 Joe Douglas, the GM of the Jets, he kind of had a state of the Jets the other week when we were off, so he's nice enough to join us now on the phone. Joe, it's Michael, Don and Peter. How are you today? Great guys. How's it going? Going well. First thing I wanted to ask, not even a jet question, you know, you were involved with the Eagles for a long time. Is that a tough game for you to watch? I mean, do you still have feelings for those players and the coaching staff? You know, last three years were great years there in Philadelphia, and you still have a lot of strong bonds and relationships there, and you find yourself pulling for those guys. And, you know, just the way their season ended, you know, the toughness that they showed. And, you know, I know the game yesterday didn't end like they wanted it to end, but, you know, they had a great finish to the season. And I'm sure they'll be back up and running again next year. You know, it's interesting for you, Joe. You're entering your second season with the Jets, but you're getting your first draft and you're getting your first off season to work on things. So does it kind of feel like the job begins now for you? You know, that's a good question because I feel like the job actually, the job definitely began in January, but I feel like now is the time where a lot of guys that get hired, they get hired on this time. So they had to hit the ground running, assess a new team, assess a new staff, get their processes in place. I feel like I've had since June to really get that. So it's not as rushed as it would be for someone getting hired right now. But yeah, no, we are so excited to get this off season rolling. You know, we had great meetings at the end of last week with our coaching staff. We're getting ready to start these all-star games with the East West trying game, the Senior Bowl. And, you know, XFL is starting their preseason, so we'll be down there scouting there. So we're hitting the ground running with our off season. Joe Douglas, Jets GM is our guest here on the show. So you talked about the Eagles' good finish. Your team finished well as well at six and two. Some of those wins against bad teams. So I'm just wondering, what are we supposed to make out of that after a team starts one and seven? What does six and two mean, Joe? Does it have any standing to you as you look forward to try to build this team back? Yeah, I mean, you say bad teams. I mean, it's the NFL. I mean, it's not going six and two. To me, it's not a fluke. I mean, we played much better down the stretch. I think, again, I can't say enough good things about the job that those guys in the locker room did and the coaching staff did to keep it all together. Even at our lowest point when things were one and seven, those guys were working so hard every day to get better. There was no wavering. There's no backing down. You go back and you look at what we're able to do in our six and two stretch, especially our defense battle all year, our offense, and really improved, really made strides down the stretch and the growth of the quarterback, the growth of the office, the growth of the team. You could really see it in those last eight games. Now, obviously health was a major factor. You know, losing your quarterback the way you did certainly hurt the start of the season, because I'm sure he was sick on opening day, right? You just don't all of a sudden get mono that that Tuesday after the game. So probably affected the game against the bills. So that probably had a lot to do with your seven and nine record. But what I I have difficulty getting around, you know, I just want you to address it. You there's no excuse to lose to Miami and Cincinnati when you did. So how do you make sure that doesn't happen again? Because those are two losses that it's hard to blame injuries on considering where those teams were when you played them. Those those loss hurt every loss hurts. You know, what we've got to do is just make sure that we there's growth. There's there's growth in a team. And so as we mature, as we as we are together more, you just learn that there's no one. There's no one in this league you can take for granted, no matter their record, no matter no matter their ranking, there's not a single team in this league you can ever take for granted. And, you know, our mission is to, you know, to never to never be in those situations where, you know, where we do that. All right, Joe, this is a question that a lot of jet fans always ask us. We don't have the answer. We're trying to interpret things from the outside. You guys have the answers. You're inside. It doesn't seem like Coach Gase loves Levy on Bell. And there were rumors before he was signed that he didn't want to sign for that money. Didn't think a running back should get that sort of money. Is Levy on Bell somebody that you want to build this program around? Or are you up for trading him? And will you investigate that? You know, every time I've seen I've seen Adam and Lev together, it's always been a positive interaction that I've witnessed. So, you know, I haven't I haven't seen all these all these rumors that have been. I haven't seen it firsthand. Okay. My interactions with Lev have been all positive. And those interactions, like I said, between him and Gase, and I've seen it all been positive. You know, Levy on Levy on is a very good player. Levy on had a really good preseason. Now he didn't play any preseason games, but we saw him a practice every day. Obviously, the production of our offense as a whole, you know, wasn't it wasn't good enough, especially early early in the season. But, you know, we value Levy on and we value the competitor. The teammate. So we're excited of him being in the office, being in our program another year, going through our offseason again, being like every other teammate on, teammate on offense and showing the ability to grow like they showed throughout the back half of the year. Now, everything ended up working out by the end of the year for Jamal Adams. He was totally on board. But in the beginning, there