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JJ: “New Year’s Resolutions – Four Mistakes NY Teams Need to Learn From in 2026”

BQE Admin on December 31, 2025

New York New York

By John Jastremski

Last week, I looked back on the year in New York Sports for 2025, a year unfulfilled for a majority of our teams in town. The calendar is over and done with and now 2026 awaits.

Look, we all may have some resolutions we want to tackle for 2026. Some of them may be more realistic than others, but in the spirit of the new year, I figured I would offer some advice to our teams.

David Stearns must change approach when it comes to handling starting pitchers.

Mets GM David Stearns hit the lottery in 2024 with the way he built his pitching staff. His buy low guys panned out brilliantly. A year later, Stearns did not come anywhere close to the same success.

The Mets collapse in 2025 in many ways was triggered by atrocious starting pitching. Yes, Stearns is right to be confident in youngster Nolan McLean as a major part of the puzzle.

However, he needs to be aggressive in targeting a legitimate front of the line arm to help McLean.

Will Stearns properly pivot?

Will Yankees Adjust Approach For October success?

The Yankees properly pivoted last offseason after losing Juan Soto to the Mets.

Max Fried & Cody Bellinger were a big part of the success of the 2025 regular season.

However, in the postseason, the result remained the same. Another year without a World Series title.

Will Brian Cashman acknowledge the need for balance and an a contact approach up and down the lineup? Or will it be a lineup with automatic outs at the bottom like we saw a year ago in the ALDS?

Will Giants ownership learn from past mistakes in Head Coach Hiring Process?

The Giants once again will be in the market for a head coach in January. 

It’s a franchise that hasn’t gotten it right with their head man since the days of Tom Coughlin.

Can they find the proper leader equipped to handle the battleground that is New York?

Don’t make the same mistake of years past. Try to find a leader with experience as a head coach who can go and hit the ground running.

Will Aaron Glenn learn from his mistakes from his nightmarish first season?

It’s tough to have a more miserable first season than Jets Head Coach Aaron Glenn.

From non competitive football to dust ups with the media, it’s been as bad as it gets.

Will Glenn acknowledge the mistakes of year 1 on and off the field and grow from them?

Or will he join a long list of failed Jets head coaches…

Hopefully 2025 will bring a lot of reflection and learning for the power brokers of NY Sports and 2026 will be a year of upward mobility!

You can listen to my podcast New York, New York on The Ringer Podcast Network every Sunday/Thursday on Spotify/Apple Podcasts. You can watch me nightly on Honda Sportsnite at 11 PM on SNY. 

JJ: “The Year in NY Sports for 2025. Not Good Enough…”

BQE Admin on December 25, 2025

New York New York

By John Jastremski

Believe it or not, next week is the final full week of 2025. 

In NY Sports, I think many of us went into the calendar year with high hopes for our teams and prospects for success. 

Looking back on the year, it’s hard to not have a feeling of disappointment. 

I think the best way to look at NY Sports in 2025 is to say the year wasn’t good enough. 

Our baseball teams were fresh off a trip to the World Series and the NLCS a year ago at this time. 

Life was good for Mets fans, Juan Soto was the new conquering hero and the sky was the limit… Until it wasn’t. 

The Mets inexplicably missed the playoffs in 2025 and it was no fluke. 

They were a terrible baseball team for the final 4 months of the season and the ramifications of that poor play is the wholesale change we are witnessing within the team heading into 2026. 

In Yankees land, it was another year of coming up short in October. 

Yes, the Yankees pivoted brilliantly away from Juan Soto. 

Yes, they tied the Blue Jays for the most wins in the American League, but another year slips through the hourglass of Aaron Judge’s career without a ring. 

The pressure continues to mount and yet the team continues to be content with where they stand. 

Good enough to be in the dance, sure they have a chance, but it hasn’t been good enough to win. 

The football teams. Par for the course. And not in a good way. A collective 5 wins by 2 teams is a special sort of ineptitude. 

One would argue the New York Knicks would buck this trend of not being good enough. 

And compared to the other teams in town, it makes perfect sense. 

The Knicks advanced to the Eastern Conference Final for the first time in 25 seasons. 

They had an epic 2nd round series win against the Boston Celtics. 

