Thank you, excellent post. Woody runs his mouth sometimes. Most of this fanbase is from ny/nj, you'd think we'd be a little more forgiving about that particular character flaw. Maybe we would if he were out there talking shit instead of just saying the wrong things. The Tebow thing was almost unforgivable so I can see where the hate comes from but give it a rest. He's letting Idzick do his thing, we have a solid coaching staff, he's not micromanaging this team like Jerry Jones and he's not a stingey bastard that won't spend money on team. The entire tone of his comments were that he wants to win a Super Bowl as soon as possible and you guys are shitting on him because of that.
The worry with a hedge fund owner is that he'll buy the team and setup a model for the various revenue streams and manage to turn a huge profit each year without the team ever being good on the field. The NFL is the only business in the world where you're ahead when you start the game and just not mucking around with the product guarantees you a fat profit.
You know what sealed the deal for me with Woody Johnson? When I heard he hired and outside company to hire our GM. I think that's silliness. Here's a good rule of thumb: if you know so little about the business you're I'm that you cannot hire your own manager then you probably shouldn't be in that business. This isn't rocket science, it is just intelligent. Now as for Hess, I've never figured out the hatred for him. If you look back the Jets were competitive much of the time in a league that, back then, favored dynasties and was much more unbalanced from team to team. To me an 9-7 record in the '80s reflects a much better team than one with the same record today. So if you keep that in mind, along with the fewer playoff spots, the relative success and failure of the Johnson and Hess eras evens out quite a bit. Keep in mind that Hess was part owner during our only SB. So Hess can rightly claim to have gotten us a Lombardi; Woody got us cheerleaders. See what I'm saying? I think that people look at the catastrophe of the Coslet and Kotite years and let that dominate their image of what Hess was like as an owner. The problem is then we forget that, barring hindsight, many of the choices made were hardly bad and many were good. Under Hess we had an amazing team in the '80s. Is it his fault it underperformed? Maybe, maybe not. OTOH, some of that underperforming was simply injuries and that could've happened to anyone and at any time. Keep this in mind: during Hess's time the Jets were well above the worst performing franchises. The Cardinals, Lions, Buccs, Seahawks, etc. all royally sucked. Then there were competitive teams that never quite made it like the Browns. I put Hess more in that category. Not a great owner, but not horrible. Basically average-ish. Woody is way below average.... I'm sure many will disagree, but those are my $.02
I couldn't agree more. The way I understand it the Bidwells have been running the Cards like this for a few generations now. Well, see what they've got? One SB appearance that was a fluke delivered by a HoF QB making his last great run and I think one NFL championship about 1,000 years ago (okay, 80 or so years.... I was close). I don't think the Cards have won more than one, but I might be wrong. That's a truly miserable record for a team with such a long history. No, we want an owner who is knowledgeable enough about football to hire top notch people at the top, has a modest enough ego to let them do their damn jobs, and passionate enough to spend wads on money to win! Sadly, modest-billionaire-football fans are in short supply these days.
I'd settle for an Owner that hires people with some (minimal) prior experience in the jobs they're being hired for. Woody always tries to give experience to those that never had it before and it just doesn't work out. By the time these people have the experience, they're already burned out and its time for them to move on or move out. (Mangini, Tannenbaum, Edwards, Groh and most likely Ryan).
This statement is just wrong. Experience doesn't matter. How did that work out with Mike Tomlin or Sean Payton, or John Harbaugh? I can tell you how it worked out - 4 super bowls. You can have Hess who hired experienced has beens such as Kotite and Coslet. Give me a break. PPl criticize Woody too much. He has not delivered a championship yet, but so what, neither have 25-26 other owners during his tenure. In 14 seasons, We've gone to 6 playoffs, 6 playoff wins, and a few mediocre seasons. A LOT of other franchises have done worse during that time.
Rex on Woody Johnson saying he won't be patient anymore: "It's time to deliver. Watch out for the Jets"
WOODY SUCKS. That covers it. moving on here... Oh yes, nice words of support here for him, from the Owner Homers, Jet office employees and assorted Johnson family members. "Leave our Woody alone!" Hesucks.
