We’ve believed that the Jets’ entire approach to the 2008 offseason was driven by desperation.  Caught between the Pats in their own division and the Giants in their own city, the Jets spent like drunken pilots in an effort to improve the team.

They apparently though they were taking a page from the Pats’ 2007 offseason, during which the system of building through the draft was supplemented by the pursuit of veterans like Adalius Thomas and Wes Welker and Randy Moss and Donte’ Stallworth.

Still, the Patriots were far more methodical a year ago; the Jets essentially busted open the owner’s safe and started handing out rolls of cash once the clock struck 12 on the first day of free agency.

Harvey Araton of the New York Times also perceives desperation — and he thinks that the recent reports linking quarterback Brett Favre to the Jets is further proof of it.

“[A]long with the Jets’ receiving permission from the Packers to speak with Favre,” Araton writes, “comes the smell of desperation from their newly opened training camp, an S O S, the abbreviation for Save Our Season.”

Amen.

Araton also thinks that this move to make the Jets a lot better quickly traces to last year’s Spygate shenanigans, when Jets coach Eric Mangini ratted out the Pats based on things about which Mangini knew while working in New England and remained silent until after he parlayed such tactics into a head-coaching job of his own.

“You wonder how Mangini and Tannenbaum are viewed around the [NFL] after setting off the saga known as Spygate last season, outing Belichick for his secret taping practices in violation of league rules.  Did they score for delivering Belichick his comeuppance, or are they scorned for breaking an honor code?

“Mangini, in particular, would seem to be at risk of being cast as a hypocrite and an ingrate, given that he raised his coaching profile in the system he subsequently turned against and brought dishonor.”

Ouch. 

But Aranton is right.  More than a few league insiders have speculated that Mangini’s current NFL job will be his last one, and that to continue coaching after his tenure with the Jets ends, he’ll have to take a job in the college ranks.

Whether the stink of Mangini’s antics attaches to Tannenbaum remains to be seen.  If it does, Tannenbaum’s only option might be to become an agent.