Woody’s Jets team is 1-7 on the season.
By Evan Weiner
The New York Jets are not playing football this weekend although the case could be made that the team really has not played much football.in 2025. The owner, Woody Johnson, has admitted that “obviously not a good owner in terms of winning”. That much is true. Woody’s team’s last playoff game was in 2011. The season ended with a loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers in the AFC Championship Game. The same ended the same way a year before losing to the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC Championship Game. The playoff years have been few and far between.
But Woody did do something that most NFL owners would not do. He severely criticized his starting quarterback Justin Fields a few days prior to the Jets-Cincinnati game. Woody’s Jets won that game which was the first time the Jets won a game since January 5th, 2025 when Woody’s team beat the Miami Dolphins. Woody said of his starting quarterback. “It’s hard when you have a quarterback with a rating that we got. If we could just complete a pass, it would look good.” The owner was right. The quarterback was terrible and the experts in the media pounced all over Woody for actually being correct. At least Woody can recognize bad quarterback play. Fields responded to the criticism by playing his best game in weeks against Cincinnati. Woody has a new coach, Aaron Glenn, and a new general manager, Darren Mougey, and neither has been impressive in the initial months in their jobs. The two were brought in to clean up the mess left by the former General Manager Joe Douglas who was not very good at his job. But then again, Woody Johnson keeps hiring general managers who are not very good at their jobs. It seems over the past 15 years that Woody has made poor decision after poor decision despite trying various methods of attempting to get better. Perhaps it is time for the National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell to do what Peter Rozelle did as NFL Commissioner did in 1979 with the New York Giants.
There was a 15-year period of bad football and ownership squabbling. Rozelle got George Young to take over the Giants football department and told the warring Mara family to step aside and let George do it. Eventually George built two Super Bowl winning teams. Goodell should tell Woody, sit back, enjoy the games and let the football people do the job. Of course Goodell needs to recommend the right person to run the operations. George Young had some tough years at first and didn’t necessarily want Bill Parcells as his coach. But things worked and there was a little luck. The Giants got Lawrence Taylor with the second pick of the NFL Draft. New Orleans with the first pick took George Rogers. The Jets have not had much good fortune in the draft and that might be more of a managerial problem not a Woody problem. But Woody is not a good owner in terms of record.
Woody Johnson
