New York Jets Need Top-Down Purge; Both Rex Ryan and John Idzik Must Go

No matter how skilled the pilot or how fast the plane, when the whole damn thing's gone up in flames you have to eject.

After a disastrous 38-3 blowout loss to the Buffalo Bills, head coach Rex Ryan and general manager John Idzik are out of answers and out of time. The Jets are 2-9, can't do anything right and moving in the wrong direction. For a franchise that expected to at least contend for a playoff berth, this is unacceptable.

Sheldon Richardson, a prototypical Rex Ryan player if there ever was one, passionately defended his head coach.

"I don't want this organization broke up," the second-year defensive end told Daryl Slater of NJ.com. "That's what happens when you have seasons like this. They clean house. I don't want it."

Richardson's right: Ryan's a good coach, maybe even a great one—but when you have seasons like the 2-9 Jets are having, they clean house.

Just like in any other business, this sometimes happens in the NFL. A good person can be good at their job and a terrible fit in an organization. Someone who's had great success can founder as circumstances change around them. Sometimes it's just not working anymore, and it's time to part ways. For Ryan and the Jets, that time is now.

But when you take Ryan away from the Jets, what are you left with?

Ty Schalter/Bleacher Report

They have a sophomore quarterback who was baptized by fire, and badly burned. Their skill-position talent is a motley group of mercurial mercenaries. They have one great offensive lineman and one good one; both are on the wrong side of 30. Their three-man tailback committee's been effective as a group, but why sign Chris Johnson if he can't outplay Chris Ivory?

Offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg was brought in to help develop Smith into a starter. Not only hasn't he done that, his play-calling and game-day decision-making have come under heavy question. 

They have a physical front seven that's strong against the run, allowing a third-best 3.4 yards per carry—which probably stops being true once Ryan leaves. They have a depleted secondary built around oft-injured cornerback Dee Milliner, who's barely seen the field in two seasons.

Despite ranking seventh in yardage defense, they're 30th in scoring defense—a bizarre inversion of the bend-but-don't-break approach. "Don't bend, just break."

The Jets are a team that can run, stop the run and practically nothing else. Richardson, fellow defensive end Mo Wilkerson, center Nick Mangold and the other key players that power the two things the Jets do well won't turn into chumps under another skipper.

Meanwhile, the whole rest of the team couldn't get any worse.

With the exception of Eric Decker, who's been fine, all of Idzik's added weapons on offense—Johnson, Vick, Percy Harvin, etc.—have fizzled. In fact, nearly any addition that didn't have "REX PICK" tattooed on his forehead (Richardson) has been a flop. Jalen Saunders, a 2014 fourth-round pick, was released after Week 3. The panicked trade for the troubled Harvin, long after the Jets had ceased to be a factor in the AFC East, made little sense.

It's difficult to judge a general manager after just two seasons, but it's even harder to argue Idzik's done anything to earn the benefit of the doubt. 

As FOX Sports' Jay Glazer reported at the time, Idzik wasn't the Jets' first choice. In fact, Glazer said, the Jets were calling back quality candidates who'd already turned down the job to ask them to reconsider. Idzik, then, wasn't just a Plan B guy but something more like a Plan Q.

General managers usually prefer to hire their own coaches; insisting Ryan be retained—especially given his bombastic personality—surely repelled some of the Jets' better options.

Firing Ryan, but giving Idzik another year, would effectively chain the Jets to Idzik for at least one more year beyond that. Allowing a GM on the ropes to hire a new head coach is like letting a coach on the hot seat to draft a first-round quarterback; you're perpetuating the problem.

Were the Jets to fire Ryan, he'll immediately be the hottest defensive-coordinator candidate in football. He may even jump right into another head-coaching gig. As NFL Media's Ian Rapoport reported on Twitter, that's exactly why the Jets haven't yet let him go. 

Ryan's a good coach. He might go elsewhere and succeed. In fact, he likely will.

So what? He's not succeeding in New York, and he's not going to.

Just as John Fox wore out his welcome in Carolina but has been fantastic in Denver, the Jets have to recognize it's time to move on. The only way the roster can be fixed the right way, and the team restored to contention, is if it gets the best general manager available and let that candidate hire their own head coach.

The Ryan Era was an impressive, fun, fan- and media-friendly time in New York, but it's over.