The topic of whether the Jets are tanking this season in hopes of jumpstarting the construction of a better team in the future by landing the top pick in the draft has been a popular one this offseason.
Different members of the team have offered differing opinions about whether that’s the plan for this season and the team’s fans have also weighed in with their thoughts. That makes it unsurprising that the topic came up during NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s visit to the team’s training camp on Monday.
Goodell said he doesn’t think any team tanks, choosing a different word to describe when teams strip down their rosters over the course of an offseason.
“I think teams, depending on where you are, go through transitions,” Goodell said, via Rich Cimini of ESPN.com. “They are looking to sort of say, ‘We need to build more talent here, we’ll do it through the draft. Let’s let some of our veteran players go and develop some of our younger players. That’s always been part of football. That’s always been part of sports. ... Every team does that differently.”
General Manager Mike Maccagnan is overseeing the transition for the Jets and also spoke to the media on Monday, saying that he is “not going to put any limitations on what we can and can’t do” during the 2017 season. The outside view is that the team’s talent level takes care of those limitations, something Maccagnan thinks can be a motivating tool for players as they head toward September.