Welcome back to the worst of the worst and the bottom of the barrel.

The All-Keep Choppin’ Wood Team is our annual attempt to sift through the debris of the season that was, pulling out the prime examples of bad contracts, boneheaded decisions, and out-and-out terrible play that the league so kindly provides to us. After all, how can we properly appreciate the skill and talent we see in the best teams in the league if we don’t spend time savoring the very worst?

The team itself is named after a hairbrained motivational attempt gone wrong from 20 years ago. Jack Del Rio, then a rookie head coach with the Jacksonville Jaguars, placed a stump of oak and an ax in the locker room, as a symbol for his players to “keep choppin’ wood” – to keep at it, and keep putting the work in, and so on and so forth. Pro Bowl punter Chris Hanson immediately showed what a bad idea it was to have an ax just sitting around, injuring himself when he attempted to swing the ax at the stump, only to have the blade bounce off and gash him in the foot. And every year since, we’ve picked a team of Woodchoppers, first at our old website and now for the second year here at FTN.

What this isn’t is just a list of the worst players in the NFL, though yes, being really bad at football remains a classic way to get onto this list. It also includes overpriced veterans, free agent acquisitions that immediately caused regret, and talented players who made asses of themselves off the field. This is for the disappointments, flops, and embarrassments as much as it is for the truly terrible. A highly-touted star flubbing his parts counts more than a rookie trying to get used to life in the NFL, or a third-stringer forced to take a bigger role than anyone had planned for.

As usual, we have picked starters by position, along with a full coaching staff. So, without further ado…

Offense

Quarterback

Believe it or not, we’ve avoided putting Deshaun Watson on the team before now. The Keep Choppin’ Wood team is supposed to be a bit of fun at the end of the year, and sexual assault allegations do not make for a happy fun time. We could have justified putting him on the team last year, but the Jets’ quarterback room was busy setting itself on fire in all sorts of fun different ways, so we went a different direction.

This year, though, the choice was easy. Before he ruptured his Achilles, Watson was on pace to have the worst passing DYAR season in NFL history. He was on pace to shatter it, actually. If you prorate his season to a full 17 games, Watson was on pace for -1,450 passing DYAR, shattering 2018 Josh Rosen’s -1,145 mark. Even if he had come back to being merely poor the rest of the year, he was on pace to make history.

He ended up not quite getting the volume to get there due to the injury, but his -51.1% passing DVOA is the worst season in the history of the Cleveland Browns, either old or new. Putting up absolutely dreadful numbers for half a season is how you get on to the all-time rate leaderboards. You want to squeak just past the 200-pass threshold, before you can put up enough just so-so games to avoid diluting your terrible games with just enough mediocreness to remove you from historic contention. With that in mind, Watson’s ruptured Achilles happened at the exact right time to keep him with the all-time greats at being all-time terrible. The -50% DVOA club is an exclusive club, indeed.

What stands out the most from Watson’s year was his complete inability to avoid sacks. Watson’s 13.25% sack rate was the 26th-worst in NFL history and the sixth worst of the 21st century. Sacks are less common in the 2020s than they have historically been, so Watson’s sack rate looks even worse if you adjust for era. His Sack%+, which is an index adjusting totals based on the average for each season with 100 being average, was just 54. That’s the ninth worst in NFL history. Cleveland’s pass protection wasn’t good this year by any stretch of the imagination, but that’s on Watson for not showing any sort of urgency getting the ball out of his hands.

