Rex Ryan fires back at allegations that the Jets gave up on Stephen Hill

Did the New York Jets give Stephen Hill enough time to develop or did they give up on their former second-round draft pick too quickly?

More from New York Jets

Many are saying the Jets never gave Hill a fair shake, including Hill’s agent who lit up the Jets in the wake of his client’s release.

Jets coach Rex Ryan has now responded to criticism about the team’s approach with Hill (via northjersey.com), who goes down in history as a massive draft bust after two unproductive years in New York:

"“We certainly didn’t give up on Stephen or anybody else. We provide the opportunity to make the team and some guys reached out and took it and other guys, it never worked out for. … We feel good about our receivers.”"

A second-round pick out of Georgia Tech, the physically gifted Hill never found a real role in the Jets offense and consequently never developed into the Calvin Johnson-like deep threat some envisioned.

Ryan certainly implies that Hill’s failure was more on Hill’s lack of effort than anything the Jets did or didn’t do to make it work for the receiver. Is that true? Who the hell knows.

Whenever a prominent draft pick goes bust, you always get these arguments about who is truly to blame for the fiasco, the player or the general manager or the coaches.

It’s possible that Hill was a bad fit for the Jets all along. It’s possible he was wildly over-valued by certain scouts, including those who worked for the Jets. It’s possible the Jets evaluated him correctly but he never put in the necessary work.

If Hill lands somewhere else and thrives? We’ll know the Jets didn’t coach him correctly. But first Hill has to score a job in the NFL, and teams aren’t exactly beating down his door right now.