What Now?

Opening

Onan! You've got his best in life. To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and they'll hear the lamentation of their women.

Transcript

Machine transcript generated in 2026 by Grok Bot from the episode audio (Whisper small.en + sherpa-onnx speaker diarization). Speakers labeled Opening / Jake / Justin. Timestamps about every three minutes. Diarization note: HOST_LOCK: after Opening, host/welcome voice = Jake; other = Justin; host-welcome cluster=1 @ 32.6s → Jake; other-primary cluster=0 → Justin; intro-self-ID Jake confirms host; Justin name in host line kept on Jake (HOST_LOCK); Jason-ref Jake cluster 1 sim=0.40; WEAK clustering: dominant speaker share 94% (labels kept: host=Jake).

00:09 Justin: The best place to be is when expectations are high. Get used to it. It's always going to be that way. Jake: Welcome to the Jack the podcast the longest-running New York Jets podcast on the Intertubes. My name is Jake, and joining me today on this very special episode, very after-school special, sort of in the middle of the non-season, is Justin. Justin, how are you doing? It's a very depressing time. It is a depressing time for us. There is nothing. going on except bad news in football right now. It's so true. Well we have an agenda which is the good news. Oh some of it's good. Most of it's good. Remind me why I make my coffee here. All right I'll go with the agenda. So what's the agenda today? So we got some Jets news which we'll talk about. We'll talk about you know the unrestricted free agents what we think about who they should you know target in you know maybe we'll give our top five in order okay and then we'll maybe touch on the CBA and what's happened over the last week or so since we've last talked and then we'll wrap it up it's gonna be a short one because there's you know no football so we'll just go with what we got with what we got and the biggest news of the last week is that the franchise tag has been tagged We have tagged somebody. The player has been tagged and his name is David Harris. Yes. Making quite a bit of money for next year. Well, that's what happens when you get franchised. You get paid the top, the average of the top five players at your position's salary. So his rookie base salary. two years was $500,000. He was making $500,000 a year. That was gonna make like 10 million, right? Roughly about 10. This is good. Yes, good news. Yeah, I mean, I mean, we could have used it on others. All these free agents we're about to talk about. Why not them? I don't... I don't know why you wouldn't want to just lock in David Harris for many years to come, but apparently they just didn't want to deal with it and just said he's the guy that we absolutely don't want to lose, so we're franchising him, then we don't have to worry about it. We're not losing him. And we want to do it before the CBA thing happens and there might not be a franchise tag. Right. So I think this is part of the, there's a good article, I think Rich Simini wrote it, talking about the strategy of the last two playoff, the last two Super Bowl teams, right, the Super Bowl team from this year, Packers and Steelers, how they both, while they'll go out and get free agents, their theories are very much, both of them are, build from the draft

03:03 Jake: and build a team over time with good players. So Tannenbaum who's been known to do both, I think he does them very successfully. I think he does the mix of draft really well, but then add in the mixing pieces as you need. And if there's one year add in, you add in one year. If there's another year, you add in. So while the core he has there is the core four, I think it's core six, you know, D-Brick, mangled Harris Sanchez and you're forgetting Mr. Reavis. The court, that's five, and there's one other person I'm probably missing in his off-season after all. He has definitely done that. I'm going to maybe get out in green as part of the court now. Your court of the team is generally like four positions. You want the franchise left tackle, you want the center, you want a cornerback, and you want a quarterback. And all those were draft. And you want a rusher too, a pass rusher, a defensive end who can get to the quarterback. That's a missing piece. It is a missing piece. So that's interesting. Vernon Gholston was supposed to be that piece, by the way. That's what the spaces fall. No, you can blame whoever you want to blame. So, but anyway, going after the theory of these other two teams that really take that to the next level, I mean, they're two of the pretty much grown from the inside, they'll get rid of players, they'll get rid of Santoni Holmes, they'll get rid of Al Harris, they'll get rid of whoever to get there. So, if nothing else we're going to see maybe as the people who start to replicate what happened in the Super Bowl. I think you're going to see a lot of teams focusing much more on the draft. I think the free agent stuff is going to become less and less because people are going to realize that's how you build your teams successfully over the long term. In other news about drafting, Dukas, Vlodimir, Vlod, Lukas, is going to move to right tackle. Is he going to move to right tackle because they're going to get rid of Damian Woody as long as he's going to get rid of him? like a veteran salary save, we're gonna cut you? Or is he just moving to right tackle because he's gonna be a backup right tackle? What's the point? I think it's that he wasn't able to take Matt Slauson's job. We drafted him. So I think he's gonna be able to take Damien Woody's job? Is that- I think it's a backup. position I mean he's moving positions it's not that he's the starter it's just that he's moving positions and then starting next year they're going to try to move him to that position he was supposed to be playing in the place that that Matt Slauson's playing couldn't take over left guard so let's see if we can get him to work and right tackle. Okay Matt Slauson's done a good enough job to keep his. Good. I would say for a rookie, not a rookie, for a first-year starter. Okay. You could say that he did a good enough job. Again, any team that gets the AFC Championship can't have too many holes in your line, although I guess viewers did. So it's interesting news and then I guess the last and probably least interesting news before we get on to our