And everyone else on that worst passing DVOA list was either a rookie or a veteran journeyman signed to just fill up a roster. Watson is still on his fully-guaranteed, $46-million APY deal, an anchor around Cleveland’s waist that continuously drives them into the ground. It’s gotten to the point where Cleveland fans were celebrating Watson re-injuring his Achilles, because it may either void some of his guaranteed money (due to happening away from the practice facility) or trigger insurance policies which would offset some of the $100 million in dead money that would come if the Browns were to release Watson after next season. We have never seen a contract be this detrimental to a team before. Even other notorious bad contracts, like 2009 Albert Haynesworth or 1995 Andre Rison, didn’t cripple a team’s ability to make moves as much as Watson’s has. And for that contract, including $46 million more paid this year alone, Cleveland has received the 12th-worst DVOA season in NFL history. Great. Fantastic. At least he’s such a fine, upstanding guy off the field, or it would feel even worse.

Running Back

We’re going to split this one between Zamir White and Alexander Mattison, as the majority of the carries in Las Vegas were nightmarish and disastrous. Filling in on the waiver wire watchlist weekly article this year, I spent most of the season trying to figure out which low-performing Raiders back would have even a mediocre projection, and being let down in new and uninspiring ways on a near daily basis.

White was last in rushing DYAR, coming in at -140. That’s impressive, as he managed that on just 65 carries, and it’s a counting stat. The previous record low for rushing DYAR with that few carries belonged to 1983 Jewerl Thomas at -114 – and no, I hadn’t heard of him either. But White didn’t have enough rushing attempts to qualify for our leaderboards, so it was his teammate Mattison who finished last in DYAR among qualified backs, with -84. Mattison at least had some minor receiving value which keeps him from the very bottom of our total leaderboards, but on the ground, he was a disaster. White and Matison were both in the bottom 10 in yards after contact per attempt (min 50 rushes), so it wasn’t all the fault of a poor offensive line. Both were in the bottom 10 in win yards, as well, so it’s not like they were dodging tackles and therefore not picking up yards after contact; they were running directly into the defense and falling down again.

Ameer Abdullah’s numbers aren’t anything to write home about either, but he looked like Derrick Henry behind the line compared to White and Mattison. A replacement-level rushing performance was a breath of fresh air whenever Las Vegas decided to give him a run. But for most of the year, it was White and Mattison, with a combined success rate of 33%.

If you’d prefer a bigger name, here’s where we note that Jonathan Taylor led the league in failed runs with 162. His success rate of just 47% was 11th worst among qualified running backs, and he’s a big enough and expensive enough back to expect better from him. But a down year from a star doesn’t hold a candle to the failures in Vegas.

Wide Receivers

Dionte Johnson has had a busy season, hasn’t he? At the very least, he’s made a massive impact on the transactions page. To whit:

• On March 13th, the Steelers traded Johnson and a seventh-round pick to the Panthers for Donte Jackson and a sixth-round pick.
• On October 30th, the Panthers traded Johnson and sixth-round pick to the Ravens for a fifth-round pick.
• On December 4th, the Ravens suspended Johnson for one game – we’ll get to that.
• On December 20th, the Ravens waived Johnson.
• On December 23rd, the Texans claimed Johnson off of waivers.
• On January 14th, the Texans waived Johnson.
• On January 15th, the Ravens claimed Johnson off of waivers.

That’s quite the itinerary for Johnson, who achieved the rare feat of catching a pass for three different teams in the same season – something not done since Randy Moss pulled off the feat for the Patriots, Vikings and Titans in 2010. That was a down year for Moss, with 67 DYAR and a 1.1% DVOA, but Johnson would beg to have those sorts of numbers. He finished with -73 DYAR and a -26.2% DVOA, fifth worst among qualified receivers, as he was bad everywhere.

A high-profile trade target bombing out would be grounds for inclusion on this list by itself, but Johnson went the extra mile by being a headache with each team he was with during the 2024 league year. He complained his way out of Pittsburgh, repeatedly vocalizing his unhappiness in the offense to the point where the Steelers basically had to trade him, despite that leaving them very thin at the position – see the Brandon Aiyuk drama for what they tried to do to replace him. The Panthers planned to build their offense around Diontae, with Dave Canales saying that he’d be the centerpiece of the rebuild, but he was soon spotted ignoring Bryce Young on the sidelines and calling out his teammates. Carolina was frustrated with him missing practices and his lack of engagement, and his requests for another change in scenery. That sparked the trade to Baltimore, which went swimmingly.

