According to Rich Cimini of ESPN New York, he believes that the Jets front office has already made a decision to hold off on giving new contracts to a number of players who have expiring deals next year. With a new collective bargaining agreement still up in the air it makes sense that this would be the direction of the front office as they don’t want to paint themselves into any corners … but at the same time, you can understand how this might frustrate some of their most talented players who are looking for some long-term stability with the Jets.

C Nick Mangold, LB David Harris and LT D’Brickashaw Ferguson will not get contract extensions in 2010. The Jets have yet to begin negotiations with any of the players and, considering the uncertainty of the CBA, the organization is showing no sense of urgency. The Jets probably won’t admit this publicly, but I think they’ve already made a decision to wait.
By waiting until after the season, GM Mike Tannenbaum is putting himself in an almost impossible position, with Mangold, Harris, WR Braylon Edwards, WR Santonio Holmes and CB Antonio Cromartie all unsigned. Say goodbye to two or three of those players.

If the Jets are really so concerned about the collective bargaining agreement than they should just blame the contract holdouts on that. What causes some sort of trouble in my mind is that the Jets have room to get some deals done this year, so to me it’s wasting an opportunity no matter what the new CBA might look like.

The question as to whether Darrelle Revis gets a new deal and whether that might affect the team’s ability to sign other players could be something to watch out for.

It’s a possibility, but the Jets will have all the way until March to get deals done with those guys.  I think Brick, Mangold and Harris all have the temperament to be patient. But I am more concerned about Holmes, Edwards and Cromartie. The last three to me are the guys who will be much more likely to want to hit free agency. Of that group of three, I’d say Holmes is the most likely to stay.

Revis I$land. From all indications, the Darrelle Revis dispute will last well into the summer, perhaps all the way up to the regular-season opener. Both sides seem entrenched in their positions. Revis is adamant about being the highest-paid cornerback in the NFL (can you blame him?), meaning he wants to be paid at least as much as Nnamdi Asomugha (in the $16 million-a-year neighborhood). Ordinarily, the Jets wouldn’t have a problem with making Revis No. 1 in salary at his position, but they regard the Asomugha deal as an aberration, one of many wacko deals executed by Al Davis.

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