06:02 Jake: talking about the three agency is that they named... It's so not interesting. I knew him strength and conditioning coach. Who cares? All right, just cuz the last guy trips someone on the sidelines ready much the strength and conditioning coaches ready match A thing that you have to pay attention to pretty much don't care Listen next week we can be talking about the color green. We probably will. Why do you like the color green? I don't know shade of green is your favorite jazz green. Do you like 80s? Jets green or do you like current? It's great. All right. You like snot green. No, cuz that's 80s green Let's move on. Let's. So, we have a lot of free agents this season. We do. I'm looking at the list. There's a lot of guys. And we have a lot of guys that are not going to be on our team next year. Yeah. Should I list the whole list? Yeah. Why don't you read off all this? I'll read the whole list. I'll include David. I'm not going to include David Harris because they already sort of signed him. So I'm going to get rid of David Harris. So you got Cromartie. You got San Antonio Homes. You got Braylon Edwards. You got Brad Smith. it. Yup, Rodney Poole, Shawn Ellis, Tony Richardson, Drew Coleman, Eric Smith, James Ahedebo, Nick Folk, Steve Weatherford, Callen Klimtz. All of the above are unrestricted free agents and I thought we would, you know, the two of us try and rent them. One through five. So is this ranking of them being the best players, or is this ranking of that we think they should keep? Because again, you could keep somebody, but not keep them for a lot of money. No, this is who you want the Jets to keep. Okay. Not who you think are the best players. Okay, so it's the people you want them to keep. Yes. Not necessarily that they are the best players. Right. Okay. Okay. Correct. Alright, so give me five people I'm actually working on right now. You're working on yours. Okay, so should I count down from five to one? Sure. Okay, so I'll start at five and I'm going to start with Drew Coleman. So I think Drew Coleman is, you know, he's a corner that knows the system, can play the slot, it blitz. plays well and I think is a good number three or four corner that is necessary to have in the system that we play. Number four I'm going to go with Sean Ellis. Now it might be a little controversial to pick Sean Ellis but I think he's a leader. He's been on the jets for a long long time and and it's still a good run stopping 3-4 end. So he's not the pass rusher that he used to be but sort of not what he's being asked to do and I think he still does a good job at what he does. Number three on my list is going to be Antonio Cromarti. Number

09:01 Jake: three. Number three. I think he's important to have opposite Rebus. But, you know, I think we drafted a guy in the first round last year as a corner. Draft another one. If you don't sign Camardier Well, there's other guys out there that you can maybe slot in his place. My number two guy is Brad Smith. I think he's super important. to the team. He plays great special teams, he can play receiver, he runs the wildcat effectively and he just does a lot. He has won games on his own. There were games that they won because of him. So I'm going to say Brad Smith is number two, which means that as we look through this obviously missing from my list is one of the two big receivers. And so I'm gonna go ahead and I'm going to pick San Antonio Holmes, number one. I think it's very important to keep him and not so important to, to, you know, sign both him and Edwards. And I'm gonna pick one and I'm gonna pick Holmes. Holmes, number one. So if I were to go back through. Holmes one, Smith two, Cromartie three, Ellis four, Drew Coleman five. Okay, so yeah, I think my list is pretty much the same. Holmes one, I think Edwards is two. So you wanna keep both of them? Yeah, I think we should. Again, under your theory that I will throw in your face right now. Throw it in there. That Y receivers drafted take three years to become productive. They do. So you got two productive guys. Again, this isn't talking about, oh, Cap or not. This is like, if you could keep five guys, which five would you keep? You know, Cap then brings in a whole other- I was thinking Cap. I was thinking realistic. Like I would say, yeah, keep those two guys and Cromartie, all of them. Okay, so mine is one in two Edwards, three Brad Smith. So three receivers top three boom boom boom. Yeah Brad Smith his receiver you know air quoting Brad Smith his receiver. Special teamer. Yeah he's everything. It's interesting because in the early days of Brad Smith people didn't he was sort of underutilized and a lot of people blamed and Jeannie for not giving him too much of a shot to do other stuff. It's always those players that are sitting on the bench that are sort of drafted and everybody goes, he could be the best in the world! Kachri is one of those guys that a lot of the fans are saying, why isn't he playing more? Why isn't he playing more? Brad Smith is also one of those guys. starter for the last six, seven years. It's one of those things that people didn't think he was getting enough reps. He didn't get enough- But he was a starter for six or seven years. Yeah, he was third. He was a third strength, third receiver. No, he wasn't.