If, that is, by “swimmingly” you mean that Johnson refused to enter the Week 13 game against the Eagles, and was frustrated by his lack of usage in the Baltimore offense. That led to a suspension and ultimately him being released, where the desperate Texans pounced. That lasted all of two games, as Johnson couldn’t break into a lineup that was missing Stefon Diggs and Tank Dell, and he was visibly frustrated and arguing on the sidelines during Houston’s wildcard win. That led to him being cut once more, with the Ravens picking him back up solely for a potential compensatory pick in a couple years. That might be the most he produces for any team this season, a horrible fall from grace for a player expected to cash in on a major free agent deal this coming offseason.

Johnson can be our offensive captain, but we’ll need to pair him up with a few players who failed in more traditional ways in 2024. We’ll go with the player Mike Tanier has lovingly labeled “Jahan Decoy,” as Jahan Dotson finished last among players with at least 300 routes run in our route DVOA metrics. His standard numbers aren’t so bad – a -16.0% DVOA and 19 receptions on 33 targets isn’t terrible for a depth receiver. But the man ran 365 routes! That’s a 6.7% target rate, which is abysmal, and his 0.49 yards per route run is the worst for any wide receiver with at least 300 routes – and, indeed, appears to be the worst since at least 2019. That’s a lot of jogging around doing nothing! That’s how you clock in with a -61.5% route DVOA, with no other high-volume receiver hitting even -50%. Some of that comes from A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith being much more enticing targets, but Dotson failed to make a splash even when those guys missed time. Excluding the Week 18 game where the Eagles played their backups, Dotson never had more than two receptions or 36 yards in a game and hasn’t seen more than three targets since mid-October. The Eagles didn’t trade much for him, but he’s failed to match even those modest expectations.

I don’t like including struggling rookies on the KCW team, because playing in the NFL is very hard, but no less than three people I talked to about the team brought Ja’Lynn Polk up completely unprompted. The second-round rookie nearly matched Dotson’s route DVOA with -61.4%; he just doesn’t quite top our list because he only had 248 routes. Polk’s sloppy routes and stone hands have Patriots fans already wanting to cut bait.

Tight End

Decisions, decisions. I was tempted to go with David Njoku here, as he is the seventh highest-paid tight end in the league and had terrible DYAR (-103, second-worst) and DVOA (-27.0%, fifth-worst). On a value per dollar basis, he was the worst tight end in football, but that’s just because the Dallas Cowboys aren’t paying Jake Ferguson much of anything. The third-year UDFA has etched his name in history, displacing 2011 Marcedes Lewis to have the worst receiving season in DYAR history for a tight end. His -176 DYAR is in large part a function of having just 8.4 yards per reception. While he caught 59 balls, a lot of passes for a terrible season, 25 of them were failed receptions, not picking up enough yardage for a play to count as a success by our benchmarks. There are asterisks around Ferguson due to injuries, both to himself and Dak Prescott, but setting an all-time record mark simply has to take the crown here.

Tackles

Last year, we singled out Jawaan Taylor from the AFC champion Chiefs, singling out his league-leading 23 penalties. He got that a little bit under control in 2024, going down to 18 flags and being one short of the league leader, but the real reason he doesn’t make the team this year is because the void at left tackle was glaring right from the very start. Any of the left tackles the Chiefs have trotted out could count, but we’re going with Wayna Morris, who was pushed into action from Week 3 to Week 13 after rookie Kingsley Suamataia bombed out. Morris was, at best, inconsistent and banged up, and things got desperate enough to where the Chiefs both brought D.J. Humphries out of mothballs and then, when he got hurt, had to move Joe Thuney to tackle just to stop the bleeding. The final straw for Morris came against the Raiders, when he allowed 11 pressures. Since being benched, he’s fallen further down the depth chart – he was a healthy scratch in the AFC Championship. When you’re being replaced by a guard and slotted behind the guy you replaced, you’re having a bad year.