Rex is in his sixth year with the team, hasn't made the playoffs in three seasons. If he didn't already know the heat is on, he's a damn fool.
That's nonsensical. Lots of owners don't know all that much about football or the sport they own, they are just rich fans. That's why they hire GMs! That's like saying the president should never urge congress to go to war if he has never fought in an armed conflict. It's completely irrelevant to the situation. Woody hiring a firm shows that he's not the type of owner to let his ego get in the way and he wants to do the right thing. People paint this very weird picture of Johnson on here. In reality he's the most successful owner we've ever had based on wins and losses. But it's also true that the owner probably has the LEAST influence out of the GM, scouts, coaches and players in regards to the success of the team.
People are overreacting, Of course he wants the team to win, what owner doesn't? He's not going to say 'we're going 8-8 again'. Come on now....longing for Hess?
And do you really want to hire a GM who was a GM before? There's a reason former GM's typically don't become GM's again.
I've been doing my fair share of preseason reading and am really ramping towards the draft. (I think Jackson may be the last significant thing we do...or attempt to do in FA) I think that there is going to be a great deal of subtraction by addition and vice versa this season... The offense has GOT to be better and that, in turn, will make the defense better...even with a "lesser" secondary. I haven't compiled the full compliment of last season's stats but let me throw some eye opening nuggets our there for you all to "chew" on...these are all defensive stats...get a load of this: Averages Defense on the field while tied - 12:32 - 12th in the league Defense on the field while leading - 17:23 - 29th in the league Defense on the field while behind - 30:05 - 29th in the league Now, some of that time was attributed to our defense not being able to get off the field...but, a good deal of that time is directly related to our offense turning the ball over and placing the defense in non-winnable situations. I watched all the games and other than a couple I didn't feel the defense was out of the game until the 2nd half...after the offense had positioned the team into shit situations and the defense was gassed from being on the field too long...which, of course, can and does result into the defense unable to get off the field. I was digging around and saw a stat that kind of blew my mind as well: Average lead when the defense comes on the field was NEGATIVE 2.91 points...good for 29th in the NFL...only Houston, Jacksonville and Washington were worse...and those, right there, are your top three in the draft. We finished 8-8 despite such crap odds. No...I think if Marty is given a few more "tools" to work with on offense and they actually perform to AVERAGE ability we make the playoffs. Ryan is a fantastic coach, regardless of his few shortcomings, and you will see, barring major catastrophe, him in Green and White for the foreseeable future. Stats provided from:http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/drivestatsdef2013
Sorry, but I think you have it all wrong. Hiring the executive search firm was the smartest move Woody has made. He had tried making his own hires and failed miserably. He at last had sense enough to know his limitations and hired experts to advise and guide the search. LOTS of Fortune 500 companies do the same thing. You think that means they don't know anything about their business? You're just flat out wrong here. You're also flat out wrong about Hess. He hired one clueless GM after another. He hired one sad sack excuse for a HC after another. He was like the worst example of a homer fan. He never bothered to learn anything about the game, or bring in an experineced, quality, football man to run the team until he hired Parcells at the end. He hired that doofus Kotite immediately because he was "family". There were quality candidates available at the time. He kept the Jets mediocre and a laughingstock for most of their history. He was a minority partner when the Jets won the SB and had NOTHING to do with that. He never built the Jets their own home. If nothing else, he should go down in infamy for that. He was content to be a co-tenant. I think the Jets are the only professional sports franchise NEVER to have their own home, and he didn't even care. Hess was clueless. He was known as an aggressive, savvy and hard-nosed businessman, yet when it came to the Jets, he was a passive, clueless tool. I despise him and always will.
Experience DOES MATTER in every you do in life. Being a Woody fan, I wouldn't expect you to get it and yanno what, perhaps life will teach this lesson at some point. Or maybe not like in Woody's case. Only an idiot would hire someone with a lousy track record after being privvy to that record. If your candidate has no body of work at all, you're taking a huge risk with the hire as you're praying it works out in the end. Perhaps hiring someone SUCCESSFUL in the position prior to applying for the same position you're looking to hire into might be a quicker blueprint to success than always doing the OJT thing.