12:00 Jake: Yes, when he started, he was the third receiver. He was not the first receiver on the starting year. Then he was a rookie? Yeah. starts as a rookie as a wide receiver. I'm saying, I'm telling you the fans perspective. Drew, you're not a fan. Wow. Yeah. I know you got your three years of, you know, receivers, but a lot of people, Brad Smith and Khatri were people that... Just like David Clowney, right? Yeah. Well, I'm... Yeah, he's great. I'm not saying that fans are, you know, whatever, are logical, but there's always someone sitting on the bench that fans shoot to. Yeah, and backup quarterback's always better than the starters. Exactly. It's great. Exactly. Put in Colin Clemens. Put him in. Oh, sorry. No, put in, uh... Put in, put in, Colin Foley. Yeah. Do it. Alright. So I think our top three, you know, the only one I would add in is Edwards. Uh, then where are you going? Then I'm going to go Kamarti. I think Kamarti is less important. And for your, for the reason is that we did draft someone, I think, to basically replace, not to replace Revus, but to replace the one stop gap of Camardi. My gut feel without looking at a whole bunch of numbers this year. My gut feel is, well, Carmarti played well, I don't think he played great, and I don't think he played above average. Meaning, if you look at the number two, none of the two corners, all number two corners across, and someone please do this and shoot at me a tweet when you do it, all number two corners, you know, in a clear same system. that I think he played about average. It's hard to say because no one else has the number one on the other side like we do. So most teams won't just not throw the ball to half the field. That's true. So it's hard to say like that second corner on the Jets has to be like held to a different sort of standard because they're getting so much more action than Any because in wherever side Rivas is on the balls not gonna go there I mean you saw that in the playoffs I mean Manning threw one ball to Reggie Wayne so of course the guy who revas or Cromartie's cover he's gonna get his touches because Manning's not gonna throw for 90 yards It's not gonna happen. I agree and then Rivas makes it a special deal, but that's my gut my gut feeling without backing up with any kind of stats is that while Camardi played well I don't think that he played above average. What's your feeling? I mean do you feel he played above average? Yeah he was the guy you thought he was gonna be. Shut down corner. Shut down corner? It was really good yeah. And we gave up much more passing yards this year than we gave up last year. Yeah I think that some of that has to do with with the rush just not being as nearly as effective as it was last year, more than the corners covering. What did we have rushing last year that we didn't have rushing last year? It was the scheming that no one was prepared for that they had a year to look back and say,

