Herm Edwards was a better coach than we give him credit for. He had an iffy GM and a new owner and he got caught in the crossfire. Herm is one of a very few coaches in NFL history to take two new teams to the playoffs in his first season after they had missed two years running before that. I'm not going to do the research on that one but I think it's a pretty obvious thing,
The coach doesn't drive a team into the ground. That's on the GM and personnel department. I'll guarantee you that Herm wasn't making the calls on who to draft for the Jets. Santana Moss, Bryan Thomas, Dewayne Robertson, Jonathan Vilma and the clusterfuck in 2005 were on Bradway and the personnel guys and that's why the Jets collapsed at the end.
While I agree with your namesake that Terry Bradway was a TERRIBLE GM, I seriously doubt that Herm didn't have alot of input with team personnel decisions. He inheritted a team that had 4 1st rd picks before he got here + a stud 3rd rd pick in Coles. He went to a KC team that was 10-6 the year before he got there. Then they went 9-7, 4-12, 2-14...... kaboom seems like a good guy, but I think he was over his head btw.... Moss and Vilma were good draft picks
The biggest mistake Bradway made was allowing our young OL to leave. We should have never let Randy Thomas and Kareem McKenzie go.
The KC team he went too was in the process of imploding. Trent Green was 35. Priest Holmes was done. Larry Johnson was a trainwreck waiting to happen because he was one of two talented players on offense alongside Tony Gonzalez and he'd just taken 336 carries. The next season Herm gave him 400+, but that was the only way to get the Chiefs over the finish line that year and make the playoffs because Green got hurt in mid-season. The middle 3 on the offensive line in 2006 were 29, 33 and 35. Will Shields retired at the end of the season. The LT was a JAG who was done with the team also. The Chiefs had 3 LT's in Edwards 3 seasons as coach. On the defensive side of the field the Chiefs went from 16th pre-Edwards to 11th the year he took over and 14th the season after that. The talent level declined at that point and the Chiefs dropped to near the bottom where they had been in 2004 with Vermeil. Moss cost the Jets a 1st, a 4th and a 6th and the Steelers, their trading partner took Casey Hampton 3 slots behind them. There's no way Santana Moss was worth 3 draft picks to acquire.
2nd biggest. 1st was trading 2 1st rd picks + a 4th to draft the Bowling Ball with a butcher's knife. CAN'T NOBODY BLOCK ME!
The Jets let Kerry Jenkins go first in Bradway's first off-season before he had really grabbed the reins. Then they let Thomas and McKenzie go and the line hollowed out and just waited for an injury to bring it down. The Jets got two injuries instead and a total collapse.
2004 they were 7-9, the season before they were 13-3. I wouldn't say bottom level talent. When a trend carries over with another team, it usually tells something.
Herms kicker cost him. Coulda pull that huge upset over Pittsburgh and then played New England in the AFC Championship game. That game coulda been a franchise defining game, to bad it never happened....
No, he was an incompetent stooge. Just like the Jets win in spite of Sanchez now, the Jets won in spite of Herm. Herm destroyed what Parcells built. Herm had his strengths (discipline, which this team can use now, to name one), but overall he was a bad, bad coach.
Yes Doug Brien sucked, but that was the most chikenshit coaching ever. You don't take a knee on third down after your kicker already missed one in a stadium notorious for not facilitating long field goals.....especially not when you PLAY TO WIN THE GAME.