Yet, they can join the club of disappointment. Why? The Game 1 collapse against the Indiana Pacers will be a game that lives forever in infamy. 

It flat out cost the Knicks the series and will haunt this team until of course they reach the NBA Finals. 

2025 was eventful. There were some monster moments, promising debuts & plenty of interesting subplots. 

At the end of the day, it wasn’t good enough for our fair city. Let’s hope 2026 can be better…

You can listen to my podcast New York, New York every Sunday & Thursday on The Ringer Podcast Network on Spotify/Apple Podcasts. You can watch me nightly on Honda Sports Nite at 11 PM on SNY.

JJ: “Progress With A Twist In Jet Land”

BQE Admin on December 4, 2025

By John Jastremski

The first eight weeks of the NFL season were the definition of a horror show for Jets first year head coach Aaron Glenn. 

Glenn started the season 0-7, he found himself picking fights with members of the media that cover the team and had a team that looked beyond lost across all three elements of the game. 

There was a time back in mid to late October where you wondered A : Where are the wins for this team coming from? B: Could it get bad enough in Jets land for Aaron Glenn to be a one and done head coach? 

For what it’s worth, I never necessarily bought into the narrative that Glenn, despite whatever the record may have been in 2025 was on the chopping block, but the optics for the first two months were rough across the board. 

Since the calendar has flipped to the month of November, I must admit that the vibe around the Jets the past month is way better. 

The team has been far more spirited and competitive. They won 3 of their last 5 games and as a whole have looked far more cohesive and buttoned up. 

The penalties are down, the special teams has soared and the quarterback change from Justin Fields to Tyrod Taylor has provided much needed credibility to the offense. 

In addition to the improvement on the field, off the field the Jets organization made moves that signal serious organizational competence. 

The Jets flipped Sauce Gardner to the Indianapolis Colts for 2 first round picks. In addition, they traded Quinnen Williams to the Cowboys for a 1st and a 2nd round pick.

The Jets said goodbye to two very talented players, but they also put themselves in a position to make the most important move the franchise can make. 

The Jets are making progress, but it’s irrelevant if they do not get it right long term at the quarterback position. 

It may be in this coming draft or the following draft, but the status of the current Jets regime rests entirely on nailing the most important position in football. 

The Jets will be in a division for the next decade with Josh Allen in Buffalo and now the emerging Drake Maye in New England. 

If you have any hopes of competing with the big boys, better get your guy at quarterback. 

So yes, the Jets are trending finally in a positive direction. Want to know if the progress is real and tangible? Get the right quarterback. 

You can listen to my podcast New York, New York every Sunday & Thursday on The Ringer Podcast Network on Spotify/Apple Podcasts. You can watch me nightly on Honda Sports Nite at 11 PM on SNY.

Jastremski: Is lowly NY Football about to turn a corner?

Dan on May 4, 2022

The NY Football situation since the 2012 season has been as bad as it gets around the sport.

This is no secret, after all, just take a peak at the record for the Jets and Giants over the past ten years.

A whole lot of losses and not a whole lot of meaningful Decembers…

Last week was a unique opportunity based upon ineptitude and a wise trade for each of course. The Jets and Giants had four of the top ten picks in the 2022 NFL Draft.

I would hope it’s a situation that we don’t see ever again.

The 2022 Draft opened the door for the Giants and Jets to spark franchise turnarounds.

Look, it’s impossible to know for sure if these teams get it right or wrong, but on paper it looked quite spectacular for both teams.

The Jets are in the third year of the Joe Douglas tenure.

His 2020 draft was very suspect and his 2021 draft produced instant results.

The 2022 draft saw the Jets address three major needs. Cornerback, Wide Receiver and Defensive End.

Sauce Gardner was as good as it gets at Cincinnati. You couldn’t score on the guy.

With Tyreke Hill, Jalen Waddle and Stefon Diggs all suiting up in the AFC East, it behooves the Jets to have a lockdown corner.

The Jets had better hope Sauce is way closer to Revis than Millner…

Garrett Wilson provides second year quarterback Zack Wilson with another talented receiver to throw to. The Jets sure hope that Wilson can play alongside last years talented rookie Elijah Moore as a tandem for years to come.

