Joe Douglas angered by the media
The National Football League kicks off the 2020 campaign on Thursday evening in Kansas City with the Chiefs hosting the Houston Texans in a primetime affair. However, most teams will have to wait until Sunday afternoon to begin their season, including the New York Jets who head to Buffalo to take on the Bills at Ralph Wilson Stadium with no fans in attendance.
Before the season has even started though, Jets’ general manager Joe Douglas let the media know exactly how he felt about the way his team has been covered during the preseason. After a 7-9 campaign last year, most expect New York to struggle and have even less wins this season as a result of some changes to the roster. They traded away All-Pro Jamal Adams while Pro Bowl middle linebacker C.J. Mosley decided to opt out of the 2020 campaign due to concerns around COVID-19.
Despite the losses to his roster though, Douglas is not happy with the low expectations the media has put on the Jets.
“Our guys don’t live in a bubble. We see the things that are said, we see the things that are written,” Douglas said Monday in a Zoom call with reporters, via ESPN. “It angers a lot of people.”
The roster does not have a single player in the ESPN top 100 player ranking and only two players on the roster have ever even been to a Pro Bowl. But Douglas remains adamant his team is hungry and ready to surprise both fans and media members alike.
“Obviously, there were good players that were on this team last year that aren’t playing this year,” Douglas said. “But just going through this camp, I can tell you there are some guys on this team that may not be household names, but they are good football players. Their mission is to go out and become a household name.”
Douglas is entering just his second year with the Jets and is hoping to turn around the franchise’s fortunes. The club hasn’t had a winning season since 2015 when they finished with a 10-6 record. Despite finishing with just seven wins last year, it was still the largest win total since, and the general manager is hoping for even more victories this year.
There is still plenty of questions surrounding the salary cap going forward which is why the organization has been more conservative this year when it came to signing free agents. Douglas told members of the media that he believes it will be a huge advantage to have unused cap space that can possibly be carried over next season.
“We have a vision, we have a game plan on what we’re trying to accomplish,” Douglas said. “We want to have the flexibility so when the right player presents itself, the right opportunity, we are going to be aggressive. It may seem like we’re not doing that right now, but we do have a vision.”
Following their trip to Buffalo, the Jets will play their first home game of the season at MetLife Stadium with no fans on September 20th, against the San Francisco 49ers.