I get your points and some of them are pretty damning about Hess. I hadn't taken into account our lack of our own building. Then again, even though Woody tried he failed and we are still co-tenants. Stadiums are expensive, real estate is expensive and in the NY/NJ area it is even more so. In Hess's time municipalities were being successfully pressured into funding the bulk, if not entirety, of these stadium deals. But how do you do that with a perfectly serviceable stadium already built (and, at the time, brand new)? Like I said, I get your point, but I think it lacks context. I'm not going to defend Kotite! you're right that was a dumb move. OTOH, the clueless GMs you're complaining about drafted what was arguably the best defensive line in NFL history and definitely the best we've ever had. Could we have been even better? Sure. Could we have been worse? Hell yes. That's the definition of average. Also keep in mind that Hess learned from some of these mistakes and brought in BP. And as fickle as BP is I firmly believe that as long as Hess's was alive BP would've stayed with us and continued to build. That would've given us continuity. How can you fault that decision? Now I don't fault Woody to pushing BP out either because BP was clearly waffling, but Hess's was gone. As for Woody hiring an outside firm, yes, he recognized his limits, great. What does an NFL owner do? He hires a GM to run his franchise and he writes checks. So the ONE actual football related business decision that he had to do he cannot do and you're okay with that? And while you're right that Fortune 500 companies do this from time to time, this actually proves my point. When these companies turn to the outside for help it is because they have failed in their own decision making processes. So arguing that a big company failing is something to emulate doesn't fly with me. Big companies failing become little companies or ex-companies (I'm gonna miss JC Penney). My wife is a VP for BoA. They hire all sorts of people but they choose whom to hire within the company. If they are letting an outside firm choose whom it is that will fill a spot it is because they no longer have faith in their own people to conduct their business! See what I'm saying? Woody recognizing his limits merely proves he has zero business owning this team. And why would he want to? He barely was able to afford the team in the first place and since he has been here he has constantly sought other people's advice on what to do about his own team. He is a weak and inept person. Anyway, I get why you don't like Hess and I actually sympathize. We struggled a lot. For me, I know my feelings are colored heavily by how I felt about him as a person. I think he was a good person and ethical; I put a tremendous amount of importance in that. Woody comes off as a spoiled little boy playing fantasy football with my favorite team. think you feel that way about Hess, so I think we will have to agree to disagree. One last point: as much as I defend Hess, I'm not saying he was a great owner or even good. I merely think he was awful or terribly bad. I think he was average and with that we got an average team. Sadly average doesn't win SBs. OTOH, teams with solid ownership can have horrible runs. Look at the Packers roughly, two decades without even a playoff appearance! Compare that with Al Davis's lunacy and yet even he managed to get the Raiders to a SB a decade ago. And yet the Packers are "owned" by the most stable, passionate group of people in the league and have generally been very well run. Davis had runs of greatness with runs of insanity mixed in. Then there was Hess.... average.
Wait a sec here, I think you're confusing different kinds of experience. I understand that the only way to GET experienced people is because someone hired them without experience at some point. The problem is that they had certain kinds of training leading up to that. Most HCs are college HCs, OCs, or DCs. Why? Because these are the positions that prepare you the most for a HC position in the NFL. OTOH, very few QB coaches have been hired as HCs (Andy Reid and who else?) and how many Strngth and Conditioning coaches have made the leap? Then look at Sparano. His main experience was as an OL coach I think. He was hardly a success. So each step usually prepares you for the next and certain paths do this better than others just like in any career. So I think we really need to contextualize these things. Tomlin took over a great team. Even Kotite assembled a decent record with a good Eagles team put together by Buddy. So I'm reluctant to give them too much credit. OTOH, BP has made a career of taking failing teams and turning them into winners. That is VERY difficult to do and shows a tremendous amount of talent. Contextualize these experiences and you get a different picture. Same thing with coordinators. I don't put much stock in the talent of the DCs under Rex. I view our DCs as puppets running Rex's schemes until they prove otherwise and I think we will see how true that is this year. OTOH, given the extremely free hand our OCs have had their success and failures is a much more accurate depiction of their own talent levels and ability to works with players, etc. So I think we really need to be careful about this "experience" argument. It is much more complex than everyone is making it out to be.
