Stop Me if You've Heard This Before, but the Jets Locker Room is 'Ready to Implode'

Jerry Thornton9/27/2023 5:20 PM

Cooper Neill. Getty Images.

There's a term from the newspaper business that has its roots in the days when someone had to physically set the type for the printing presses. "Standing headline." Meaning one that you're likely going to use over and over again, so you keep the letters together somewhere to save time down the road. Obvious ones like "Congressman Indicted on Corruption Charges." "Mayor Announces Initiative to Solve the Homeless Crisis." "Dozens Arrested at St. Patrick's Day Parade." "Kennedy Implicated in Sex Scandal" (you could always fill in the first name later), and so on.

And if we were still living in a world with manual type printing ink on thin layers of dead trees to give us our news, for sure the press operators would be keeping a couple of headlines that read, NYJs Get the QB They Need" and "Jets Locker Room is Ready to Implode" handy at all times. Because this is a bipolar franchise that is doomed to ping back and forth between those two extremes for all eternity.

The first one came in April of 2021, when they drafted Zach Wilson, followed quickly by the second, once they realized no one in the organization has faith in Wilson. The first one came back again this offseason, when they paid a fortune in draft capital and cap space to land Aaron Rodgers. And it took one Achilles tear and three weeks to make the second one their reality once again. But since we're no longer rolling ink on metal plates like we're pumping out Gutenberg bibles, we're hearing about locker room implosions on a podcast:

Source - New York Jets head coach Robert Saleh has continued to show unwavering support for Zach Wilson even as the quarterback plays horribly, and that is reportedly starting to become an issue within the team’s locker room.
ESPN’s Rich Cimini, a longtime Jets reporter, said on the latest episode of his “Flight Deck” podcast that New York’s locker room is “ready to implode.” The main reason for that is that Saleh has continued to pamper Wilson publicly even after the Jets’ defense gave the team almost every chance imaginable in Sunday’s 15-10 loss to the New England Patriots.
“The thing is, he’s coming off as a Zach apologist,” Cimini said of Saleh. “That doesn’t play well in the locker room. The defense, in particular, is not happy. … You’re supposed to win games when you only give up 13 points. This defense knows that if any other player were performing his job the way that Wilson is performing his, that player would be benched. …
“Trust me, there’s tension in that locker room,” he added. “On Tuesday morning, an off day for players, I was told that this is a hot topic among players in the locker room. I get the sense from what I’ve seen on the sideline and what I’m hearing that this team could be ready to implode.”

If that frustration wasn't obvious already, with every 3 & out resulting in some teammate holding a one-on-one therapy session with Wilson:

And players and coaches having to be separated by peacemakers acting as NHL linesmen on the sideline:

It just never ends with this franchise. Hope and chaos are just eternally locked in this death struggle for all eternity. Hearing Robert Saleh is seen by his players as nothing but an apologist for Zach Wilson is the permanent state of the Jets. All you have to do is swap out the names, Mad Libs-style, and you can draw a continuous line back decades. Adam Gase and Sam Darnold. Todd Bowles and Ryan Fitzpatrick. Rex Ryan and Geno Smith. Rex Ryan and Mark Sanchez. Eric Mangini and Brett Favre.

I'm sure if you wanted to get real anthropological and Indiana Jones down into the archives, you could find the same story being written about Lou Holtz and Joe Namath. But ol' Lou had the common sense to quit 13 games into his first and only season. Perhaps he had the foresight to look into the future and see the half century of utter futility that lay ahead and cut his losses. Whatever his reasons, he's the one who had the wisdom to step off this carousel of misery.

We can all act surprised things have unfolded like this for the Jets so soon after getting the guy they all consider the QB GOAT. But that would require us to ignore history. The only surprising aspect of this is how the exact same thing can happen to the exact same franchise, time, and time, and time again. Seemingly without end. But everything the Jets do, they have done before. And will do again.