But the worst tackle in football was Demontrey Jacobs in New England. Jacobs had 53 blown blocks this season, most in the NFL, and was particularly dire as a pass protector, allowing 49 pressures and nine sacks in just 13 starts. But hey, he did win the team’s “pickup award,” helping his teammates off the ground 11 times against Chicago. It makes it much easier when it’s your guy blowing past you and knocking Drake Maye onto his butt. We could easily have a number of Patriots on the line – heck, you could make an argument for all five – but Jacobs was the worst and is our demonstrative sample.

Guards

Alex Cappa may have won the volume award for worst offensive lineman in football. Exact charting stats vary from company to company, but by our best reckoning, Cappa managed to allow the most sacks and most pressures of any lineman, while also being responsible for the most blown blocks. He also has one of the most embarrassing highlights of the year for a guard, being the guy getting shoved to the ground by T’Vondre Sweat on his big man fumble return in December. Cappa has never quite been the same since his 2022 knee injury; he’s a likely cap casualty as his cap hit balloons to $10.3 million next year.

We have to have someone from Houston’s struggling offensive line on the team this year, and we’ve chosen Kenyon Green to be our sacrificial lamb. Old friend Rivers McCown, a long-suffering Texans fan, described Green earlier this season as the “clear weak link of the line”. This is a line, mind you, that ranked 24th in adjusted line yards and 27th in adjusted sack rate, so that’s saying something. His 5.1% blown block rate was worst among guards, which is why he was benched in mid-October… and then put back in again, and then benched again, before an injury against the Jets sat him down mostly for good. He also loses bonus points for being on the same team as guard Kendrick Green, making it very annoying to read through play by play.

Center

The Titans were thrilled when they signed Lloyd Cushenberry in free agency this offseason. Yes, a four-year, $50-million deal that made him the third-highest paid center in football was a lot to give up, but protecting Will Levis was paramount. Bring in a veteran center to help control the line calls had to raise Levis’ floor significantly. Well, maybe not so much. The Titans only got half a year out of Cushenberry, who tore his Achilles against the Patriots. That’s unfortunate both because it forced Tennessee to run with Daniel Brunskill but also because it meant that Cushenberry never had time to recover from a sluggish first half of the season. There were some growing pains as he adjusted to a new team, a team that was already shifting from a zone scheme to a gap/power approach, and the line did not have time to gel. Cushenberry was among the league leaders at center in pressures allowed before he went down with injury, and while assigning blame for these things is not an exact science, did not look like the good player he finally turned into last year in Denver. In the absence of any truly terrible performances this year, we’ll go with the most disappointing major free agent for our team.

Defense

Edge Rushers

Haason Reddick has to get a slot, just so we can use the phrase “hired goons” in this piece. Reddick’s holdout saga will go down in Jets lore, an embarrassing blunder on both sides that led to New York’s star addition not joining the team until midseason. Reddick, who was seeking a long-term extension, refused to show up to Jets camp at any point in time, defying the advice of his agents and losing nearly a million a week in non-rescindable fines for a matter of principle which was never quite cleared up. He skipped OTAs, missed minicamp, posted bizarre social media posts referring to himself as “the lost samurai”, and officially requested a trade before finally getting things done in mid-October. And did Reddick come roaring in and make an impact when he finally joined Gang Green? Well, not exactly. Out of shape for most of the year, Reddick finished the season with just one sack and four knockdowns, nearly persona non grata. He did hit a playtime bonus which earned him a total of $9.5 million, though! I’m sure Jets fans loved that.

