Right, this. Uh, shit. I haven’t been down in a while, being busy and all. Eh, let’s start this and I imagine someone will call and yell at me.

So! Another year, another Jets preview. Oh, another coach, this time replacing Todd “Not Sally” Bowles

(I’ve wanted to use that for a while) with “Crazy Eyes” Adam Gase.

You know, the guy who was the head coach of Miami and the Dolphins essentially did fuck-all. The quarterback whisperer who didn’t take then-shiny new toy Tanny and turn him into the second coming of Marino, and his job was staked on it. And his team didn’t care for the quarterback he was tied to.

Well the good news is at the moment the team likes Sam Darnold, especially coming off a stronger second half of his rookie campaign. And they better like him, because with Josh McCown retiring from playing the backup is… Trevor Siemian. Or the eternal “he looks good in practice and is the future but you can never see him ever” Davis Webb from the Giants. And if you ask, the fans like him too. So there is that. I don’t think the fans ever liked Sanchez because he would follow up a good thing with a hilariously bad thing. In the back-to-back AFC Championship years. Darnold actually had a lot better awareness after his foot injury mid-season, almost like he had a Season 1 and Season 1A.

So with that, let’s get to the offense. Darnold should hopefully continue developing, and the addition of Le’Veon Bell will be a huge help in balancing the running and passing game. Behind him are Ty Montgomery and Bilal Powell—Powell is 30, so I’d expect that he will get fairly limited carries. The three receivers, Robby Anderson, Jamison Crowder, and Quincy Enunwa, are solid, but if something happens to any of them, then the next guys on the depth chart are unknowns and/or journeymen receivers meant to be buried on the depth chart. So somebody for fuck’s sake keep Robby Anderson sober, because he’s had how many DUIs?

On a related note if you told me which back/receiver would be suspended for the first four games of the season, because of that I would have said Anderson, but it’s actually starting tight end Chris Herndon, out for a substance abuse violation. So making up for his absence in terms of passes thrown at the tight end will probably be Ryan Griffin, who played for the 500s and is someone who has actually caught passes in the NFL. The third-string TE, Daniel Brown, has caught passes, but didn’t catch a single pass last year, and he played in 14 games for Da Bears.

The O-line has undergone some revamping, trading for Kelechi Osmele and picking up Ryan Kalil from his couch in retirement. The O-line had its moments last year, both good and bad, and with the addition of these two it can hopefully have more good than bad to protect their young QB. All in all, it should be a decent offense.

On the other side of the ball, the defense should also be pretty okay. Greggggggggggggggg Williams is the new defensive coordinator, so expect blitzes, and goddammit I hope it’s not Bountygate 2.0. But from last we checked the Browns (#ThePauls) didn’t have that last year, and he was the interim head coach for that. And not only that but they weren’t their usual liquid shit, so he was effective. Let’s hope that the Gase-Williams teamwork is somehow a stable situation that lasts for years…

As for players, first-round pick Quinnen Williams and Steve McLendon’ll probably split time up the middle since the Jets are keeping their 3-4 that they’ve had since the Mangini days, and it should be a big year for Leonard Williams since it’s a contract year, this being his 5th/rookie option year. Figure dude’s looking to get paid. Henry Anderson’ll be on the other side, who raised some eyebrows last year. The linebackers added C.J. Mosley from Baltimore, so that’s a big plus.

The big question in the defense is the secondary. Sure, Jamal Adams is legit, but the secondary gave up what can be described as a fuck-ton of big plays last season, and now Trumaine Johnson is out with an injury, moving Daryl Roberts as your CB1 and undrafted rookie Kyron Brown as your CB2. Jamal Adams apparently said he was “seriously talking” about moving to corner earlier on Monday, which seems like a fix one break one problem considering the second-string strong safety is Brandon Bryant. Whoever he is.

The special teams were actually really good last year, as Jason Myers kicked many field goals—he went 33/36 and made the Pro Bowl. Andre Roberts, the kick returner, was All-Pro. Neither of them are on the team, and the Jets are already at their second kicker of camp after Chandler Catanzaro had an unexplained fire on the field missed two extra points against the Giants and retired rather than get cut, signing Taylor Bertolet. See, if they had signed two kickers at the start of camp they wouldn’t have had to scramble, but they’re the Jets! Trenton Cannon will return kicks. Lachlan Edwards returns to punt, and he’s been okay, I haven’t had to curse him out. The punt returner exists.

