What should the NY Jets game plan be now?

Incredible scene last night. Incredible mood change last night at MetLife Stadium where the Jets went from euphoria. Aaron Rodgers going on the field looked like the Rolling Stones were performing for the first time in 20 years. And then four plays into his Jets career, it's the season is over and all of a sudden it felt like the New York Public Library.

It was incredibly, incredibly quiet. Michael Lombardi I am sure was watching long time NFL executive, according to Wikipedia, three times Super Bowl champion as well and also author of Football Done Right, Setting the Record Straight on the Coaches, Players and History of the NFL. He joins us on the Adam Gold Show. I have questions about your book, sir.

I do want to get to what happened last night first. How are you? I am great, thank you.

Yes, do whatever you like to do. I'm here to answer questions. I appreciate you asking me. Broad brush it for me, your thoughts. I'm sure you watched last night because who isn't watching Aaron Rodgers debut with the New York Jets, especially since we spent, I don't know, it felt like four years but it was like five months in speculation and putting the Jets in the Super Bowl. What should the Jets, what should they do, what should they have already done if you were in Joe Douglas's shoes, the general manager?

Well, I would have had a meeting this morning and basically told everybody in the organization that there's no saviors. Football's a three-dimensional game, offense, defense and the kicking game and our level of expectations has not decreased. You know, we're going to do everything in our power as an organization to help Zach Wilson become a really good player. We're going to redefine the offense around Zach Wilson so that he is a good player and I don't want to hear anybody talking about how sad they are today. I think it's time to move forward. The NFL is not a league that spends a lot of time in yesterday. Then is then, now is now and we've got to move forward and much like the scene in Apollo 13 where those scientists came into that room and they dumped all that stuff on that conference table and said we got to make this into that to get those guys home. That's what the Jets have to do.

Michael Lombardi is joining us here on the Adam Gold show. I know that look everybody's, you know, lobbing shells and I hate to use that analogy, it's stupid. Everybody's, you know, criticizing the Jets in front office for not doing this, for having a bad offensive line or not having a better backup quarterback behind Aaron Rodgers.

I don't know if you take part in that. You do other things besides run, you know, and you don't do this anymore, you don't run NFL front offices anymore, but you do other things. Where do you stand on that type of criticism? Could the Jets have been positioned better? Well, I think it's, you know, it's people that really don't understand the profession that make those comments. It's the old Teddy Roosevelt, the ones who've never been in the arena before.

It's easy, you know, it's easy to seven. You know, everybody's a genius with an eraser, you know, and look, they made their move, give them credit. They, they tried to get the quarterback they felt could give them a chance. And as Belichick often says, if you tell me the play, a player is going to get hurt on, I'll take them out to play before. So injuries are part of it, right? That's what happens.

But excuses are not a part of it. So we got to figure out the solution. And that's the challenge that awaits the Jets.

The more they cry in their coffee, the worse it's going to become. And the more it sends a signal to the rest of their team, although these players are not dopes, they understand the drop off from Aaron Rodgers to Zach Wilson. But if you complain about it, the more it sends a message to your team that you know that it's not the same anymore, that you don't have the same chance. Is there a, Michael Lombardi is joining us here on the Adam Gold Show. As best you know, is there anyone out there that could be an upgrade over Zach Wilson, a quarterback?

I don't think there is, right? I mean, because you've got your team set, you know who you are around them and it's time. I mean, look, it's time to put your big boy pants on. You've been to see with a second pick over on the draft for a reason. You've got talent. Now we've got to do a really good job of building the team around you. We're going to take what what Rogers was going to do, and we're going to streamline it into what you can do. We're going to make it so that you're more effective in this role and go from there. Now, Joe Flacco was there last year.

He was on the street. You know, they had Mike White there. You know, he's now in Miami, so they can't use him, but you know, you would have to look back at at really at Nathaniel Hackett's tenure on who he had, because that's who's going to drive this.