Speaking of big moves that didn’t pan out, Matthew Judon was much more quietly a bust in Atlanta. The Falcons sent a third-round pick to New England for Judon who responded with just 1.5 sacks and two tackles for a loss in his first 10 games. He did pick things up in the latter half of the season, finding his way to four sacks in Atlanta’s last seven games, but he was a far cry from the force he was with the Patriots or Ravens. His nine quarterback hits were his lowest total in a full season, as were his seven tackles for a loss.

Interior Linemen

We’re going to go strictly by our numbers here, with the two interior linemen with the worst stop rates in the league. That would be LaBryan Ray for the Panthers and Otito Ogbonnia for the Chargers – not exactly household names, we know, but with stop rates of 49% and 51% and just one run defeat apiece, they are highly qualified for this team. The entire Panthers line was a sieve all year long. Their 5.51 adjusted line yards allowed was the worst by nearly a full half yard, and they had the lowest stuff percentage in the league at just 10%. Honestly, we could have put any of Carolina’s linemen here, with Shy Tuttle and A’Shawn Robinson also struggling, but Ray ends up rating just below them at the bottom of the barrel. But while Ray is probably done, Ogbonnia is penciled in as the Chargers’ starting nose tackle in 2025. The Chargers were not much better than the Panthers at the point of attack, ranking 26th in both adjusted line yards and stuff rate, and Ogbonnia went the entire year without a tackle for a loss.

Linebackers

De’Vondre Campbell was brought in to San Francisco specifically as a placeholder, waiting for Dre Greenlaw to recover from the Achilles tear he suffered in the Super Bowl. He was actually San Francisco’s second choice, after Eric Kendricks backed out at the last minute, but no matter – Campbell had a clear role to play, and a clearly delineated time in which to play it. Apparently, no one told Campbell that. Demoted to a backup role when Greenlaw returned, Campbell was asked to go into the game against the Rams in the second half, as Greenlaw was still a bit banged up and needed to rest. Campbell flatly refused, forcing the 49ers to go deep into their depth in a game they had to win to keep their meager playoff hopes alive. And let’s be clear – Campbell would have been at least in consideration for a slot on this team even without refusing to play. A half-speed Greenlaw was better than Campbell, making his sideline tantrum all the more baffling. When Dionte Johnson refused to go into the game, the Ravens coaches and players were all very diplomatic before cutting him. When Campbell refused to go in, the 49ers coaches and players lined up to slam him, pouring their frustrations from a lost season out on someone they felt quit on their team when they needed him most. That sounds like KCW captain material to me!

Fifteen years ago, Azeez Al-Shaair’s launching hit on a sliding Trevor Lawrence would have been on endless rotation on ESPN’s Jacked Up! segment. As Daryl Johnston pointed out on the broadcast, Al-Shaair did everything the NFL has been trying to legislate out of the game, with Al-Shaair squaring him up and launching a forearm directly into Lawrence’s head, and then looking to fight basically the entire Jaguars team. While Al-Shaair would later apologize for the hit, his then went on to post “if you want me to be your villain, Ill be your villain!” and post pictures of the Joker, before later realizing that no, he “[let] his emotions get the best of [him]…an embarrassing and eye-opening moment”. He said that it wasn’t like him, and that it was an out of character emotional reaction, except he had already been fined earlier in the year for punching Roschon Johnson in the head and was fined after coming back from suspension for improper use of his helmet. Al-Shaair received a lot of racist vitriol in the aftermath of the Lawrence hit, and that’s nowhere even near the general vicinity of being in the same universe as appropriate. But his hit on Lawrence is everything the game is trying to stop, and so he gets a spot on the team.

Cornerbacks

Three different flavors of KCW here – a season-long pain, a flop down the stretch, and a single brain fart of a play.

