When Joe Douglas was hired by the Jets in June of 2019, he made one thing clear as the general manager of the New York Jets. He wants to build a team that will be successful and competitive every year. He also knows how valuable the offensive line is and that you can't be successful on offense without them, something that the former general manager didn't comprehend. He finally got his chance to build team with $54 million to spend and a bunch of holes to fill on this roster, it wasn't going to be an easy fix for the Jets GM but it appears that he knew how to strategize. The Jets have some of their star players and their franchise quarterback on both sides of the ball, but that isn't enough to build a championship caliber team. You need the role players and depth guys that can carry the load as well, and Douglas understands that.
For the first time in a while, the Jets weren't big spenders in fact we weren't sure that they were even in the offense. This of course wasn't something we were used to because this was a team that would spend a ton of money on big name players, Joe wanted fans to know that this wasn't going to be the "same old Jets" rather the new and improved Jets. So they weren't active on days one and two but things started picking up when they brought in some key offensive lineman like Connor McGovern from the Broncos, George Fant from Seattle, resigning Alex Lewis and Neville Hewitt, and much more.
They haven't brought in any skills players but he did what he said he was going to do and that was to protect Sam Darnold. Just recently he started focusing on the secondary by resigning Brian Poole, Arthur Maulet, and then signing former Colts corner Pierre Desir and Margue Christian from the Rams. It has been clear that the new Jets general manager had a clear plan on what position to focus on.
We also found out what type of general manager he was going to be and this is something that we can really appreciate. Joe Douglas wants guys who want to play for the Jets and is not willing to overpay, he knows how to value these players. Douglas didn't have much wiggle room and isn't willing to overpay on someone he may not think is worth it, he also wants to make this team has plenty of money to spend for the next three to five years.
There is still a lot of work for this team to do, but overall we can feel start to feel good about where this team is going. First impression is everything and we can now determine what type of culture this team is going to have under this new regime. Now they still have to perform well on the field but it is still a step into the right direction.