The Jets were only getting warm with all the bluster and boasting they did in the offseason. Comments made to Manish Mehta of the New York Daily News shows they are rounding in to regular season form.
Cornerback Antonio Cromartie: “We’re the Miami Heat of football.”
Tight end Dustin Keller: “This team is basically Super Bowl or bust.”
Every time the Jets picked up another big name, quarterback Mark Sanchez got a call about it from G.M. Mike Tannenbaum.
“He’s like, ‘We’re picking up another one,’” Sanchez remembered. “I was like, ‘Geez! What’s going on here? We’re building a dream team.’”
Mehta suggests that Tannenbaum appeared to have pulled off a series of “smart, calculated moves that appeared too good to be true.”
We’ll see. Tannenbaum may have made too many moves. As Nick Saban used to say, this isn’t fantasy football. The Jets are more exciting than the Patriots and Dolphins, but there’s no huge reason to think they are much better in a competitive division.
“If you doubt me,” coach Rex Ryan said, “I’m going to show you and prove you wrong.”
We don’t think all the bluster really makes a big difference positively or negatively. The team’s season will depend more on how fast Mark Sanchez can make decisions than what the team says to the media. Still, we enjoy Ryan making football more fun for his players and those covering him. It’s a game.
“It doesn’t matter to me,” linebacker Bart Scott said. “It’s much more fun to be the villain than the hero.”