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PALM BEACH, Fla. — Woody Johnson feels your pain, Jets fans.
The Jets owner said he is aware of how frustrated his fan base is after 11 seasons without a playoff game and six without a winning record. Johnson described himself as “active on social media” and he sees the frustration, even from those who tweet at him to sell the team.
“I’ve been doing this 22 years,” said Johnson, who bought the Jets in 2000. “I’ve heard all this before, right? That shows they’re interested. There’s an acuity level of their interest. If they express themselves, I think that’s a positive, because that’s the way kind of I feel, too. I feel their pain, as they say. If they express themselves, I think go ahead.”
Johnson, who met with the media during the NFL owners’ meetings here, said he believes the Jets are ready to turn things around.
“I feel really, really good,” Johnson said about the direction of the team. “I feel very optimistic. We’ve had a couple of horrible seasons. We won four games last year. We won two games before that. This is not obviously where we want to be so now we’re addressing that. We’re addressing it big-time. I think you’ve seen what we’ve done in free agency. No trades yet, but an attempted trade that was pretty dynamic and interesting with Tyreek [Hill]. Now, we’re up to the draft.”
Johnson pointed to the Jets’ failed bid to land Hill, the speedy wide receiver whom they tried to acquire by trade last week from the Chiefs, as proof that there is a sense of urgency around the team to start winning.
“We’re in it,” Johnson said. “Just follow what we’ve done. I think we’ve been extremely aggressive and we’re not afraid of taking risk and putting all our chips on a player like Tyreek. I can’t really talk about him too much. He’s on another team. But a dynamic player and we want to do that again if we see something that will help the team we’re going to go for it.”
Being aggressive has never been the problem under Johnson, though. The team long ago made bold trades for quarterbacks Brett Favre and Tim Tebow. It spent big money in free agency on Darrelle Revis, Trumaine Johnson and Le’Veon Bell. It has not been the willingness to make bold moves, it has been poor judgment in making those moves.
But Johnson now thinks the Jets have it right with general manager Joe Douglas and head coach Robert Saleh.
“With Joe and Robert, I think you have a synergy of people that those two people particularly are absolutely on the same page,” Johnson said. “We haven’t had that every year. This year we do. Last year, we did. I think that’s a positive. Joe knows exactly what Robert needs at each position and they have a long list of criteria that they’re looking at. I think we’re going to be more accurate than we’ve maybe been in the past.”
The Jets just added several players in free agency to improve their roster and they have nine picks in next months’ NFL draft, including four in the top 38. The ammunition is there for the Jets to improve quickly. But Johnson stopped short of saying he expects the Jets to be playoff contenders in 2022.
“I never look at it that way,” Johnson said. “The way I look at every season is I think we’re going to win every game. But putting a marker on it like that I don’t think helps us achieve that. Needless to say, we want to win games. That’s what it’s all about and do a lot better than we did last year. We owe our fans that and we owe the players and the coaches, everybody. We’re all working for the same thing.”
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