In addition, Douglas wisely traded back into the first round to snag defensive end Jermaine Johnson who has a chance to be the first legitimate home grown edge rusher since John Abraham, who was drafted over twenty years ago…

The Jets have been re-tooling and rebuilding for the past few seasons, but now it’s time to start winning some games.

For the Giants, the new regime of Joe Schoen and Brian Daboll went to the roots of what has made the Giants successful with their two first round picks.

The Giants snagged the electrifying Kayvon Thibodeaux out of Oregon. Thibodeaux has a booming personality, thinks very highly of himself and should be wrecking havoc on quarterbacks for years to come.

For some, there were questions about Thibodeaux’s attitude. I don’t have the same questions, in fact I see a player who has the swagger and confidence that is made for New York.

The Giants saw the draft board fall perfectly to allow them to end up with a stud pass rusher and one of the top three linemen on the board.

Evan Neal is a big boy, has Alabama pedigree and has no issues playing Right Tackle.

A team that has had major issues on the offensive line, should have two pillars at tackle for years to come with Neal joining forces with Andrew Thomas.

On paper, everything looks terrific for both the Jets and Giants.

It’s hard for me to knock anything I saw on draft day.

However, these grades don’t go final for a few years.

The Jets and Giants have seen way too many F’s over the last few years, it’s time to start passing some NFL classes…

The Jets and Giants need some long term A’s…

You can listen to my podcast New York, New York every Sunday, Wednesday & Friday plus Ringer Gambling Picks on Tuesday & Friday on The Ringer Podcast Network on Spotify & Apple Podcasts.

You can watch me nightly on Geico Sportsnight after Mets games on SNY.

A Different Draft

Dan on May 4, 2021

For one of the football teams in town, the draft provided little-to-no drama, playing out the way you thought it would a week ago.
It was the worst-kept secret for the last two months that the Jets were selecting Zach Wilson out of BYU as their next quarterback.
Wilson’s baby face and outward charisma will be touted in commercials and on billboards across the Big Apple in the months ahead.
Media attention for a rookie quarterback in New York City is par for the course, however the plan of attack for the Jets in building around this particular rookie quarterback is drastically different than the way they built around their prior rookie quarterback in Sam Darnold.
The Jets did a terrible job of surrounding their last quarterback with offensive talent.
Clearly, Jets general manager Joe Douglas wanted to avoid the mistakes of the past. The Jets traded up for an offensive tackle in the middle portion of the first round.
They drafted a wide receiver in the second round, and they added a running back in the later rounds.
The message from top to bottom was simple: we are going to do our best to set up a rookie quarterback in the best position imaginable.
Can I tell you for sure that in five years the Jets will be a competent, well-run organization? Of course not, but the plan in place is certainly set up for success.
For the other football team in town, the drama was all about a draft-day narrative that was squashed for good after Friday night.
In the days leading up to the NFL Draft, Giants general manager Dave Gettelman heard a pretty basic critique of his draft day strategy: “when will Dave Gettelman trade down in a draft?”
It was a fair question considering that Gettleman in his years running both the Carolina Panthers and New York Giants has never traded out of a draft pick to accumulate more assets.
In 2021, it seems like hell may be freezing over. Dave Gettelman not once, but twice traded down.
When the Giants missed out on the chance to land Alabama standout wide receiver Devonta Smith, the team made a practical move.
The Giants identified the Chicago Bears as a quarterback needy team and worked out a deal to acquire the Bears first-round pick next year plus additional assets.
In addition, the Giants found themselves in a similar position in the second round of the draft. They traded back with the Miami Dolphins and picked up their third round pick next year.
The Giants landed Florida Wide Receiver Kadarius Toney and Georgia edge rusher Azeez Ojulari, who should both fill obvious needs for the team.
It’s a win-win for the Giants, because they are also set up next year with a bundle of draft picks, a bundle of draft picks that could be used to build around Daniel Jones or to land the franchise’s next quarterback.
I look forward to grading these draft results in the years to come, but I know this, draft day was certainly done differently in New York this time around.

You can listen to me on my new podcast “New York, New York” on the Ringer Podcast Network which can be found on both Spotify & Apple Podcasts.

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