When a coach starts any new player (especially a QB) for a 'spark', that is a bad sign....for the coach. Coaches that rely on players for a 'spark' are coaches that are passing accountability and admitting they don't have the ability or control to drive the team. Let's face it. The team has been been playing generally poorly. Fitz has not been playing well but the team as a whole has not either. Dropped balls, fumbles, interceptions, penalties. The team is clearly playing below its talent level. This is a coaches job to remedy and if coach has convinced himself that he is going to bench his starting qb to get a 'spark' marks the beginning of his end. Todd, I hope you enjoyed your stay in NY. Talk a walk and enjoy the culture, sites and sounds before the fans start chanting 'Flush toilet Bowles'.
The team has been playing poorly and it's showing signs of being poorly coached and poorly led. However, the guy's only partway into his second season. How about we hold off on judgment for a bit? The coach deserves a shot at improving too. Otherwise we'll be changing coaches every 2-3 years and never getting anywhere.
I'm sadly disappointed by the way Bowles has been doing his job this year so far. I really thought he was a good choice even though he was inexperienced as a head coach. He's showed absolutely no improvement. Still, I'd be surprised if he was replaced at the end of the season.
If I were to guess, I'd say the Jets organization saw themselves as being successful last year. 10-6 usually gets the playoffs so why change a thing? In reality we had major issues that got covered by an easy schedule. I saw many of those issues but I thought our roster had improved from last year and thought Bowles would improve on many things. Now that we've utterly collapsed, my hope is that Bowles will understand he's got to improve greatly or he's gone.
I get that last year the team won 10 games, but as has been stated many times here, the schedule was favorable. This year the schedule out of the gate has been among the toughest, if not the toughest in the league - but for me, that's the telling sign for this coach. This team needs a coach that can go up against the better teams and coaches in this league and get his team ready to play and at least be IN those games against tougher opponents. Those are the teams that he'll face in the playoffs, and at least to this point, Bowles has failed miserably. Great, he got the team ready to play against Buffalo THIS season. But from that moment they had 10 days to get ready for KC and the team had their doors blown off and were obviously out-everything'd. Same with Seattle, Pitt and against Arizona. To this point the game planning, adjustments and execution have been terrible across the board - this is all on Bowles and his staff and he better get it fixed fast. A loss to Cleveland and San Fran and he better be contacting a realtor. IMO, I see 3 winnable games left, that's it. Including a split with the Dolphins. This week against the Ravens will be very telling. If the team lays down and has as little interest in tackling as they did against Arizona it may be the moment where reality hits Woody that the team has quit on him. Not saying they have, but there are signs that may be the case.
The problem in having with this team is with the above average talent on both sides of the ball, uninspired effort to say the least, the defense is a absolute joke. I'd like to see a little fire out of Bowles, and just maybe it would reflect in the teams level of play on the field, it's almost like they all quit, pretty sad.
We can swap out coaches for the next 20 years, unless and until we find a good, young franchise quarterback we are fucked regardless.
So would I. The only qualifier that I can think of is that he was not Macc's guy coming in. They hired in reverse and put Macc on the spot to accept TB. I do not know Macc but if he complained loud and long he might make his case. Of course, Macc may be fine with Todd. Normally you cannot flip coaches after 2 years. That would be going back to Square One. Football teams hate to do that.
I am not defending the job Bowles has done this year, it has been very questionable to say the least. However, he is not benching Fitz for a "spark", he is benching Fitz because he sucks and is playing like shit.
The KC fiasco was on 6 INT Fitz. I do not think the team was unprepared. He just stunk to high heaven. He put his team in a deep hole and things snowballed from there. Should have won the Cincy game. PItt and Seattle was really no contest, even if Seattle seemed close. Arizona was a disaster. This week will be important. If our D cannot stop that Baltimore offense then it is time to start watching hockey----at least until they look at a new QB.
It is one thing if your talent level is off and you are losing. Or you team is playing high effort mistake free football and some breaks went the other way..etc. I can't say that is the case for this team. You don't see this sort of thing from the better coaches in the league. I am not saying nor do I think that Bowles will get fired on the spot but he needs to show he can correct these issues. You can make an argument to bench a lot of guys. If the rest of the team was playing lights out and it was just a Fitz issue then fine. Think 1999 season with Rick Mirer. That is not the case here.
Bowles does not seem to get the team prepared/motivated, he makes no halftime adjustments, and he is a bad "in-game coach" (timeouts, punt v. go for it, clock management, replay challenges)--all very similar to our previous coach. The only difference is that Rex constantly bragged up the scrub players like Clyde Gates and Dexter McDougle , while Bowles looks like he could give a crap most of the time.
The Jets last two touchdowns were a fluke fumble recovery where basically everyone stopped playing and what should have been an interception which Marshall basically took of the defender's helmet. We could easily be about four games or so right now without an offensive TD. I'm not saying the coaching is great, but that just screams that there is a dearth of talent on the field.
NFL head coach isn't the profession where you hire them hoping they figure it out eventually. Consistently bad coaching decisions, poorly prepared teams and terrible adjustments isn't something any team should just accept in the hopes that the coach improves two years later. Yes, we should change coaches every two years if it's obvious the coach is terrible. What a nonsensical position that you should give a bad coach additional years to continue to be bad just because you don't want to change the coach.
Couldn't agree more. The rest of this season should be spent on evaluating Bowles as a coach. There is a lot of improvement that needs to be made on his part, and if he's showing signs of improvement, then maybe it's worth giving him a third year. But if he's still making some of the same silly mistakes that he's been making towards the end of this season, then Woody and/or Mccagnan should seriously look at making a change.