For the season-long mark, we’re going with the player who finished dead last in our coverage DVOA stats: Riley Moss. Moss finished with a 47.3% coverage DVOA, as teams ignored Pat Surtain and peppered Moss with targets. While Moss did defense eight passes, he also tied for second in allowing 67 completions on 103 targets, third-most in football. His yards per target and completion were all relatively middling, but there were days where he was beaten up and down the field. Think Week 17 against the Bengals, were Tee Higgins caught seven passes for 101 yards and a pair of scores against him, or multiple-catch performances from the likes of Tyler Lockett or Jalen Coker Too often, Moss was the way you went for an easy completion, and so he ends up here.

For the flop down the stretch, we’re going with Marshon Lattimore, and specifically Washington’s Marshon Lattimore Lattimore was quite good in his seven games with the Saints, with a coverage DVOA of -40.3%; it was clear why Washington wanted him to shore up their playoff run. And then, coming back from injury, Lattimore was a disaster. In his five games with Washington, Lattimore was flagged for defensive pass interference five times and unnecessary roughness once more. That cost Washington 96 yards, and directly led to 20 points for their opponents. Lattimore looked to reignite his rivalry with Mike Evans in the wild-card game, but Washington had to take Lattimore off him after halftime. Evans ended up with six receptions for 84 yards and a touchdown matched up with Lattimore; the Commanders had to make an emergency switch to save their bacon. Lattimore always plays on the edge of physical and reckless; he just ended up falling on the wrong side too many times during the Commanders’ miracle run.

And then there’s Tyrique Stevenson. You know, the guy celebrating and taunting the fans in this clip from the end of the Bears-Commanders game? Boy, it sure would be embarrassing if the guy he was supposed to be covering ended up catching some sort of miracle game-winning Hail Mary, wouldn’t it?

Safeties

Marcus Williams, he of the $18-million cap hit, started nine games for the Ravens before they could take no more and benched him. At the time, John Harbaugh said that he felt confident Williams would return to the field and play great football the rest of the season. Instead, he was a healthy scratch in Baltimore’s final seven games, with Ar’Darius Washington earning his starting spot. Williams struggled with tackling, missed assignments in coverage, and frankly looked lost more often than not on the field. The Ravens recently redid his contract; he’ll be a post-June 1 cut.

We return to Denver’s secondary to add P.J. Locke to our team. Often the weak link in coverage, he’s basically a special teams player who was forced into the starting lineup this year and simply did not belong, often being caught in bad angles or simply burnt by opposing receivers. He was a placeholder for Justin Simmons, who Denver cut in a salary dumping move. It turns out, P.J. Locke is no Justin Simmons – these are the types of deep analysis you’ve come to expect from the experts at FTN.

Special Teams

Kicker

Two years ago, the 49ers used a third-round pick on Jake Moody, because what a team short on draft picks and depth thanks to some blockbuster trades really needed was a day two kicker, just to tie everything together. This season, Moody missed 10 field goals and an extra point on his way to the…third-lowest weather-adjusted field goal score in the league, with his -13.75 points being just pipped to the line by Greg Zuerlein’s -13.93 and Dustin Hopkins’ -15.03. So why go with Moody over the other two? Because both Zuerlein and Hopkins had a kick blocked as one of their misses, while Moody just whiffed outright on his ten misses. A blocked field goal is, at least in part, a fault of the offensive line; ignore those, and Moody does finish dead last.

Punter

We can argue all day about how much of punting value belongs to the punter themselves, and how much belongs to the coverage unit. But when you put up the fifth-worst punting value in NFL history, there’s enough blame to go around. Sorry, Tennessee. Sorry Ryan Stonehouse A second-worst mark of 37.3 net yards per punt with seven touchbacks? Yikes.

Returner

Sticking with Tennessee, rookie Jha’Quan Jackson finished with the second-worst punt return value and the worst kickoff value, making him the least dynamic returner in the league. Jackson has fumbled two kickoffs and two punts, as well as muffing a third punt, none of which is ideal. When he did manage to keep his hands on the ball, he averaged just 7.7 yards per punt return and 25.8 yards per kickoff return, both in the bottom five. It didn’t, uh. Didn’t work.

