With Dwight out of the picture (at least for now), we all know and understand the position the franchise is in. Will Deron leave? Will Deron stay? There's a lot of factors well outside of our control such as the Nets success in the next month and a half, the Mavericks success in the next month and a half (and perhaps further), perhaps the Magic success in the upcoming months, and anything else Billy King can come up with in the off-season. With that being said, what can we, as fans do to influence Deron's decision? I put together a list of what I believe we can do to help this franchise. Feel free to criticize me or my ideas, feel free to add any of your own, please don't turn this into a debate over anyone's job status or anything in that fashion. All of my ideas revolve around stuff to do at the game specifically, but if you have any ideas that expand out further than that, please share.

• As a general rule, no matter how bad things get, do not boo. Booing is counter-productive. Always. Booing will only push him further out the door and discourage the players as a whole.
• No "We Want Dwight" chants or anything along those lines. Again, it makes the rest of the team feel unwanted. Maybe not Deron specifically, but I do believe there is a trickle down effect.
• Conversely, we don't need any anti-Dwight chants or signs or anything along those lines either. Just move on and remember, it's still not entirely out of the question. If they lose in the first round, and they certainly could, this all starts up again.
• Be loud, show enthusiasm. I haven't been able to make it out to the Prudential Center yet, although I will be heading out tomorrow. You can tell just watching on TV that the energy in the arena has been a lot better lately, and don't think the team hasn't noticed. Don't stop now just because of this setback. Whenever a crowd gets silent, if even one person gets loud and starts chanting "defense!", others will be more likely to join in. I've seen individual people spark an entire section, and that section spark the rest of the arena. Just because things are starting to look bad, don't let the energy die out. A strong crowd can rally a team.
• On a more specific note, continue with the signs and giant Deron heads if possible. This isn't really my specialty given how I'm not able to make the trip out to Newark consistently, but maybe eLone or someone else could organize something similar to Dwight night specifically for Deron. Make sure he knows he's appreciated one way or another.

I wish I had more to say than that, that's all fairly basic and for the most part not overly specific, but every little thing counts. I mainly put this up here for the sake of generating discussion, so please, if you have any other ideas or suggestions, let's hear them.

 I feel like those signs that spell out the network's name always have the best chance of getting on TV. For anyone going to the game on Sunday, here's a few ideas:


Can Brian Schottenheimer

Cut Brian Schottenheimer

Can't Believe Schottenheimer is still here
Can't Believe Schottenheimer has a job

etc.

I'll leave you with the following link

http://www.facebook.com/pages/1000000-Jets-fans-against-Brian-Schottenheimer/104252133024352

Do I believe either of these will really help? No, but the more public the outcry for Schottenheimer's job, the more likely it is that management wakes up and finally gets rid of this clown.

We locked up our core guys to long term deals. We didn't have a lot of cap space, and there weren't many guys available who actually would have improved the team. That being said, I still think Tannenbaum has something up his sleeve.

As for this misconception that we lost a lot of players? Brad Smith had 4 catches for 44 yards last year. The new kick return rules (moving up 5 yards) will make that loss easier to deal with as well. Not to mention Mike Westhoff is generally considered one of, if not the best, special teams coaches of all time and has consistently shown that he can just plug anyone in there at kick returner. During his tenure with the Jets, he's had 6 different guys bring back kicks for touchdowns and two different pro bowlers (neither of which were Smith). Smith's loss will only really be noticed on the wildcat, which Schottenheimer always horribly mismanaged anyway. Also, we drafted Jeremy Kerley who ran the wildcat at TCU, and LaDanian Tomlinson has experience there as well. I'll miss Smith, he was one of my favorite players, but is he replaceable? Yes, very much so.

So who did we lose? Drew Coleman? We replaced him, and upgraded, with Donald Strickland. Shaun Ellis? We still may bring him back, though the combined production of Mohammad Wilkerson, Kenrick Ellis, and Ropati Pitoitua coming back from injury will make up for him if we don't.

So how did the team improve? Through the draft and natural progression. We picked up three guys in the draft (Wilkerson who is currently pegged as the starter, K. Ellis, and Kerley) who I think we see a significant amount of playing time and make a positive impact on this team. Dislike Sanchez all you want, but logic dictates he'll show a degree of improvement. The coaching staff is also high on third year LB Jamal Westermann who was hurt last year after showing flashes as a rookie. DE Ropati Pitoitua was expected to make a big impact last season after a monster training camp before sustaining an injury as well. The Packers never seem to add anyone, that's always worked out for them. If you want to suggest we didn't improve the roster, that's fine, but to suggest we got so much worse that we aren't a playoff team is ridiculous. We only really lost one significant player. It remains to be seen how Plax will do replacing Braylon or what kind of shape he's in, but Braylon is not the difference between this team making or missing the playoffs, and as well all know, once you make it to the playoffs, anything can happen.