In the latest sign that the Jets can’t have nice things, Pro Bowl pass rusher Haason Reddick has requested a trade. He’s done so before ever playing a down for New York.
Sadly, for Jets fans, this is all too familiar.
News of Reddick’s trade request broke Monday amid an extended holdout from training camp. It prompted a swift response from general manager Joe Douglas that the Jets will not honor that request and that they intend to fine Reddick to the full extent that the collective bargaining agreement allows as along as he continues to hold out.
The news puts a damper on an offseason of hope in New York that has Jets fans not unreasonably believing that they actually have a chance to contend for a Super Bowl. Aaron Rodgers is back to lead a roster with a strong stable of skill players and a defense that projects as elite.
Reddick was a big part of that defensive projection after arriving via offseason trade from the Philadelphia Eagles. A two-time Pro Bowler and an All-Pro in 2022, Reddick has recorded at least 11 sacks in each of the last four seasons, including 16 in 2022.
Reddick joined the Jets amid great fanfare in March. He’s yet to report to a Jets practice since. Reddick is approaching the final year of a three-year, $45 million contract that he’s outplayed. He wanted an extension before arriving in New York and still does. The two sides haven’t reached agreement on one, and here the Jets stand with the promise of another season threatened to be derailed before it even starts.
This is not uncharted ground in New York. Here’s a look back at some of the most crushing moments when Jets fans have had the rug pulled out from beneath them.
Bill Belichick resigns, then builds dynasty in New England
The 2000 season New York Jets season was billed as one with great promise. In the aftermath of Bill Parcells’ resignation, his defensive coordinator and protege Bill Belichick — a brilliant defensive tactician with coveted upside as an NFL head coach — was set to take over.
Belichick accepted the head coaching position in January of 2000 and had a news conferenced scheduled the next day to introduce him as head coach. Instead, this happened.
“Due to the various uncertainties surrounding my position as it relates to the team’s new ownership, I’ve decided to resign as the head coach of the New York Jets,” Belichick told reporters.
And that was that. The Jets were undergoing a transition of ownership from Leon Hess to Woody Johnson, and Belichick decided that he didn’t want to be a part of it. Weeks later, Belichick took the head coaching position with the New England Patriots.
It’s a decision that shifted the landscape and the history of not just the Jets and the AFC East, but the entire NFL. And not for the betterment of the Jets.
Belichick, of course, went on to a 24-year Hall of Fame career in New England that included six Super Bowl victories. His Patriots consistently tormented the Jets and their fans along the way. And much like Reddick, Belichick decided it was better to get out before his first official day on the job.
Butt fumble
Despite Belichick’s resignation, it wasn’t all doom and gloom for the Jets in the aughts. It was a period of relative success for a beleaguered franchise that hadn’t sniffed a Super Bowl since winning the third ever played in 1969.
The Jets made six playoff appearances from 2001-10, including trips to consecutive AFC Championship games with Mark Sanchez at quarterback in 2009 and 2010. Sanchez joined the Jets as a promising first-round rookie out of USC in 2009. He didn’t blow the NFL away as a passer, but he proved competent enough to lead the Jets deep into the postseason
That competency didn’t last long. By Thanksgiving of 2012, the Jets were off to a 4-6 start and on the verge of missing the playoffs for a second straight season. Then one of the most infamous plays in NFL history ensured that they would.
With the Jets trailing the Patriots, 14-0 in the second quarter, Sanchez took a first-down snap, then ran directly into the backside of right guard Brandon Moore and fumbled the ball. Safety Steve Gregory picked it up and returned it for a Patriots touchdown. The butt fumble was born.
The score piled on to a 35-point second quarter for the Patriots in a 49-19 New England win. The Jets finished that season with four losses in their final six games en route to 6-10 finish.
Sanchez’s career never recovered. He didn’t play for the Jets again after the 2012 season and started 11 more NFL games for three different teams over the course of the next six seasons. The Jets haven’t returned to the playoffs since.
In the wake of the failed Sanchez era, the Jets made their next quarterback bet on Geno Smith. They selected Smith out of West Virginia in the second round of the 2013 draft and made him their starter the following season.
Smith’s first two NFL seasons were a mixed bag, to be generous. He completed 57.5% of his passes with 25 touchdowns and 34 interceptions in 30 games. The Jets went 11-18 in games that he started.
But he showed progress and promise toward the end of his second campaign in leading a 37-24 win over the Miami Dolphins in the 2014 season finale. Smith completed 20 of 25 passes that day for 358 yards with three touchdowns and zero interceptions. It added up to a perfect 158.3 passer rating and was cause for excitement leading into the 2015 season.
Then Smith got punched in the mouth. During 2015 training camp, Jets linebacker IK Enemkpali landed what coach Todd Bowles described as a “sucker punch” to Smith’s face in the New York locker room. Enemkpali was promptly released. Smith was left with a broken jaw that cost him his season and handed Ryan Fitzpatrick the starting job.
Smith would go on to start one more game for the Jets before leaving the franchise as a journeyman backup for the New York Giants, Los Angeles Chargers and Seattle Seahawks. That is, until, he got another starting chance in Seattle in 2022, his ninth NFL season and third with the Seahawks.
That year, Smith delivered on the promise that made him a second-round pick in 2013 while earning the first of two consecutive Pro Bowl berths. Was the delayed breakout the product of lack of opportunity? Would Smith have otherwise made the jump in his third season with the Jets? We’ll never know, thanks to Enemkpali’s fist.
Aaron Rodgers’ Achilles
Following the utter failure of the Zach Wilson era, the Jets landed as sure of a thing as there is in the NFL with the acquisition of four-time NFL MVP quarterback Aaron Rodgers. The Jets acquired Rodgers from the Packers before the 2023 draft in what they hoped was the final piece to complete a roster otherwise built to contend for a Super Bowl.
We all know what happened next. Rodgers didn’t make it through his first possession with New York before an Achilles-tendon tear suffered on Monday Night Football ended his 2023 season in his Jets debut. The Wilson era was renewed en route to a 7-10 finish and another postseason on the sidelines.
Rodgers is now back and healthy in training camp with the Jets hoping he can return to form coming off an Achilles tear at 40 years old. If the does, the Jets have a chance.
That chance will be diminished if the Jets can’t work things out with Reddick.
Reddick and the Jets could still work out a deal. And losing Reddick amid a contract blow wouldn’t mark a fatal blow to New York’s season. But it would signal the latest in a familiar refrain of disappointment that’s become embedded in Jets culture over the course of decades.
