Taken from today's NY Post: Same things alot of us have been saying for a while now. Its time for Eric Mangini to live up to whatever potential he supposedly inherited from Belichek and show us exactly what kind of coach he really is. No more passes. What we need to see is results on the field. Thoughts?
"The playoffs begin a month from today. You're on the clock, Eric." I agree that Eric Mangini has had enough passes now. As the newspapers have pointed out, there should be no more "Get Out Of Jail Free" cards. Even as recently as Sunday night, when asked about the decision to twice pass the ball on 3rd and 1 and 4th and 1, the often-used excuse reared its ugly head once again: "Well, we ran the ball three times against NE and didn't get it and were criticized for that then also." Might have been a good analogy were it not for the fact that the Denver team we played Sunday ranked 27th against the run! This is but one example of a few passes of late. Mangini needs to step up now and not only verbally take responsibility at the microphone, he needs to walk the walk now. The coaching staff is coached from the top down. He's the head coach. These kinds of decisions (the decision to pass the ball on 3rd and 1, 4th and 1 against a 27th ranked run defense) need to be carefully weighed against "most likely chance of success" averages. That's what Bill Parcell's would have suggested, had he been on the sidelines. What play will have the best chances of success? If Mangini's such a genius, he needs to start showing it, not with abstract, off-the-wall trick gimmicks, he needs to start controlling his OC and DC a little better... making them truly play against another team's weaknesses and strengths and give his team "the best opportunity to be in a position to win," as he so aptly puts it. In other words, a little less emphasis on catch-words and mumbo jumbo terms like "game plan specific," and a little more emphasis on honest-to-goodness common sense play-calling and decision-making. Using phrases like "game plan specific" means actually doing it, and passing the ball on 3rd and 1 and 4th and 1 against a 27th ranked run defense is about the furthest thing from "game plan specific," IMO.
How many times did we get stuffed running the ball on first down? With the conditions and the way we were already playing I cant blame him for passing in that situation. Once again, if it had worked nobody would be bitching that we didnt run the ball. Denver had stacked the line, there was no guarantee either way that we would have made it running, but its always easy to second guess. I think it was more execution and just having an off day that all this transpired. I do agree that there are no more free passes for Mangini but how much of it can be directly put on his shoulders? At the end of the day you have to execute.
Well, of course, execution is the key. But even Mangini said that last week's practice was flat and he had a "feeling" it would carry over to the game, and it did. In that respect, my question would be, if you saw that practice was flat and you had that "feeling," why then wasn't more emphasis placed on that last week and brought to the players' attention? But whatever, because that is such an intangible. What's not intangible are Game Day coaching decisions. Letting Sutton elect not to blitz more often to bring pressure. Cutler had all day in the pocket, just like Cassel did, and he picked us clean, especially with his TEs. And the 3rd and 1 and 4th and 1 call by Schotty... come on. If you don't have the confidence to run the ball for one yard given two downs in which to do it (against the 27th ranked defense), something's drastically wrong. Stop trying to outfox the opponent (i.e., "They think we'll run it, so we'll pass it twice!") and let's go back to the solid football decisions. "Game-plan specific" should mean just that! Not saying you don't throw in a ringer once in awhile, but I think the game in general could have (should have) been coached better, execution aside. And I therefore think any coaching inadequacies have to be place on Mangini's shoulders. The buck has to stop with the HC. But yeah, the execution stunk too, so it's hard to say which contributed more... I'd say the lack of execution. But that too always falls inevitably on the shoulders of the HC eventually.
I think the answer is in the bigger picture as much as in the issues like playcalling, and game decisions. Someone mentioned "last years disaster", and we all know that a major cause of last years disaster was letting go of Pete Kendall and the resulting lack of cohesion on the offensive line. A good head coach has to fit the players together as a viable team. You can't expect to put an untried quarterback like Clemens behind an inexperienced o-line and be successful. The running game suffered, and Clemens was running for his life most of the time. Bad for the season, and bad for a player's development and his confidence.... and this was their QB of the future. On defense, he stuck with his system all last year even though he didn't have the players suited to it. A genius coach adapts his system to the players available, not the other way around. Large scale decisions like that raise more red flags for me than trying to pass two times on 3rd and 1 and then on 4th and 1... against one of the leagues worst run defenses... in a pouring rain. You can say the head coach isn't solely responsible for either of these types of things, but he's got to have major input and be accountable. On the plus side, he's young and inexperienced, and hopefully learns from his mistakes and will get better as he develops. As a long time Jet fan, I think he's much better than most we've had. You'd rather have Herm Edwards back???