We'll probably never agree on this, and that's fine, but I'll give it another shot. Yes, in Hess' time municipalities were building stadiums, and you can't tell me, especially after the Giants moved to Jersey, that Hess couldn't have gone to the city of New York and gotten a stadium to keep the Jets in New York. Even if not, the man had more money than God. He could have built a stadium and never missed the money. IMO hiring Parcells was not a great move, and even then it took him almost 40 years and was only because he was getting close to dying that he finally decided it was time to win. Obviously, he never cared that much about winning before, and the team was just a toy or an investment. Yes, Parce;;s was the best HC and football mind the team had ever had, but he was a mercenary sob and I despised him. I grew to like him some during his time here, but ultimately, he screwed us as he has every other team he's worked for outside of the Giants. The GMs who did a good job with drafting also did a lousy job of hiring HCs so that talent was wasted ultimately. Woody Johnson has never worked a day in his life. How is he supposed to be qualified to make that one decision? It's to his credit that he hired a very respected executive search firm to handle it for him. It was the right move to make. He could have been like Hess and taken 40 years to find a good man to lead the team. I thank God he used the search firm and basically removed himself from the process. Killing him for that, is totally wrong imo. To begin with, the executive search firms don't make the hire or the decision whom to hire, they only find suitable candidates and make recommendations. The firms themselves still do the interviewing (extensive) and hiring. During my 16 years in NYC I worked for quite a few Fortune 500 companies as an administrator and in personnel, and they use those firms a lot more than you know, and it isn't just "when they've failed" as you claim. I worked for Goldman Sachs as a consultant and then an employee for almost 10 years, and some candidates were interviewed by different people in the firm as many as 7-8 times and even then not all were hired. They are called "search" firms because that is what they do and what they specialize in. They can often find top quality candidates much more easily and quickly than a business firm can whose focus is on something else entirely. Hess was a "good" man. That was the only thing I liked about him, and I cut him a lot of slack for a long time because of that, but eventually that was outweighed by his inertia as owner of the team. No, Hess wasn't a "fantasy team owner" it was just a business investment and occasional past time. He never really got involved until the end. He hired a team President, but the guy was a Real Estate, Marketing or Business guy, not a football guy. Woody did the same darned thing when he bought the team. Please understand, I'm not defending Woody. He has been much more involved with the team than Hess. It is a bit of a fantasy football thing for him, but I think he genuinely wants to win, and is trying. Old man Hess never really tried until the end. I just think that using the search firm was the one smart, reasonable move Woody has made as owner of the Jets. Just as you ask why Woody should want to own a team, I ask the same about both of them. I think they were/are both clueless dolts as owners, although their approaches are/were different. I wish neither had ever owned the Jets. The only thing worse than Woody would have been the Dolans. I've actually been surprised that the Packers have done as well as they have with the fans owning the team and making the decisions. Coming to a consensus must be a nightmare. Think about what a nightmare it would be if Jets fans owned the team. Forget the SB, we'd be over the cap every year and never have another winning season if some fans on this and other sites wound up being in the majority and had their way. lol Part of the reason the Packers struggled with mediocrity for so long was being a small market team and it wasn't a racially diverse area. It also took them a long time to get the right GM (Ron Wolf) to turn their fortunes around.
I'm running a little short on time so I'll reply more fully later (excellent post btw, TY). Just a question: do we actually know that Hess didn't approach NYC in the manner you suggest? I'm not being flippant I really have zero idea. I was just a kid back then, so I wouldn't have paid any attention to these things and I never even thought to ask. Still, I think this is an important question as NYC was not really recovered from an awful '60s and '70s. Remember the Jets needing a new stadium and ultimately leaving NYC was in the decade or so following that lady screaming bloody murder while she was being raped and beaten and no one called the police because they didn't want to get involved. I am pretty sure that was about a decade before the move and NYC was in a pretty bad state around then. I think Times Sqaure was still porno central. I'm just not sure they could've afforded this.