It's who fits his offense the best and who he feels like could learn and be the backup on quick notice. You know, and I think they have Tim Boyle that they have on camp. He's been in there and in their practices, so he's been on practice squad.

I'm not saying he's the answer, but at least he knows the terminology. And look, Zach Wilson's a great athlete. It's one of the things that I think the Jets like about him is that he's very mobile. He's got a great arm. He just does some strange things, which we saw from the other quarterback last night as well. And we are going to get to Josh Allen. Michael Lombardi is joining us here on the Adam Gold show. And I want to want to test the theory.

I promised yesterday, because I was talking about this, that when you came on, I was going to ask you this theory. This is year three for Zach Wilson, and he started right away. And he was really not that good. Well, I shouldn't say not effective as a starter right away. He was drafted second overall for a reason, much like Baker Mayfield was drafted one overall or Sam Darnold was drafted three overall or Mitch Trubisky from North Carolina was drafted two overall.

There's a reason why they go that high. But I wonder, are we overdrafting quarterbacks? Are we drafting them too early in the draft based on how good they really are?

And do we rush them to the point you brush them to play to the point where it's a self-fulfilling prophecy that it almost proves that these guys aren't good enough because they can't handle it right away. Hey, Carolina Panthers fans, Chris Lee and Dennis Cox here. We're excited to offer you all the inside information on your team with the newest member of the Capital Broadcasting Podcast Network Panthers Playbook twice a week. We'll keep you updated on your Carolina Panthers. We're talking about locker room insight, exclusive interviews, and of course, in-depth looks at all of the Panthers wins. Touchdown Carolina! Panthers Playbook download and subscribe today at wrelsportsfan.com or wherever you discover your favorite podcasts.

Chumba Casino has over a hundred casino-style games, so join today and play for free for your chance to redeem some serious prizes. I think the biggest mistake we make with quarterbacks is we draft guys and then say, well, what system could he play great in? As opposed to scouting inside out and say, this guy fits what we do perfectly and we're going to maximize his skill in the system.

And I wrote about this in my new book, Football Done Right. You've got to know who you are as an offense and then find a player that skills magnify that in the offense and then develop them within. And I think the good teams like Andy Reid, when he's been able to develop quarterbacks, they do that.

And quarterbacks are a lot like baseball stadiums. You have to build a team around them that fits his skill set. And all of them, with the exception of maybe Mahomes, all of them need the right system around them. Look at Jalen Hurts. Jalen Hurts was, you know, they're nine and nine, his second year in the league. He couldn't throw the ball that effectively.

He could run it, but the Eagles developed a six-back offense around them. Their offensive line was really good. They brought in AJ Brown to highlight their skill and all of a sudden he's taken off.

I mean, and so that's, that's what they have to do. And I think sometimes we just think we pick this guy, he's going to be the savior. And then I think we overemphasize arm strength and we overemphasize athleticism, you know, for Mitchell Trubisky to get picked ahead of the Sean Watson or even Patrick Mahomes is wrong because when you just, you know, he started one year at North Carolina, you know, guys that start, there's a reason a guy doesn't start every year. There's a reason why Brock Purdy started for four years.

There's a reason why Trey Lance didn't start. Michael Lombardi is joining us here on the Adam Gold show. You see yesterday when I brought up the fact that Mahomes sat behind Alex Smith for an entire season, excuse me, until the last game.

And now we see what he is. Aaron Rogers sat behind Brett Favre for, what was it, three years before he started to play. Jordan Love looked very good in his essential, essentially debut as the quarterback for the Green Bay Packers having watched Aaron Rogers for an entire season. And there is some benefit to coming into the league, learning how to be a pro, learning how to study, learning how to do all those things because the difference between college and pro football from the quarterback's perspective, they might as well be two different sports, right?