were the tweets, and I know you guys aren't on Twitter, but you had to acknowledge the fact that there were some incidents where it just didn't feel like he was completely on board. Is that in the rear view mirror now? You guys all on the same page. Do you feel like he is somebody moving forward as a leader on this football team? Yeah, I know. I said in the press conference last week, because that question was brought up. We had a great conversation after the trade deadline. We had an unbelievable conversation last week in the exit meetings. I firmly believe that everything, everything's in the rear view mirror. We're just looking forward. And I'm just excited that he's part of the team the way he finished this year. Like so many guys on our team, I mean, he was one of our better pass rushers. He's all over the field. I'm sure you guys see, he's an unbelievable player. And we're so excited he's a jet. All right, there's going to come a time where you're going to have to decide whether you want to sign him. The Bears kind of set the market for safeties with Eddie Jackson getting over $15 million a year. Are those the waters you want to swim in for safety? And is the safety that important that you're paying not much money? Yeah, no, so those are the conversations. Those are the things that we talk about in our meetings. And like I said before, we are so happy that Jamal's here. I'm not going to get in specifics of any contract talks or negotiations. But all you have to do is watch on Sunday to see the difference that he makes, not only on our defense but on our team. All right, how about your quarterback? Once he was healthy, it was tough to assess the season as a whole, but do you feel comfortable that he's going to progress? Because you look at Watson, you look at Alan and their playoff performances. And do you feel that he's ready going into this third year to be the franchise quarterback that was drafted by this team? I think you guys saw that down the stretch just the improvements that he made. And one of the best things I've seen this season is just him growing, him being able to put the games like the New England game in his rearview mirror and just move forward. And the mental psychological toughness that he shows day in, day out, week in, week out, being able to learn from mistakes, his natural leadership skills. I saw unbelievable growth from Sam. And I think he has innate leadership qualities, guys gravitate towards him and guys respect him for what he's all about as a player, as a person. So I'm so excited to get this offseason going for him to get back and get back with his teammates and really get this offense off the ground and going for 2020. Joe Douglas of Jets GM is our guest here on the Michael K Show. Time tables differ. And as Don said earlier, this is the first time you're going to have a chance to really put an imprint on this team. Jets fans are impatient. So you finish the season at seven and nine. How far away is this program from competing to be playing this weekend and last weekend? How close is it, Joe, in your opinion? I mean, the fans are impatient. We're just as impatient. We want to get this thing to where it should be, competing for Super Bowls every year. So, you know, I don't want to sit here and put a time table. I don't think that's the right thing to do. All I can do is promise the fans that we are going to work relentlessly to improve not only the talent on this team, but the make-up character of this team. And really, this, like I said in the press conference, the finish of this year, we want it to be a launchpad for next year moving forward. Have you thought about, is there one specific need you're thinking about as you prepare for this draft, as you scout college players and say, this is the number one area we need to fill? Well, I think there's a lot of needs that we're going to be attacking. And we're going to look, we're going to look at every avenue to do it, you know, whether it's free agency, whether it's the XFL Pro Scouting, you know, whether it's a college draft. But, you know, we're going to, we are going to improve multiple positions. Got to ask you one thing. You're always honest with us. Do you really believe that coming off the flu of that Leveon-Belle-Boulder 251? That was, it's hard to believe. That's hard to believe. That's hard to believe. That's like a big earned McCracken type performance. That's like a true MVP. That's unbelievable. And in red leather pants we hear. I mean, it's just orange leather. I didn't see the pictures, okay? So I can't confirm or deny the red leather pants, but that even, if that's true, the history cred just went through the roof. If you go with the red leather pants on top of the 251, that's MVP caliber. Now during the off-season, do you get any time to catch up with professional wrestling? Are you still living kind of in the stone cold, the rock era? I'm so far behind in my pro wrestling. I need to catch up. I'm not tapped in. At the very least, you need the WWE Networks. You can go back and watch all the classic matches. Yeah, oh yeah. Yeah, you go back and watch. You know, I went back. I actually, I got a little bored over the weekend. I mean, it's hateful when you're not playing. There's only four teams that enjoy not playing on this weekend. That's the four teams that have to buy. So anyway, I got bored and I went back and watched Undertaker's first match ever. Oh, there you go. I just had to get back in the DeLorean and get in the time capsule. Survivor Series 1990, good talk. Survivor Series, that's right. You know it. The Heart Foundation and Greg Valentine and Honky Tonkman and Dusty Rhodes with the Heart Foundation, great call. Pete is your guy. I'm telling you, Joe, Pete is your guy. One day we'll have an old school viewing night. We'll have a little, we'll get some popcorn. We'll turn on the network. Have a good time. Maybe in a bowling alley we'll left. Oh, we can invite him. Perfect. Sounds like a plan. All right, Joe, thanks for coming on, man. All right, guys. We appreciate it. Douglas 1-800-919-377.