15:04 Jake: oh this is how the Jets are going. gonna rush you. This is how they're gonna put pressure on. Like last year like... It's interesting though that we gave up, we had almost a void of people on the side, on the other side of Revas last year, and there was less passing yards. This year we have what you're considering a shutdown for. Also people went after Revas last year, right? So people... That's the Revas sound. That's the Revas sound. People went after... and and you know he had no interceptions this year that's cuz no one threw the ball that way he had a bunch the year before like yeah people prepared a little differently I also think our run defense was better this year so that's like a well okay if we can't run it on him we're gonna have to throw it and if they can't get to us like they like we did the year before Our blitzing packages were better, people weren't prepared for it. Jim Leonard was healthy the whole year. There's a lot of scenarios. Reavis was healthy the whole year. He missed the first half of the season. He was out a bunch of games and he wasn't himself for a bunch of games. There are reasons for that. Alright, and then the last guy I throw in there is just Eric Smith. I don't know. I thought they did a great job taking over in a tough position. I mean after that first two games where you know the Patriots game where we got lit up. That was a tough one. Yeah, well again you get you lose the guy on Thursday. It's like okay. You're gonna take over this spot or it's Friday. I think it was Friday. Yeah, you're heading in there. So Well, let's talk to some people you didn't name. Well, there's one guy who I didn't name and you didn't name, right? Take over Eric Smith. And that's James Ahedebo. I'd rather of him than Eric Smith. They've heard a lot though this year. Okay. So what? Can I ask where you're going? Justin is literally running around. I would suggest the way to not make it bleed is stop chewing on it. It's too late. I already chewed it. Okay. Just the t- It's too late. Too late for that. I'd prefer to have James a head of bow than Eric Smith because he does more. He's a really good special teams player and he's like the hybrid linebacker strong safety guy that blitzes and can get to the quarterback. So I mean to me I'd rather have him and I mean we didn't talk both of our kickers are free agents and I really couldn't give a shit. If it okay, Nick photos, okay I'd rather average I'd rather keep weatherford than fault cuz rather weatherford has a knack for pinning Teams inside one way or ten was the Steelers game is just on fire Yeah, I mean that literally and that's the kind of game that we play. Yeah, so, you know He's I mean what he's not gonna do is when you're on your own 35 he's not gonna boom it 60 yards down the field but He's really good at touch Kicking which I think is sort of a lost art

18:00 Jake: No one does like coffin corners anymore everyone tries to like stop the ball on the two with backspin So weird brought brought in a pool off the list. Yeah, I wasn't too impressed with him I really wasn't agree. I think that better towards the end of the year. Once he learned it a little bit, but I don't think he's worth like... I don't think he can extend to become... No. I mean... Did you miss Kerry Rhodes ever? I missed him on the... on the... on the... on the... going after the corner. By the quarterback. Well, I think Drew Coleman sort of did that this year. Yeah. He didn't do it as well. No, I mean, Kerry Rhodes is a different kind of player. I think James Ahedebo could... could grow into doing that role, but... what he can't do is cover like, well, Rhodes didn't really cover either. So, I mean, I don't think they miss it. I mean, maybe that's a part of why the passing defense is a little, you know, not as good, but but he didn't cover tight ends or anything. He rich? Nah, he's he's a goner. He's going to retire. Yeah, not worth resigning your draft. I mean, that was part of the thing. Maybe fullback's a tough position because it's hard to like...his stats are not great but he was the lead fullback for like some phenomenal rushing seasons by Priest Holmes and Thomas Jones like he was the the fullback for a lot of really good running backs that ran for a lot of yards. and he lasted a long time, but when you draft Connor, you can't have two fullbacks on a roster every game. It leaves you with less flexibility in other places. So... Now, Connor is his replacement. Yeah. Connor... And he'll be fine, so... And then the last person is off the list. I mean, you picked Sean Ellis. Yes, I did. Yeah, you don't think he's kind of gone beyond his time He's not done. So someone else either pick him up. You don't think he's done. No, he had a really good playoffs actually Played really well in that in that new England game. Yeah, I mean there I think he's he's the kind of guy like maybe he's in the spot that Richardson was in last year he got one more year? yeah and it's like no we gotta keep him around cause he's like you can't lose the locker room guy like that speaking of the locker room guy, Kellen Clemens not the locker room guy no I think Clemens is gonna be gone unless I mean I don't know if the Jets decide to keep Brunel around, I mean he's not on this list I don't know why, but I don't think he's a crazy. I think they signed him for two years. They signed him for two years. Then Clemens is gone. Cause I mean Sanchez has been- Well now he's gonna be like 75 years old. Well Sanchez has been pretty durable. You have a good line, so they can keep him upright and healthy. So I mean, I would say that you can just draft a guy in the sixth round and that's your third stringer. Yeah, I think this is the year that you draft another quarterback. that. Yeah, you just draft a 6th round, guide another Ainge and just whatever he sits there.

