Remember Mike Nugent, Jets fans?
If you look up the words standing pat in the Jets glossary you will see Mike Nugent’s name next to them.
Nugent was really an innocent bystander in what ensued as one most massive misjudgments the Jets have made over the years.
Just three months after Jets kicker Doug Brien missed two makeable field goals that would have sent them to the AFC Championship in the 2004 season, Jets management decided the team was only a dependable kicker away from reaching the Promised Land.
The Jets, after all, went 10-6 in 2004 and had outplayed the Steelers in that AFC divisional playoff game that went wrong when Brien choked. They really should have gotten to the AFC title game.
So, instead of making more necessary changes, the Jets chose Nugent, a kicker out of Ohio State, as their top draft choice in 2005.
Nugent never turned out to be anything other than an average kicker, but that’s not the point.
The point is the Jets stood pat after their euphoric ride into the playoffs that year, thinking they were a cosmetic dab of makeup away from winning the beauty pageant.
Things, you recall, got ugly from there.
The Jets lost their top two quarterbacks in the third game of the season, finished 4-12 and that led to Herman Edwards’ unceremonious departure and a complete reboot of the franchise with Eric Mangini’s hiring.
Fasting forward to now, the Jets easily could have stood pat and made only a couple of tweaks after making it to the AFC Championship this past season.
But they didn’t, and they should be commended for it.
Jets general manager Mike Tannenbaum and coach Rex Ryan smartly recognized that, as great as that late run the team made deep into the postseason, they were 9-7 in the regular season and needed a succession of miraculous breaks to fall their way to just get into the playoffs.
The Jets, remember, finished the 2009 regular season with the same 9-7 record that they finished with in 2008, after which owner Woody Johnson was so exasperated that he fired Mangini within days of the season’s end.
The line between success and failure, love and hate, is that thin and Tannenbaum and Ryan should be credited for recognizing that and not arrogantly moving about their business as if they were only a role player away from getting to the Super Bowl this year.
The moves the Jets made during the draft were aggressive, dusted with controversy and definitely not without risk.
Players inside the Jets locker room, where chemistry was a landmark to the team’s success last year, are not happy with management moving running back Leon Washington and guard Alan Faneca out. There already were grumblings about the release of running back Thomas Jones, a beloved leader, earlier in the offseason.
Ryan, for all his strengths as a players’ coach and a people person, has a tall task keeping the chemistry in balance with all the new faces the Jets brought in — particularly considering the veteran leadership cornerstones that were removed in Jones, Faneca, Washington and even kicker Jay Feely.
Despite the upheaval, the Jets added some youth to some key positions in the draft.
Cornerback Kyle Wilson, their first-round pick, looks like a player who will contribute immediately and has a chance to be a star in the league.
Guard Vladimir Ducasse, their second-round pick, seems to have a lot of upside, though he’s raw in terms of football experience. Expecting him to develop quickly enough to become a rookie starter for Faneca, however, seems like a bit of a reach. But Ducasse does help make the offensive line younger.
The Jets’ fourth-round pick, running back Joe McKnight, looks like he can be a good third-down back, but to think he’s going to turn out to be the special player that Washington was seems like a pipe dream.
Ryan was said to have fallen in love with fullback John Connor, the team’s fifth-round pick who’s nickname is “The Terminator.” He eventually will step in for veteran Tony Richardson, who’s likely playing his last NFL season.
How these players all work out remains a question mark, but when you mix them in with all the other moves the Jets made — acquiring cornerback Antonio Cromartie, receiver Santonio Holmes, running back LaDainian Tomlinson and pass rusher Jason Taylor — the offseason body of work has been impressive.
And those moves surely give the Jets a better chance at advancing further than they did a year ago then if they had stood pat and drafted, say, a kicker in the early rounds.