Will they beat the P*ts? Maybe if someone Tonya Hardings Dreamboat, but the last time they did that to a P*ts QB we got him in the first place. Sorry about that, everyone. And as a result this team will probably continue to suffer.

[PORTAL FLIES OPEN]

Hades, god of the underworld: Damn straight they will! Sorry, that was too good to pass up.

Senor: That’s okay, hi Hades. Care to elaborate?

Hades: Sure. We all know it’s entirely the Jets fault for giving the NFL the plague that is the Brady-Belichick connection. Drew Bledsoe was a good quarterback but not in the same league that Brady became. Do the P*ts make the playoffs if Bledsoe is the quarterback the whole year in 2001? Do they beat the Rams? Think of the butterfly effect!

Senor: Yeah, I know.

Hades: And that kickstarted the whole Boston run!

Senor: Don’t remind me.

Hades: Think of the glorious schadenfreude we’ve missed! And that’s why they shall suffer.

Senor: What’s their penalty?

Hades: Me if I know, I’m not the god of ironic sports punishment. I’m not even the god of sports, that’s Hermes. Probably just what they’ve gotten, consigned to normally mediocrity and a sideshow, with questionable running like how the Gase/Maccagnan partnership broke up.

Senor: It’s not that Maccagnan got fired, because those mid-round picks did nothing and that’s what you build your team on. That’s part of why the Jets had so much cap space this offseason, because they’re not signing their draft picks beyond their rookie deals. Which means they have to spend on free agency, it’s a quick fix. And it’s nigh impossible to build like that in football due to attrition and roster sizes—the smaller roster size is why you can put all your eggs on two or three max guys in basketball, for instance. So Joe Douglas’ll have some work to do with that… starting next draft which will be his first because Maccagnan was chucked out in May. You know, after the draft. It wasn’t the wrong move, but at the wrong time, if you fire him and Bowles together fine but you’ve already hired the coach, and then make him the kingmaker because he’s probably why, even though “we both separately report to the owner.” The owner who’s just there because Woody Johnson is the ambassador to the UK, at least until Scotland inevitably leaves the union due to a no-deal Brexit. And possibly Northern Ireland leaves the union due to a no-deal Brexit. Then he’ll just be the ambassador to England and Wales, I presume.

Hades: Oh yeah, I’m enjoying watching that shitshow. Also your nation’s shitshow. Also the world’s shitshow. I’m gonna need to start making some renovations soon for the impending doom and—

Senor: What was that?

Hades: Oh nothing. I am going to depart though, I’ll give Sephy your best, of course. She’d love to meet your lovely—

Senor: Yes, I know, thanks Immortal Mom. It’s good seeing you again, and I’m gonna continue riffing here.

Hades: Remember to put your faith in Blast Hardcheese!

[PORTAL FLIES CLOSED]

Senor: Yeah, so every bad thing that has happened is the result of the New York Jets? Grumblelord. Yup. Dreamboat? Yup. THE SHIELD©®™ becoming the sports equivalent of “too big to fail” in the United States? Yes, the merger was happening anyway but the Jets made the conferences equal-ish and helped start the ball rolling for the juggernaut it is today.

Their penalty is being good enough once a decade or so to make a playoff run to give hope, then dash it entirely in the years to follow. Everyone says this team will be in the 7-9 to 9-7 range, the pinnacle of mediocrity, what would normally be consigned to oblivion, that one team on the Sporcle quiz that you can’t remember or it takes you the longest to remember. Except oblivion is too good for them, so they have the bonus of playing in New York, which means they cannot be in the void that is obscurity. The Knicks are in the same boat, as are the Mets more often that not, except their fans get very excited from the slightest hope. It’s the dregs of the National League and the Never Ready for Primetime Nationals. See how the Giants (Dirt Niners edition) went on their run and then ran right off a cliff?

They will get the patented New Jets Coach Bump, so I’m gonna say 8-8 or 9-7, the bump counteracting losing the tight end for four games and having Darrelle Revis’s jersey from the second Jets stint (at the end of his career) on the depth chart at this point. Sounds like enough to rile up the fanbase for big things in Year 2 of the Gase era and ultimately disappoint them in yet another Sisyphean cycle as they go 5-11, 4-12 next year and fans want somebody run out of town on a rail.

Playing the long game here.

Also now that I’ve seen them on the field and on Madden Mobile… the unis still are at best a step to the side, I hate this number font, and that doesn’t even go into the black jerseys because I haven’t seen them yet. And the changes to the lettering on the logo are still beyond dumb.