Williamson: How the Jets can get back on course

Matt Williamson is a former scout for the Cleveland Browns, and spent the last 10 years at ESPN as a scout and co-host of the podcast "Football Today."

There are two ways the Jets can approach their offseason.

First, they can view this team as a contender that just needs a few pieces to compete and stay the course by looking to address those areas of need.

Or, they could blow the whole thing up in a Browns-like fashion, which is exactly the course of action to take. There's no use putting Band-Aids on gaping wounds and this franchise is wounded badly. In fact, it could be argued the Jets are the NFL team that's the worst off.

As was the approach Cleveland took one year ago, it all has to be about accumulating draft capital and building with youth in New York. Out with the old and in with the new. This approach will take quite a bit of time and it will be very painful to watch. In fact, the Jets may own the first overall pick in 2018. But it's the right thing to do.

So how should the Jets implement this plan? They don’t have much in the way of impending free agents of consequence, but it should be an easy decision to let Ryan Fitzpatrick leave, and the same is probably true for Geno Smith.

But where the Jets need to make waves is by releasing or trading many of their older players to free up cap space, build towards youth, and possibly getting some draft picks in return. The player most likely to yield something in return - and has been a malcontent in New York as well as displaying questionable effort at times - is Sheldon Richardson. While he doesn’t fit the mold as an older player the Jets need to part ways with, New York’s big people on defense are clearly the strength of the team and they can afford to be without Richardson while also saving over $8 million in cap space.

Here's a long list of older players the Jets should strongly consider cutting, or if possible, traded for whatever they can get in return: Darrelle Revis, Brandon Marshall, Ryan Clady, Breno Giacomini, Nick Mangold, Erin Henderson, David Harris, Buster Skrine, Marcus Gilchrist, and possibly Eric Decker, Austin Seferian-Jenkins, and Matt Forte. Getting out of the contracts of the first 10 players listed would open up over $58 million in cap space.

Of course, it would leave the Jets painfully thin at many positions, but again, this is going to be a long, painful process and losing games is part of the equation for rebuilding with top draft assets.

And this isn’t to say New York shouldn't see what's out there in free agency either. By taking this approach, clearly they will have money to spend. But if they go that direction, it has to be on players coming off their first contracts. Again, it's all about youth and upside.

But what to do at quarterback, you ask? Well, this staff obviously liked something about Christian Hackenberg just one year ago and Bryce Petty is still in the equation. While that probably doesn’t get Jets fans doing cartwheels with excitement, don’t you at least have to give the pair, and more so Hackenberg, at least one year to see what they can do? Sure their supporting cast would be far from ideal, but you can still isolate the quarterback’s play to evaluate.

This incoming quarterback draft class is less than inspiring and, really, what good would it do to bring in a veteran like Jay Cutler or Tony Romo? The 2017 season has to be all about evaluation, youth, and building for the future. And chances are, much like the Browns, New York will be picking very early in the draft yet again next year and maybe that's where the future franchise quarterback comes into play.

Jets fans, it won’t be pretty. But this is what needs to done to finally get the franchise back on track.