Management

Head Coach

In 105 years, the Chicago Bears had never made a midseason head coaching change. It just wasn’t done, through good times or bad. So congratulations, Matt Eberflus, you have shattered precedent! The final straw on Eberflus’ 14-32 stretch with Chicago was terrible clock management on Thanksgiving Day, when Eberflus’ refusal to call a time out cost Chicago a chance to upset Detroit. Amazingly, Eberflus defended the decision after the game, even while Bears players reacted with shock – 36 seconds ticking off the clock with Chicago already in range to attempt a long field goal. It was arguably the most embarrassing loss of the season, and rightfully got Eberflus immediately canned.

Offensive Coordinator

We’re going to name a combination of Kevin Stefanski and Ken Dorsey, both of whom assumed playcalling duties for the Cleveland Browns at different points in the season. Under Stefanski, the Browns had an offensive DVOA of -41.8%, worst in the league. Under Dorsey, the Browns had an offensive DVOA of -25.1%, worst in the league. We understand that the Cleveland quarterback situation was nightmarish, but other teams made due with Will Levis and Spencer Rattler and Drew Lock, and they didn’t collapse like that. The Browns have been trying to tool their offense to work with Deshaun Watson for years now, and it’s clear to say that it has been an utter failure.

Defensive Coordinator

While the worst defensive DVOA in the league belonged to Carolina, they had a fire sale last offseason and got rid of every bit of talent they had on the defensive side of the ball, so we’ll give Ejiro Eviro a pass. Instead, we’ll go to Jacksonville and pick on Ryan Nielsen. The Jaguars were the second-worst defense in football, and their players hated Nielsen. Reports say that Nielsen lost the team with his arrogant demeanor right from the start, leading to a massive disconnect between the new coordinator and his players. Management is an important skill for a coach to have, and it just never clicked for Nielsen in Jacksonville. The aggressive, attacking unit that he promised never materialized. I suppose you’re never going to get a coach calling for a passive, timid unit, but most coaches at least get a little closer than Nielsen did.

Special Teams Coordinator

Colt Anderson got his first chance to be a special teams coordinator this year in Tennessee. The Titans responded with a -8.4% DVOA, one of the 20 worst units in DVOA history. Tennessee was dead last in kickoffs, punts and punt returns, and ranked 30th in kick returns, to boot. Colt Anderson is no longer the special teams coordinator in Tennessee.

General Manager

Trent Baalke. The Jaguars had to fire him a week after giving him a vote of confidence because head coaching prospects were actively turning down interviews to avoid working with him. That kind of says it all right there. We believe it actively cost the Jaguars Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn, both of whom wanted to bring their own personnel guys along and neither of whom were going to get a push working with Baalke. It remains a mystery how a team builder who had a 25-43 record as the Jaguars GM, someone who has alienated coworkers everywhere he’s been, made consistently poor free agency decisions, and has a strange fascination with drafting as many injured players as he can fine, could have so much loyalty in the organization that he actually costs the team their top choices as head coach. I suppose finally getting rid of Baalke is good in that it fixes a mistake, but the timing of the entire debacle reflects very poorly on the Jaguars organization.

Owner

Woody Johnson. The Jets need a better owner. My source on that? Woody Johnson, in his post-season press conference. Far be it for me to disagree. The New York Times has the ultimate breakdown of Johnson’s terrible management decisions this season and is well worth a read. It includes vetoing trades due to Madden ratings, letting his teenage sons sway him with articles they read online, and shoehorning his way into every aspect of managing the team, from individual roster decisions to squeezing his way into locker room celebrations. Johnson is impulsive, pliant and full of hubris. But at least it pays off, as the Jets are routinely in the postseason and competing for…what’s that? The longest playoff drought in the big four sports? Oh. Well, he can at least lead our KCW team to his usual levels of glory. And hey, maybe Brick and Jack can show him this article, too!