The captain shouldn't shoulder all the blame. As the flight safety goalkeeper his job is made all the harder when teamed up with a crappy defence. In no particular order:
1. The FAA
2. JFK ATC
3. The other members of his crew.
In my opinion, JFK ATC are a huge flight safety problem that needs addressing. They speak too quickly, use non standard RT and aggressively bite your head off if questioned or asked to repeat an instruction. None of this is of benefit to flight safety and most of it is a hindrance. When you combine a third world airport with poor controllers, taxiing around JFK can be considered to be a very high threat environment.