Sunday reminded me of a lot of last year's games. We didn't play completely awful, just didn't make key plays when they had to be made. Cotchery losing the handoff early and not catcing the 4th and 1 late, those are plays we've made this year that we didn't make last year. Obviously we have better players, but usually games come down to a handful of key plays, either 3rd down conversions or red zone plays that determine posession and points. Good teams make those plays, bad teams don't, Sunday we played badly, like last year.
Truly excellent post. This really nails it. Like yourself, I'm not totally condemning Mangini. I think he needs to take a look at these things though, and mature as a coach. And I certainly would NOT want Herm Edwards back! I don't know where you'd get that impression of this post.
Nah, just being a bit sarcastic. Herm was bad for the Jets, I saw that coming early on. Too nice a guy. Too much rah-rah, too much talk. But he inherited a good team from the Parcells era, so Herm's effect didn't show for a couple of years. Looks like more of the same in KC. I was just making the point - I've endured Herm Edwards, Walt Michaels, Bruce Coslett, Rich Kotite, etc etc... at this point in time, Mangini seems alot better than most we've had. You're right though... time will tell. At least his systems are working better now that he's got players better suited to them. And the Jets this year are a real hard team to figure on offense. How often does a team have Brett Favre join them two weeks before the start of the season? I'm hoping the indications that they were coming together will continue, and that the Denver game was a fluke... kinda like the Giants losing to Cleveland a few weeks ago. A lot of questions will be answered over the next four weeks.
Our pass defense/lack of aggressive blitzing is a problem that can't be ignored, because it has been an issue since week one. We do have better players for the scheme this season than we've had since Mangini got here, but this isn't an elite defense no matter how the numbers measure up. I can't look at games like the Chiefs, the Pats (x2), the Raiders, the Broncos, the Cards, the Chargers or the second half of the Phins game and think that we have any realistic chance at going far unless they find an answer to our defensive midfield. It just gets carved apart almost every week. I do like Mangini, and think he's going to be around for a while, and I think he will find a lot of answers like he has recently. But I am beginning to really doubt that it's going to happen this year.
One of the many weird things about hiring Mangini is that Herm had never been a coordinator before being hired as HC and it SHOWED. Then they repeat the mistake by hiring a guy with just one year as DC, and even that one year the defense was really being run by BB.
This is a bit silly. What if we dominate the next four games and then choke in the playoffs? Or go 2-2 but then make a Super Bowl run? Or lose all four games and then go undefeated next season? In all those instances these next four games would not "define" the Mangini era.
This is it for Eric. If we win out and go deep into the playoffs, he will have earned his extension. If we go 2-2, eek into the playoffs, and lose the wildcard game, he'll get no sympathy from anyone.
I agree with this. It would be silly to say that the next four games define the Mangini Era. While Mangini is not without his faults (Surprise, surprise! He's human after all?), the best way to look at the guy is long term. In other words, how would he be judged 5 or 10 years from now? Overall, this is a better team than the one he inherited from the Edwards/Bradway crew. Yes, Herm had us in the playoffs, but it looks like we'll finally get there this year also, providing nothing disastrous befalls us. But Mangini also inherited the Chad Era and he and Tannenbaum have had to deal with basically extricating ourselves from that whole Chad contract/salary cap/emotional divorce-like situation. To a large extent, however Chad went (or Chad's arm went), so went the team. Mangini had a large hand this offseason, working closely with Tannenbaum, in evaluating and bringing in all this talent and, I'm sure, getting to the point where we finally extricated ourselves from Chad. Okay, it all has to play out and if we don't get deep into the playoffs, some will say all the changes were for naught, but so far, so good. We're 8-4 and have beaten some pretty good opponents. Overall, you'd be hard-pressed to find knowledgable sports commentators who would not say that Mangini has done a pretty good job so far. I am talking about coaching as well as evaluating (and procurring and melding) good talent into the organization. But the bottom line is, everyone is always judged by W-L records and/or whether we got to and won a championship. This is all playing out as we speak, but I'm still happy with Mangini at this point. I think he's sitll learning and maturing as a HC and I like what I see so far.
Unfortunately, if he falls flat on his face over the next few weeks he still won't get fired because Johnson won't be able to find anybody cheaper to replace him with. That's the story of Jet's head coaches under Johnson.
