As people sift through OC possibilities, may I suggest they read up on Darrell Bevell, the 'Fins QB coach. I don't know much about him, but I'm seeing his name popping up all over the place. For now, I have no opinion... imagine that A few minutes later... maybe he is the man. He's Mormon, like Zach... maybe that's the missing ingredient Zach needs to turn his light on. He's 53, with some decent experience.
@Jonathan_Vilma Already started a thread that includes a Hughes tweet linking him to the Jets. I'm already having second thoughts about canning LaFleur. Not really, but seriously, is this the best we can do? I know nothing about this guy so maybe he'd be great, but couldn't Woody hire an actual top flight guy? In the end if he works out, that's all I care about, but what makes him so attractive for this job?
I've seen about 10 different people mention him. I edited my post & added his NFL experience. It aint shabby... QB coach, or OC for 20 NFL years.
This organization just can’t get out of its own way, keep making the same mistakes over & over again. If they can’t trust the HC to make his own decisions about his staff then they should’ve just gotten rid of Saleh then and started over again. We have some nice pieces on O but won’t be able to attract a top flight OC with a lame duck HC and no QB.
All well and good, but was he successful? What leads anyone to believe he can unlock Zach and the rest of the offense? Is he himself locked into a certain scheme or style of play, or is he flexible?
This feels like an overreach by Woody. Find the "mutually parted" line hard to believe. And if this was a mandate by Woody, it's just another example of the organizational dysfunction at the hands of that guy. It's one thing if JD or Saleh wanted to fire him, but if it's just Woody's call, that scares me. I have a feeling this will be a mistake and I'm not sure which quality candidates are going to take the job. But I hope we can find one. Hopefully this will finally be the time Woody is right
The Jets choose coaches the way Charlie Brown chooses Christmas trees. With the impressive list of OC's available they are targeting Darrell Bevell who was less than inspiring recently stepping in as Jags HC after Urban Meyer firing where Bevell lead the team to 1-3 season finish. His other recent NFL stops have not been very successful leading the Lions to a 1-4 finish in 2020 after stepping in as HC for fired coach Matt Patricia. Bevell was widely criticized for his choice to pass for a game winning score in the 2014 Superbowl loss to the Patriots. With 26 seconds left in the game Russell Wilson's throw to Ricardo Lockette was intercepted by the Pats Butler while power back Marshawn Lynch stood idle. The play was hailed as the worst in Superbowl history by football analyst Peter King and Emmet Smith said it the "worst pass in the history of football". Sure, it's just a snapshot. But, can't the Jets swing for the fences. Do they have to pick a coordinator based on Saleh's familiarity from their previous history in Seattle. Misery loves company with the Jets. Let's pick the wilting tree hemorrhaging needles.
Let's be honest: MILF was bad at his job. 2021: 28th in points, 26th in yards. 2022: 29th in points, 25th in yards. Over last two years, the Jets are 31st in points, and 27th in yards. The results are absolutely brutal, there is no way around it. Bottom 5 for two years in a row - consistently bad. On top of that now Steve Young was saying he and Zach had a broken relationship and never clicked. He didn't develop Zach, the biggest asset JD really had. Granted, this is also Zach's fault, which Steve Young pointed out too, but it also doesn't look like MILF did a great job in QB development department either. At the end of the season Conklin was saying they didn't have fire, and GW made a pretty damning statement that we were predictable. He said, once the teams got to study Jets offensive film from earlier in the year, they had an idea of what we were trying to do and stopped us. And of course the finish of the season against pretty bad defenses with play-offs on the line was brutal. The truth is MILF was a terrible OC. Now, my hope was that he could improve, especially aided by a big name assistant, a good veteran QB, and a better OLine. While that may have been true, it's also possible that he wouldn't. Things like ability to develop a QB or unpredictability is not something that is easy to just learn in the off-season. Experience may be a part of it, but also it may be something either you have it or you don't. Young's and GW's statements were pretty damning. Another aspect to consider was that big name assistant. Knapp was Saleh's friend and was willing to come and work under MILF. But are there many other big time hitters like that who would come to work under him? Kibiak maybe? I was hoping, but I am not sure. The bottom line is that keeping MILF was a huge risk. Now, getting rid of him also has a risk. Who will be willing to come here, move his family, etc, knowing it could be a 1 year gig and at the time of hire there won't be a good QB on the roster? This was my biggest concern when thinking about getting rid of MILF. We will find out. If Saleh will be able to bring in a big name successful OC, who worked with top QBs, that concern would be completely alleviated and we will have a major upgrade offensively. We are going to have to wait and see - this may be easier said than done.
Stop. Take a breath. Now tell us why you believe the Jets are targeting Bevell. He is a name in the wind, with at least a half dozen others. What we have not seen is any indication whatsoever from the Jets that they are interested in anyone in particular. That will eventually come, I'm sure; we'll see "unnamed sources" from deep inside the organization leaking names but we haven't even seen that yet, just names in the wind. Relax, there will be plenty of time to raise your blood pressure in the future.
I know why they are targeting Bevell I mentioned it on another thread. Bevell is buds with Saleh from their time in Seattle. Bevell's name is surfacing on every sports pundit's twitter feed as the guy the Jets are interested in. You know how that goes.
Everybody keeps saying this, but unless Knapp was a QB genius, I don't think he would have made much difference given how bad Zach was.
If there's one thing you should have learned here over the years is that everybody is everybody else's best friend. Just recently we have had people trying to tell us that Woody Johnson and David Neeleman are best buddies and that's why the Jets drafted Wilson. Gase and Douglas were best buddies too, remember? I still can't figure out from the messages here which LaFleur was actually Saleh's best friend for life. None of that matters. If you want to believe that the Jets organization is already targeting a single replacement for MLF, that's fine - go ahead and raise that blood pressure but why not try to inject a quote, some secret insight or a bit of fact before trying to convince the rest of us?
