JC Deep Dive: Why Jets said, ‘No Tank You'

Those who frequent social media are likely aware that some Jets fans were livid at the team for beating the Los Angeles Rams, Dec. 10, greatly hurting their chances at landing the first pick in the draft, which likely will be Clemson QB Trevor Lawrence.

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This begs the question: What would tanking have looked like? How do the Jets execute that?

Obstacles to NFL tanking

First off, the problem with pulling off the kind of tank some fans wanted is the 2020 Jets players and coaches clearly wanted no part of that. Even if a coach knows he is going to get fired, like former Jets head coach Adam Gase and most of his staff, no one wants that 0-16 albatross hanging around his neck in the history books and on his resume. And prideful players, including key rookie building blocks such as Mekhi Becton, Denzel Mims and Bryce Hall, desperately wanted to win some games. They were tired of busting their butts having nothing to show for it. Dinner tastes better after a win. The bumps and bruises don’t hurt as much.

“I know just being in the locker room (in Los Angeles) how much joy and excitement there was in these guys,” GM Joe Douglas said.

So if the players and coaches didn’t want to tank, could the man we just quoted, Douglas, have demanded it? Probably not. Based on the Jets’ old corporate structure, the head coach and assistant coaches didn’t work for him, so if they wanted to prepare the players to win games late in a bad season, he really couldn’t do anything about it. The GM picked the players and the coach coached the team. The GM wasn’t empowered to tell the coach how to coach his team or who to play. That was entirely up to the coach.

This brings us to the only man who could have demanded a tank: Christopher Johnson. A couple of fans we spoke to on the phone blamed Johnson for not giving a directive to his football operation to tank to get Lawrence.