21:04 Jake: You pray for whatever. Pray that Sanchez doesn't get hurt and I mean Mark Brunel is gonna... I mean if Clemens couldn't play above Mark Brunel this year on the depth chart, there's no reason to think that he would. next year if Drudel's already been there for a year. It's true. He didn't play to like get hurt or anything. And I had a few moments, I forgot where those moments were, I think it was at when we were at... Oh was it at the Steel Wars game? When I was at the Steel Wars game, I had a few moments when when Sanchez went down I thought... If if if we're now has to come in here and just do something Not fuck it up. I had like, you know, it was a weird fucking game, but I had the okay that will be okay So, you know deep in my heart. I felt that he could take over Too serious if need be I could hand the ball off he could he could still throw it I guess Whatever preseason, I think he came in and it doesn't matter. All right, so that's it Let's talk a little bit about, let's just do our boop boop boop boop boop boop boop. The CBA follow up. So there's been a couple pieces of news. One is it looks like the players and the teams are farther apart than they thought. I hate this shit. Yeah, I know you hate this shit. I hate it. I hate these rich motherfuckers trying to get richer. And like I mean there are guys like Peyton Manning and and Tom Brady and and You know Julius Peppers who make 20 million dollars or 15 million dollars and whatever right great There's also guys there like seventh round draft picks first year in the league They don't make like you know Nervous mega mega. I don't know. I mean it's a good salary, but I mean It's not if you had to then go without work, right? And you're anticipating getting paid Money and now you're not It's fucked up. I mean, it's so some news teams are starting to lay people off Which is a little bit different that's even worse cuz those are those people aren't making anything And I was just regular folks I was talking about this with some other people. The hotel folk. I cannot imagine, and I don't think anybody can calculate, the depth of this. Let's say this really doesn't happen. The depth of all the different things that are so related to this thing called football and this season that, I mean from advertisers to applications that people write to direct TV in their package to like. How about like guy who works at the beer stand. Everybody, everybody, I mean it's, and just so deep that it's not just these two guys at the top. My prediction stays the same, I think we'll lose a little bit of training camp because that's the point where it's all about pressure. If there's no pressure, they're not gonna do anything.

24:00 Jake: There's no pressure right now. There's no pressure right now. Yeah, but there are things like, well there is pressure, cause there, well, yes. There's no football, so it doesn't matter. Okay, let me see. There are stipulations and bonuses in people's contracts for showing up to things that happen in March. Like optional training team day. And you show up and you get a little bonus. And OTAs, you show up and you get a little bonus. There are definite ramifications. That's internal small pressure. I'm talking... massive external fan media pressure. The fans and the media have gone, they're off. March Madness is coming up, training camp for- March Madness, baby. Catchers and Catchers. Catchers and Catchers is coming. Do it up. And reality is, until the pressure of the outside world crushes the NFL- February is kind of the worst sports month ever, by the way. It's fine. It's the worst, because there's no more football. basketball and hockey are in the middle of their long-ass season. March Madness is still a month away. No baseball. It's very depressing. It's also short so you can get over it quickly. But you still had the Jet Kingdom podcast. You still have that. So there you go. Alright so you know, well last I heard there was a 50-50 they started canceling their meetings. The players wanted a 50-50. Split bullshit. Yeah, it is both fucking divvy up these billions of dollars and let's go. Let's go Let's get this shit going so I know who we're gonna sign. I need to know now Better sign homes by the way, cuz I just got a homes jersey. Oh, yeah the end of the year. Oh, really? Yeah, and I'm not buying any NFL bullshit anymore. None. I'm not buying any merchandise from them until this thing is over. Okay Now you're going to buy a lot. Well, once it's over. Sure. All right. So that's it for this week. We'll, again, a short one to keep you going because there's nothing else going on. Come to JetKingdom.com and read up on what we're posting there. Go to Twitter.com slash justjetkingdom, which is Justin here. Twitter.com slash JetKingdom, which is me. Facebook.com slash Jet Kingdom. We're trying to push towards, I think, oh, getting towards a hundred likes. That'd be great if you could help out. A hundred likes. A hundred likes. We have so many more listeners than a hundred. Why do we only have a hundred likes? Because that's the hundred people who have gone there. So go quick and like a lot. Ugh. And always go to iTunes. Subscribe and leave a... a nice review on iTunes. We love 5 star reviews and above. Yeah! Fuck Paul. Can you even get above 5? Try. Try it. I dare all of you to- Just keep clicking next to the 5 star. See what happens. Quick 6. Let us know how long you said that. This rating scale goes to 6. Wow. Umm... But, why- Alright. It's like the... I get it. And until next week, and as always, until there's no more football, which we'll just shut down the entire thing. We'll be cheering for Jake as the starting left tackle. And as always, Go Jets!