So glad I wasn't old enough to suffer through those 2 years. Must've made the 4-12 seasons in 2005, '07, '14, and '18 look like fun times.
The way I remember it was he was stepping down without being fired ( lol ) but I have no memory of him changing his mind and coaching the last game . I think he intended all along to coach the final game . I think what was confusing was Kotite announcing it prior to the final game . Very strange to kind of fire yourself as that’s what it seemed he was saying . Also strange that Hess wasn’t present at that news conference. I have to say he did seem like a decent man just a bad head coach . The game changed and his time simply passed by....
You have no idea......bad game planning, no halftime adjustments , penalties, huge leads blown, second string players not even belonging in the NFL...the Jets were a laughing stock. They simply were not feared. Every team knew they were a mistake waiting to happen. Parcells took that same exact team and won another 8 games the following season. Went into the 98 off season, signed C-Mart, Mawae, and Testaverde and went to the AFC Championship game. He even replaced an injured Marvin Jones with Dolphins cast off Bryan Cox during the pre season and looked like a genius .
'I was not fired...I am not quitting'. Like an article at the time said, then what was he doing? He was doing a friend (Leon Hess) a favor
Bubby Brister and fat Sam Mills. NEVER FORGET! That slob ran like a slug (and slugs can't run) for 36 yards off of that shovel pass for a TD and nobody could catch him. It was also the first win for the expansion Carolina Panthers. Yep, their first win as a franchise and of course it was against the Jets. Oh, the pain.
If I'm not mistaken the Panthers won 7 games that year so at least they weren't your typical expansion team......in fact they went to the NFC title game the very next year. You have to hang your hat on something.........
Jax and Carolina both made the final four in year two. Something was seriously off with that rendition of league expansion.
It was bad--laughing stock is right! I remember either 95 or 96 the falcons beat the jets 13-3 or something like that and several falcon players were interviewed after the game and expressed concern that they beat the jets by "only" 10 points--like it was a crisis that they did/could not totally rout Kotite's jets like everyone else.
from the fake spike game in 1994 to week 1 of the Parcells era, the jets went 4-33. That was the worst time to be alive Moving us to Giants Stadium. Rejecting a move back to Shea in 1989, firing Carroll too early, hiring Kotite, personally nixing the drafting of Sapp. Leon Hess was a nightmare. An incompetent nightmare
I just have to say that the title reads like a your mother is so ugly joke. Rich Kotite was so bad it looks like he got hit with an ugly stick!
