Woody Johnson
I am Jet's and Palace fan so here is my opinion on Woody Johnson's possible involvement. Looking at the possible management style, and if they are worst owners in the NFL?
What can we tell from Jets management?
Big free agents
Le’Veon Bell, CJ Mosley, LaDainian Tomlinson, and Jason Taylor. The Jets love to add a big-name free agent. Most of these were great players before signing for the Jets. They either don't work or have good highlights. Woody wants to make a splash. If he took over 100% control. I could see him going after Rashford and Sterling. That's very much his kind of signing.
Patient with managers
Since they took over the Jets. They have had a total of nine head coaches in 25 seasons. With only one having one season, and the longest being Rex Ryan with five seasons. Including 6 playoff games. This is a double-edged sword, as they have had Adam Gase for two seasons. That first season was so poor. Had a really poor start and then rallied, finishing with a 7-9 season. I don't think he should have got another season.
Consistent Style
Only two of the head coaches they have appointed haven’t been a Defensive coordinator. Helm Edwards was the Defensive backs coach, and Adam Gase was the Offensive coordinator and head coach before signing for the Jets. About ten/twenty years ago, the groupthink was that “Defense wins championships”. This has changed as the NFL has become more offense-first. I could see him picking a style of manager and only picking that style.
Met life stadium
When they took over the Jets they had been playing at Giants Stadium. Home of the Pele’s New York cosmos. The stadium was showing its age. The Jets looked into being a part of New York’s 2012 Olympic bid with a Manhattan stadium, but that never was close to happening. So they went into a joint venture with the Giants and built MetLife Stadium in the car park of the old stadium. It's going to host world cup final next year.
The season ticket prices are massive. A top-tier season ticket costs around £1,256, which is for an eight-game season ticket. That's £156 per match. It’s hard to compare, as there are many seats on the second-party websites that show the price. The same seat for the Giants is priced at £902. A similar seat for the Jaguars would be £640. It’s further from the action in the older stadium, but almost double the price difference. They share the same ownership as Fulham. It’s a totally different culture, and New York is a major market. If Woody had sole control. I would be nervous about ticket prices.
Madden Ratings
The Jets were negotiating a trade for Jeudy. As reported in the Athletic and Woody pulled them out of the trade as his Madden rating was too low. Madden ratings are known for being a bit rubbish and slow to change. Jerry Jeudy would then go on to have a 1,000-yard season. The equivalent of a striker having a twenty-goal season.
Kids involvement
An article in the athletic then looks at the influence his teenage kids might have on Woody. "When we're discussing things, you'll hear Woody cite something that Brick or Jack read online that's being weighed equally against whatever opinion someone else in the department has," one Jets executive said. It has been stated that his kids don’t have role and no influence by New York Jets. They are known to attend team meetings and bring friends to the locker room post match. Poor NFL players only get 10-15 mins until press and all sorts of people come into the changing rooms that isn’t that unusual. At Fulham Tony Khan the son of Shahid Khan (owner) is the Vice Chairman. I could see similar here with Woody investing but his kids taking more active role over time.
Activity
Woody is the heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortitne. Being the owner of the Jets has nothing to do with money and he does care. He is around the team regually and takes a keen interest. The issue can be that he cares too much about other people’s opinions and over corrects.
Are the Jets the worst run team in American sports?
Jets are currently one of the joke teams of the NFL. The NFL online culture is that a couple of teams are the joke teams that everyone is mocking. There are lots of inside jokes about the teams that make mistakes or have bad luck. For example…
Giants giving their QB a $160m contract and sack him in the middle of the second season of the four-year contract.
Panther's traded to get a new young QB; they traded away 1st round pick next season, and are still terrible, which means they don't get the number one pick.
Browns’ losing run, one win in two seasons
Browns’ QB room, having 4 QBs
Browns’ no-playoff run 17 seasons
Dolphins without a play off win since 2001
Green Bay needed a good receiver, but never drafted one in the first round (did it in this year’s draft).
Jerry Jones is spending lots on the stadium but refusing to draw the curtains, causing players to not catch passes due to not seeing the ball due to the sun in their eyes
So why are Jets a joke team?
There are two main reasons for this. The first part is a bad season. Two seasons ago, they brought in Aaron Rodgers. A future Hall of Fame QB. They had good defense and some good weapons on offense, but the offensive line was bad. I maintain that if the Jets had an average QB the season before Rodgers signed, then they would have gone to the playoffs. They had a young QB who wasn't ready for the NFL and was struggling. This was an all-or-nothing move. The season before Rodgers got injured early on after a lot of build-up and fanfare. Including a bar in Green Bay (former team) was going to cover the bar tab of everyone at the bar when he started, and the Jets lost. That game he started and got injured. The Jets won from behind, and the bar wasn’t happy. Coming into last season, it was hoped the team would be Super Bowl challengers. That didn't happen. Jets were below average, getting 5-12, which was 11th out of 16 in the AFC. The Jets did sack their head coach early in the season and their offensive coordinator. Salah was a defensive-minded head coach, they should have waited till the end of the season. The defence dipped after he left, and offensively did get better, but it wasn't enough. This was a very high-profile talking point. Especially as Rodgers is often doing podcast interviews. Some teams can be rubbish for years and not get much attention. The Jets were box office bad. They in one game became the first team in NFL history to score at least 20 points, hold an opponent under 250 total yards, and not turn the ball over once, and yet lose the game. Which is a very impressive way of losing.
The second part is a massive playoff drought. The Jets have not made the playoffs since 2010. That's fourteen seasons without playoffs. The nearest active playoff droughts are the Panthers and Falcons at seven seasons. Recently Bills (2000–2016) and the Browns (2003–2019) had seventeen seasons without playoffs.
There was one painfully close season. Normally, with old playoff rules, ten wins would be enough to get to the playoffs (a saying like 40 points is safe from relegation). Back in 2015, the Jets had 10 wins with one game left. They needed to win at Buffalo to get into the playoffs. It was very bad conditions, and the Bills destroyed the Jets.
But in this drought, most of the seasons have been poor. Excluding that season, they have all been losing seasons. Which means the team lost more games than they won. But rarely is the worst team in the league. The worst season was 2-14, which was the 2nd-worst team in the league. Which makes rebuilding harder. It’s better to be the worst team and get the best players. The team could get some superstars. That you can build around. Just being poor and getting very good players is a bit frustrating.
Conclusion
The Jets haven’t been a good franchise for a long time. But at same time Johnson isn’t the worst owner. The Browns are worst ownership. While Woody has been owner the Jets have had 8 seasons with more wins than loses and Browns have had four. Including a season without any wins. The also sold there soul to get Watson (who has done terrible things) and he wasn’t even any good for them. Also Browns don’t after many players signed up to end of next season but already have wages problems due to paying there star players and Watson.
As Palace fan, if Johnson is replacing Textor and give more money for Parish to do his thing then great. Due less New York media interest he might be quieter money man but I can see him being vocal if he doesn’t like something. He is know for not getting involved in the draft and then moaning about the players afterwards. Hopefully he like that in the transfers and not rejecting deals due to FIFA ratings.
If it’s full on take over and he is getting 100% control. Then who knows. It could be chaos or it could be great. I think the club would be more like how Fulham or Nottingham Forrest is run with large transfer spends.