo appeared to be nose-to-nose with the Jets at this point last year with a promising young quarterback surrounded by problems.
Only the Bills went into overdrive last offseason, bolstering a weak roster with
smart additions in free agency and the draft. They lapped the Jets en route to the postseason. The Buffalo brain trust supplied more weaponry for quarterback Josh Allen with their blockbuster trade Monday night for dynamic wide receiver Stefon Diggs.
Then, there’s the Dolphins, who overachieved last season after firing Gase.
Miami, a virtual clean slate with a bounty of cash and draft capital, busted out of the free agency gates Monday by landing big fish cornerback Byron Jones and improving at linebacker, edge rusher and offensive line.
So, the Jets won’t waltz to the front of the line in the division simply because the greatest player that ever lived is gone.
“One of the other three teams has to go take it,” Gase said at the Scouting Combine last month. “They’ve won the division so many times in a row. Coach Belichick has done a great job and his staff. One of us has to do a good job of outplaying those guys for a full season. It hasn’t been an easy thing to do.”
Truth be told, it’s been damn near impossible. Brady and Belichick won 17 of 19 division titles with No. 12 as the starter, including the past 11. It was an historic run that likely won’t be duplicated, a reign of dominance built on intellect, skill and an unyielding drive to outwork everyone.
Brady and Belichick went 249-75 together, winning six of nine Super Bowls, while the Jets, Dolphins and Bills cursed them. The Jets, of course, had special reason to despise all of it given that Mo Lewis’ fateful hit on Drew Bledsoe on September 23, 2001, unwittingly spawned the Patriots dynasty.
It was all so annoying for Gang Green, who went 8-30 against the Brady-Belichick tag team.
Belichick held a special place of hate in his heart for his former employer, a vitriol that burns deep to this day. Brady executed his coach’s plan with a brilliance that defined a generation, a former sixth-round afterthought that became a perpetual pain in the Jets’ posterior.
“He is a great person and the greatest quarterback of all-time,” Belichick said in a statement Tuesday.
But that run is over, forever locked away in the football annals. The rest of the AFC East can exhale for a moment, but Belichick isn’t going to roll over because the 42-yearold Brady is taking his talents elsewhere.
“It’s hard,” Gase said at the Combine about the idea of the division being wide open. “We obviously all want to say yes, but I think one of us has to go and do it and figure out a way to jump in front of New England.”
Gase has an opportunity that Eric Mangini, Rex Ryan and Todd Bowles didn’t: Chasing a division crown without Brady in the way.
The new Collective Bargain Agreement allows for an extra playoff team. The best football player that ever lived is out of the AFC East.
If the Jets can’t capitalize now, then when?