Eric Mangini credits "brutal honesty" to New York Jets success after bye weeks by M.A. Mehta/The Star-Ledger Thursday October 02, 2008, 1:35 PM Saed Hindash/The Star-Ledger Mangini has turned into Houdini after bye weeks.The sample size is small, but Eric Mangini has built a pretty impressive resume so far in his post-bye week coaching career. The Jets are 2-0 in the game following the bye under Mangini. The Jets are 9-7 after the bye and just 7-14 before it in the Mangini era. So, what's been the coach's secret? "You're asking for brutal honesty," said Mangini as the Jets players began a four-day break today. "You're asking for each guy to be brutally honest with themselves, the coaches to do that, to go through and look at the stuff and look at it as critically as you possibly can. Not to the point of over-analysis, but just objective, honest assessment of where we are." "Then some strategy, tangible strategy, to correct it and to improve it," Mangini added. "Not (just saying) we need to play better. What does that mean? It's like telling a batter to hit the ball. How can we play better? What can we do?" Mangini also has an open-door policy concerning players disgruntled with their playing time. He'll sit down and analyze game and practice tapes with anyone who asks. "Those meetings have been really productive in the past," Mangini said. "Sometimes I watch their pro tape, maybe from games. Sometimes with a practice squad guy, we do a cut up of their practices. I go through that saying, 'This is what the issue is.' Sometimes it's going back to college tape and saying, 'Look, this is what you did in college, this is why we drafted you, these are the characteristics that defined who you were and why we liked you. Where is this? Why is this missing here?'" The meetings, however, aren't lectures. Mangini gives the players every opportunity to challenge him. "When you leave that conversation," he said, "Both parties know exactly where they stand and they have heard it from me, not their position coach, not the coordinator. They know exactly how we feel and it gives them a chance to express how they feel. I think that's important." The players have appreciated Mangini's candid approach. "He can be brutal to a point where he can say, 'You need to do this better,'" said defensive end Shaun Ellis. "He can show you plays and point things out."
He is a genius – 9 – 7 is definitely something to talk about. Spectacular – lets all book superbowl tickets.
the point is that the team does play better after the bye. this year he has perhaps the most complete team he has had with the Jets. You speak like a true Darksider with all the DOOM and GLOOM necessary to sound like all is bleak in Jetland! Too bad! I think most Jet fans are excited about our team despite the Darksiders penchant for twisting the facts and undermining what the Jets organization is trying to do. And that is : WIN a Championship!
I think the issue is, why isn't there brutal honesty heading into Game 1? And I think the answer is, the misuse of the preseason games. Nevermind the fact that fans are paying regular season prices for the games, there's nothing like live gametime experience against a real opponent to sharpen up your execution and also reveal where the mistakes in technique are happening. Mangini is no different than the majority of other coaches in limiting the play of his starters during the preseason--Herm was notorious for having his team ill-prepared for the start of the year--but I think when you have a situation like this summer with a ton of new players and a brand new QB, it's a strategic error to not play these guys more in the first 2 games and at least a half in the final tune-up before the season. Looking forward to seeing the bye week improvements on top of the new-found creative philosophy.
I agree with your points here except if compared to college football..they have to come out of the gate on game 1. I think the reason for some teams getting out slow is they (the coaches) treat the preseason like its something that its totally not. They say it gives receivers and qb's time to get familiar. Thats bull. They say it gives running backs a chance to get their feet wet and get hit. Thats a load of crap. They say it gives them a chance to get backups or potential roster positions significant time..and thats a nonsense because, depending on the team they are playing, you have guys that will probably make your roster playing certain teams that are so weak after the first 22, its impossible to get a true read on how good they are. Football is such a injury prone game that they are forced? to play it that way. What happens is teams with a decent turnover usually get off to bad starts. In an ideal world, playing 2 complete games with your starters would give you an excellent read on where you are. Why it takes a bye week with an extra 3 days, after all the days off they give them, to get things right is a mystery to me. Yes, for the record, Mangini has a very good record after the bye week. The post above by vickblows isnt fair because that 9-7 record includes a 4-12 season, which makes it even more impressive. If Favre were to return next year, there would be no excuses for a slow start. Almost every major position would have the same return starter for the first time during this regime.
Sour- to your point, preseason is used to determine who makes the team as far as depth goes. This concciveably could be done in practice may be one game. But the limiting of starters des affect their sharpness at the beginning of the season. This is really seen in WR who need to run percise routes and timing between them and the QB. The Farve deal getting done so late in camp did not help either but better late than never.
