The New York Jets made another splash this week when they announced that general manager Joe Douglas had been fired.

It was the second major personnel move the team made during the season, as head coach Robert Saleh was fired following their Week 5 loss to the Minnesota Vikings in London. That means the offseason will be busy as they look to fill both positions.

However, it’s fair to wonder how many of the top coaching and front office staff will seriously consider the Jets given the presence of owner Woody Johnson.

Earlier this week it was reported that he unilaterally fired Saleh because he felt he wasn’t doing enough with the talent on the roster. Douglas, whose power diminished by the day after Johnson took a more active role in 2023, seemed like a dead man.

Seeing how those layoffs were handled may not tempt the top candidates to want to work with the Jets. Johnson needs to let the football people he hires do their job as his involvement has helped the team move forward heading into the 2024 campaign.

As shared by Zack Rosenblatt and Dianna Russini of The Athleticsit was the team’s owner who made a deal that would have helped the passing attack immensely, improving the skill positions around Aaron Rodgers.

After a difficult 2023 season, Saleh and Douglas wanted to turn things around. In an effort to avoid older players or players with an injury history, they involved the Denver Broncos in trade talks surrounding wide receiver Jerry Jeudy.

He was a first-round pick in the 2020 NFL Draft out of Alabama and has shown some real flashes despite disappointing quarterback play and some nagging injuries. An incredible route runner, he would have brought more youth and explosiveness to a Jets offense that was lacking behind both wide receiver Garrett Wilson and Breece Hall.

As stated in the report: “Douglas executed a trade with the Denver Broncos for wide receiver Jerry Jeudy, offering Allen Lazard and a Day 2 draft pick, according to a league source, but Johnson ignored it. Jeudy was instead traded to the Cleveland Browns.

That was a major missed opportunity that ultimately cost New York dearly.

For starters, having Jeudy in the mix likely means the Jets wouldn’t have signed veteran Mike Williams in free agency, who gave little to the team before being traded to the Pittsburgh Steelers, where he promptly scored a touchdown in his debut.

The Browns have their own quarterback issues this season, but Jeudy has caught 39 passes for 560 yards and two touchdowns.

His upside is much higher than Lazard’s and would have given New York another long-term building block along with Wilson and 2024 third-round pick Malachi Corley. Even if the season was derailed, the Jets would have one positional group where they were excited about going into the future for a potential new quarterback to work with.

Had Johnson allowed that trade, New York likely wouldn’t have doubled down on acquiring Davante Adams from the Las Vegas Raiders. The conditional third-round pick the Jets gave up was more than other teams paid for other wide receiver additions before the deadline.

Adams hit it off with Gang Green, but hasn’t come close to replicating the level of dominance he and Rodgers had with the Green Bay Packers. It seems to be another fateful move that the owner insisted on and dug the hole even deeper.