Tag: Jets front office

With Joe Douglas, Rex Hogan at the top, former Colts and Ravens flock to New York

Former Colts and Ravens players have had a tendency to wind up with the Jets ever since Joe Douglas and Rex Hogan came to the team.

Jets general manager Joe Douglas and assistant general manager Rex Hogan have been around the block throughout their careers as NFL executives.

Douglas spent over a decade working in the Ravens’ front office before spending a year with the Bears and three with the Eagles. Hogan, meanwhile, spent 12 years working for the Bears and another two years with the Colts in between two separate stints with the Jets.

Both executives gained valuable experience elsewhere before electing to call One Jets Drive home, but Douglas and Hogan have not just parlayed their tenures with different organizations into high-ranking front office positions with the Jets. They have also used their previous homes to help attract free agents and to aid their dealings on the trade market.

New York’s roster currently features handfuls of former Colts and Ravens. Douglas and Hogan did not work directly with all of these players, but they played a major part in bringing most of them to the Big Apple.

When the Jets traded for Alex Lewis last offseason, Douglas used his relationship with Baltimore’s front office to his advantage in order to make the deal come to fruition. Douglas also discovered Joe Flacco when he was working for the Ravens, which played a role in the quarterback’s decision to sign a one-year deal with New York to serve as Sam Darnold’s backup. It’s safe to assume Douglas got to know linebacker Patrick Onwuasor pretty well in Baltimore before he signed him in free agency. The same goes for Bennett Jackson.

Hogan has used his relationships to his advantage as well. He played a major part in Pierre Desir’s contract extension getting done with the Colts in 2018 and factored into the equation yet again this offseason when Desir hit free agency. Hogan likely also had a key say in New York’s draft-day trade for Quincy Wilson and its trade for Nate Hairston last summer. Without a glowing evaluation from Hogan, Douglas probably does not make either deal. Matthias Farley probably isn’t on the roster, either.

As the old saying goes, it’s not about what you know, it’s about who you know. When a player hits the open market, familiarity within an organization plays a major role in the decision-making process. Trades are also much easier when you are provided with reliable evaluations about a player from a former colleague.

The Jets are not going to build their team solely around players Douglas and Hogan have worked with in the past. That is just not the best way to go about putting together a roster. However, it should not come as much of a shock when players from their previous stops arrive at One Jets Drive. If Douglas and Hogan saw something in a player with a different team in the past, odds are they will do what it takes to make them part of their present.

Mark Sanchez looks back on his Jets career: ‘Every year was a revolving door’

Mark Sanchez blamed the Jets front office for not giving him any good receivers to work with throughout his New York career.

The Jets would have loved to see more consistency from Mark Sanchez during his time in green and white. He, however, wishes he got more of the same thing from them.

Sanchez’s first two years with Gang Green got off to a hot start as he led the Jets to two AFC Championship appearances in 2009 and 2010. Sanchez looked destined to be the franchise quarterback for years to come, but as his play started to decline, the Jets weren’t finding the same success. Much of that, Sanchez feels, stems from constant turnover within the organization.

“Every year was a revolving door,” Sanchez said on WFAN’s Boomer and Gio Show on Wednesday. “Every year was a new formula. Instead of maybe a draft-and-develop mentality, it was, ‘Let’s go sign some of the best guys on the market and see what happens.’ And every time you do that, you kind of roll the dice. And it just became difficult for everyone. And … you’re either the hero or the goat. When it doesn’t work out, it’s just, ‘Hey, welp, see you later.’ And then I woke up in Philly.”

Sanchez never had any great receivers that he built chemistry with. His top two receivers were Santonio Holmes and Braylon Edwards, who had short tenures with the Jets. Sanchez, however, wasn’t exactly an elite quarterback with them.

In four seasons with the Jets, Sanchez only threw more touchdowns than interceptions twice and only threw for over 3,000 yards twice. He was best described as an erratic game manager thanks to his turnovers — so a bad game manager — who rode the coattails of an elite defense to two straight AFC Championships.

Sanchez noted that injuries hampered his career, but also acknowledged that there were plays that could have been made that would have changed the narrative of his Jets career.

“Hindsight’s 20-20,” Sanchez said. “Listen, I think if some of the guys stayed healthy here or there, and you know the margin for error in this league is so small. You know, one play here, one play there changes perception a little bit, and maybe we stick together a little longer. Maybe we get through one of those valleys and get back up to one of the peaks that we should’ve been at.”

What could have been is left to the imagination. In reality, though, Sanchez’s Jets tenure ended up being a failure after a red-hot start.