These are not your parents’ Jets and, they hope, not your slightly older cousins’ Jets, either. A mere 12 years ago the club assembled a superteam unable to contain its obvious volatility. The combination of LaDainian Tomlinson, Plaxico Burress, Derrick Mason, Santonio Holmes and Bart Scott melted down into charred rubber live on the final Sunday of a lost 2011 season.
It was, perhaps, the messiest eight-win season in recent NFL history due in part to the expectations preceding the meltdown and the city in which it took place.
This time, the hope is that lessons were learned, or inherited through some kind of organizational osmosis. The 2023 Jets are the most star-studded team in the NFL again, and they just added the biggest free agent remaining on the market before the start of the regular season.
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Taken on its own—again, considering football only because the legal and moral ramifications are a different story, not to mention the disturbing nature of the allegations levied against him—the signing of Dalvin Cook is understandable. Cook would be ideally suited for the Jets’ downhill running game, which is why the thought of him in a similar (from a blocking and running back demand standpoint, anyway) Dolphins offense seemed so enticing. But when viewed as the finale of an entire offseason spent stacking personnel together, it’s difficult not to think about the Jets’ somewhat recent past and how this rebuild was supposed to be the complete antithesis.
But … Cook now joins Aaron Rodgers, Offensive Rookie of the Year winner Garrett Wilson, Defensive Rookie of the Year Sauce Gardner, edge rusher Carl Lawson, defensive tackle Quinnen Williams, middle linebacker C.J. Mosley, former No. 3 pick Solomon Thomas and 37-year-old, five-time Pro Bowler Duane Brown as established star or borderline star players who, while all capable of working perfectly together, all require some degree of management. This, alongside their simultaneous effort to rescue two of their most recent high draft picks, Zach Wilson and Mekhi Becton. This is not just a full plate for an organization to handle. This is a buffet of feelings, egos and ideas to navigate.
This is true of most good football teams, of course. Coaches should get to know all of their players and craft an overall culture and vibe that fits the team’s unique emotional contours. That said, there is little debate as to the delicacy of these situations when each piece you begin stacking has its own entrenched legacy and identity; their own platform with which to confidently express likes, dislikes and preferences. It is a bit like the latter stages of a game of Jenga, where the results become a little more binary: It’s either an amazing, abstract structure still standing, or it all comes tumbling down to earth.
While I am sure no one has thought of the chemistry implications more than coach Robert Saleh, whose emotional intelligence has kept the team on the rails through some perilous spots already, the Cook signing feels like it takes the expectations for 2023 into a different stratosphere. Maybe that is an unfair burden to place on the organization. Less so if they didn’t already know their history, and where they came from.
The Jets are not Super Bowl or bust, but they are now undeniably excellent or bust. The supposed multiyear runway for Aaron Rodgers and the idea that something could still be “under construction” here offers little solace if the team fails to make the playoffs this season.
The optimist in all of us can see the potential. Rodgers can be a salve to Wilson the way Cook can provide an on-field blueprint for the talented but recovering Breece Hall. Wilson can make Gardner better and vice versa. There is a world where this ecosystem is flawless and beautiful; where the Jets are a version of the Legion of Boom, just with a better quarterback. All of the veterans’ skills and egos harmonize. There is a world where what we see on Hard Knocks actually resembles reality.
The problem is that we’re old enough to remember what happens when it doesn’t work out.