No question. And I think, too, is when you study this, right, and you see that they develop them, I think what Matt Leflore deserves credit for is this year he changed the offense. They run a different offense that fits Jordan Love at a much higher level. I didn't think last year Leflore changed the offense to fit the skill players around Aaron Rogers. They kept running Aaron Rogers' offense. Well, the problem with running Aaron Rogers' offense is it's only good for Aaron Rogers. It doesn't work for Jordan Love, you know, and so you've got to change it.

And when you have young receivers, it's hard to run Aaron Rogers' offense. Michael Lombardi is joining us here. All right, you already highlighted something that was in your book, and I'm glad you did. I want to ask you one more thing. When it says setting the record straight, OK, give me an idea of what you mean by that in particular. Well, I think it's setting the record straight is about like, for example, we see Buddy Parker finally get into the Hall of Fame. I wrote that book probably a year ago in July it was finished, and now he's finally going to get in the Hall of Fame. You know, he belonged in there a long time ago. You know, Marty Schottenheimer belongs in the Hall of Fame. I'm trying to get the awareness of the voters to understand that winning regular season games, people that make a contribution to the sport like Clark Shaughnessy that invented the forward pass, that basically is the reason why we have the quarterback position belongs in the Hall of Fame.

So for me, it was about setting the record straight, giving people an opportunity. I'm not trying to throw anybody out of the Hall of Fame. I'm not. Everybody can stay in there with the exception of George Preston Marshall. He can't. He should be out of the Hall of Fame. But everyone other than him should stay in. But everybody should be made aware of of some of the players that have not gotten the benefit of being in it. For those people who do not know, George Preston Marshall, the original owner of the Washington football team. And we don't have to get into the reasons, but I respect that you brought that up.

That was I could not agree more. By the way, I was excited that Don Coryell was going into the Hall of Fame because as much as we and we should, we almost deify Bill Walsh for the West Coast offense. Don Coryell created a passing game that Joe Gibbs used in Washington. And it's really the I guess maybe even the San Diego Chargers under Dan Fouts. I mean, modern passing game offense that really, I mean, he should have his own coaching tree.

He probably does. We just don't talk about it like we do Bill Walsh. Final thing for you, Michael Lombardi, and I appreciate your time and your candidness about the news of the day. What do you do with Josh Allen who looks like he has taken a pretty big step back?

It happened the second half of last year. He almost seems to be like it almost seems intentional and I'm not saying it is, but some of the decisions he made yesterday were absolutely mind blowing. Just throwing the ball into areas where no matter how good Stefan Diggs is, he's not catching it. I don't understand what we have seen with Josh Allen. I think what we see is a player who wants to win the game himself. I don't think he trusts what he's doing and I think that's a real issue.

And I think you've got to try to spend a lot of time convincing him to not. And one of the criticisms I've had of Buffalo is he carries the team with him. They don't have any physicality to their team and they need that badly because he puts too much of the pressure on himself. And they're what I call a loose play team. The play breaks down and Josh starts to move around. He doesn't think anybody can tackle him. And all of a sudden he's making bad decisions.

I think they got to reign them in and hold them more accountable. I mean, look, last year when they opened a game, he did exactly the same thing. He did it in preseason last year. He did it in preseason this year. I mean, he's been turning the ball over and they've been able to overcome it. And when you overcome it and you don't address it and when you lose, you do.

Yeah. Well, they really got what they deserved last night. So maybe that'll be the wake up call that that team needs, but hard to see them turning the ball over like they do.

And I mean, gosh, they might not even make the playoffs if they turn the ball over the way the AFC is stacked with playoff contenders. Michael Lombardi, long time NFL player personnel director, author of Football Done Right, setting the record straight on the coaches, players and history of the NFL. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. No, thank you. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much.

You got it. Michael Lombardi here on the Adam Gold Show from I Heart podcast. Supreme The Battle for Roe tells the story of the unlikely champions behind the landmark case Roe v. Wade, starring Maya Hawk as 26 year old lead attorney Sarah Weddington for challenging the Texas abortion laws in federal court and Academy Award nominee William H. Macy as Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmon. Time is not the most important factor.

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