I’m pointing out that the writer is writing as if 9 – 7 is something to be proud of or something that should raise expectations. Mandoofis teams after the bye week: 2007: Steelers 10 - 6 Chiefs 4 - 12 Miami 1 - 15 2006: Pats (the mud bowl) 12 - 4 Texans 6 - 10 Packers 8 - 8 Vikings 6 - 10 Dolphins 6 - 10 Raiders 2 – 14 Maybe it has less to do with With ManMediocre’s coaching genius and more to do with the shitty teams we have drawn after the bye week?
they went 6-2 his first year, last year we all know about. i would say that the teams success is more likely to follow the mold of 06 than 07. this team has to much talent to simply be average after the bye. also in regards to the preseason. what coach in their right mind would risk getting a player hurt in a meaningless game? thats why they limit these guys. i understand as a fan it sucks to pay full price for a crappy game, but they pretty much have season ticket holders by the balls. they can do whatever they want, it sucks but nothing can be done about it. lets say we had our starters in the last preseason game. say coles or cotchery catch a hit sorta like the one boldin took from a guy trying to make a play to make the team. if someone like that gets hurt in a preseason game that changes the whole dynamic of a team and thats why coaches try to put the starters out on the field on a very limited basis. it makes sense when one bad year can lead to being fired in the league today.
I noticed over the last 2 years that the defense tends to play better the second half of the season but didn't attribute it to the bye week. Let's hope this "bye week production" is better than in the past. 9-7 means they win 56% of the games after a bye. This implies that we will win 7 more games this season (56% of 12) and end up with a 9-7 record--that would suck.
The Jets defense is what usually surges after the bye and if the last game was any indication, that's what we need. It'll help too that we have three very winnable games in a row before taking on Buffalo. I am leary of Oakland's defense though... I can see that being a potential trap game.
Here's my belief on the reason this team performs better post-bye under Mangini. On a week-to-week basis where there is a game on Sunday, he only has time to tear into game film from the previous week to design adjustments, and film of the opponent to design a gameplan for the upcoming game. Over the bye week, he has a few extra days to take a look over the film for all previous games and truly see where the team has been lacking thus far. Is it any wonder that he takes a more active role in the defensive coaching after the bye every year? I agree that the preseason could be better utilized for preparation. However, no team does that. Preseason is nothing more than an opportunity for some tune ups to the starters and a chance to make the team for everyone else. That's not going to change. Preseason games are stupid, but they generate income for teams, and so they'll remain. Personally, I'd rather teams just had scrimmages against each other (preferably teams they aren't scheduled to play that year) where they could work on tune ups and tryouts. There'd be less injury, and you'd actually get real value out of the "action." Really though, we saw a big improvement last week on offense, so I think we've started early this year. I credit Schottenheimer with some of that, and Brett Favre with most of it. It's got to be easy to be an offensive coordinator in a dynamic offense when you have a true gunslinger behind center. Now if we could just get Sutton to coach a full 4 quarters, we'd be in good shape. I've been saying all season so far that our biggest weakness is soft coaching. If Mangini nips that in the bud now, with 3/4 of the season left to play, we stand a legit shot at playing deep into the playoffs. I'm normally not a fan of an early bye, but this year might just be the exception.
This makes sense and may be true. It worries me if it is though for a few reasons. The first is what are we going to do towards the end of the season if there are issues to fix? Second, I can't think of any successful NFL coach that needs an entire bye week every year to correct the issues the team is suffering from. I'm like Mangini, but this is one thing that has irked me about him since he came here. It shouldn't take an extra week to correct problems.
For some reason there seems to be a lot of hype in this year's Bye. Yes, I agree it comes at a good time and hopefully we can get some things corrected. But with giving the players this 4-day weekend, how much was really accomplished this past couple of days and how much can get accomplished when they get back next weeK? You're already into practicing specifics for the next opponent. The Bye Week should be used for general corrections and overall tuneup, and I just don't think there's all that much time to get a lot done if you're going to be off for 4 straight days in the middle of it.
There isn't brutal honesty heading into game 1 because they haven't played any games yet, so there's nothing to review and improve upon -- right?
Here's the thing. I don't think there's all that much that can be improved upon. The run-blocking? I don't know if it's going to get any better. It is what it is. The only other glaring problem I see is the defensive playcalling, and I'll say it until I'm blue in the face. Until Mangini either cans Sutton, or gets him to be ballsy in the second half, and especially in the 4Q, we're going to make every game we play more winnable for our opponent, even if Brett scores 80. So the two questions to me are: Can Callahan get the OLine to start blocking for Jones? Can anyone get Sutton to call for a safety blitz with less than 30:00 left in the game? If we need more than a few extra days to get these lessons learned, we may as well forget it this season.
We sent more safety blitzes and blitzes in general in the 3rd quarter against ARI than any other quarter. That's when we were MOST aggressive, and that's part of why we got lit up. Warner is very good against the blitz.
I would have been but I have a feeling the team is in really big trouble following the Lane Kiffin debacle. Their defense isn't that good anymore and they are weak at CB. Our O will expose them just like Denver did.
I disagree about them not being that good anymore. Watched two of their games and their defense looks top notch. The team as a whole is poorly coached and the offense couldn't score to save itself, but the defense is fairly nasty.
The biggest thing the coaching staff needs to work on is figuring out how to pressure the quarterback on third down when they only rush 4 defenders.
Jets utilize down time Friday, October 3, 2008 Last updated: Friday October 3, 2008, EDT 6:53 AM BY J.P. PELZMANSTAFF WRITER Not since 2004 have the Jets had their bye this early in the season. The good news is that Eric Mangini and his coaches had to spend less time breaking down film. The bad news is they had less film to break down. During Mangini's regime, the Jets' defense has vastly improved after their bye week. But in 2006, that break came after the eighth game, and it was after the ninth game last season. This season, the bye has come after four games, which means the Jets (2-2) don't have quite as much information on which to base their potential adjustments. They will host winless Cincinnati on Oct. 12. "It's always better to have more information," Mangini said, "because you get a greater sense of [your team]. A lot of times at the halfway point you [have] faced your division opponents once, or you tend to, so you get a feel for the things they're doing. You've got a good sense of where you are, your strengths, your weaknesses, things you really have to emphasize, things you may have to completely throw out that you liked. "At the quarter-season mark," he added, "there is a body of work, but it's a more limited body of work. You're going to try to do the same things, but there's more of an element of projecting into the final 12 games." In 2006, the Jets improved from 31st in the league in total defense to 20th after their bye. Last year, they had nine sacks in the first nine games and 20 in the final seven contests after the bye. They've won coming out of the bye both times under Mangini, posting upset victories over New England (2006) and Pittsburgh (2007). "I've always had [the bye] late since I've been here," strong safety Kerry Rhodes said, "but maybe it's a good thing for us [to have it early] with how much better we are after the bye week." The Jets already have 13 sacks after four games, including five in their 56-35 win over Arizona on Sunday. "As a group, I feel we're doing a pretty good job, but we can always get better," said outside linebacker Bryan Thomas, who has a team-high four sacks after managing only 2 1/2 last season. "Usually going into the bye week, we're struggling at stopping the run. This year we're doing a lot better [against] the run." Another difference this season is that the Jets went into their bye week off a win for the first time since 2004. "It's a better feeling than losing," Rhodes said, "but you still have a chance to make the corrections. There were a lot of mistakes [against the Cardinals]. People are a little bit more jovial around here. Eric [Mangini] is a little red in the face, which means he's happy. ... That's a little sarcasm." Not since 2004 have the Jets had their bye this early in the season. The good news is that Eric Mangini and his coaches had to spend less time breaking down film. The bad news is they had less film to break down. During Mangini's regime, the Jets' defense has vastly improved after their bye week. But in 2006, that break came after the eighth game, and it was after the ninth game last season. This season, the bye has come after four games, which means the Jets (2-2) don't have quite as much information on which to base their potential adjustments. They will host winless Cincinnati on Oct. 12. "It's always better to have more information," Mangini said, "because you get a greater sense of [your team]. A lot of times at the halfway point you [have] faced your division opponents once, or you tend to, so you get a feel for the things they're doing. You've got a good sense of where you are, your strengths, your weaknesses, things you really have to emphasize, things you may have to completely throw out that you liked. "At the quarter-season mark," he added, "there is a body of work, but it's a more limited body of work. You're going to try to do the same things, but there's more of an element of projecting into the final 12 games." In 2006, the Jets improved from 31st in the league in total defense to 20th after their bye. Last year, they had nine sacks in the first nine games and 20 in the final seven contests after the bye. They've won coming out of the bye both times under Mangini, posting upset victories over New England (2006) and Pittsburgh (2007). "I've always had [the bye] late since I've been here," strong safety Kerry Rhodes said, "but maybe it's a good thing for us [to have it early] with how much better we are after the bye week." The Jets already have 13 sacks after four games, including five in their 56-35 win over Arizona on Sunday. "As a group, I feel we're doing a pretty good job, but we can always get better," said outside linebacker Bryan Thomas, who has a team-high four sacks after managing only 2 1/2 last season. "Usually going into the bye week, we're struggling at stopping the run. This year we're doing a lot better [against] the run." Another difference this season is that the Jets went into their bye week off a win for the first time since 2004. "It's a better feeling than losing," Rhodes said, "but you still have a chance to make the corrections. There were a lot of mistakes [against the Cardinals]. People are a little bit more jovial around here. Eric [Mangini] is a little red in the face, which means he's happy. ... That's a little sarcasm."
