The decisions made by Woody over the next few weeks represent by far the most crucial actions to impact the Jets future since he assumed ownership of the team. If he gets it wrong this time then it will be a clear indicator of where the real problem has been all along....with the ownership and no one else. The jury is still out about the new GM. apparently some good names out there, but can we attract them to NY and do they want to work for Woody and comply with his expectations? IMHO the first foot in the grave is if we select a HC without having a GM in place. So as a minimum we better get the sequence right and the GM in place fast. Beyond that things get even muddier. We might not admit it, we might not accept it, we might even argue against it with all our might, but there is a damned good chance, probably better than 50-50, that we end up with a HC that is not nearly as good as Rex. And if so, God help us all. I'm not here to defend Rex, nor do I want to throw shit around to minimize his strengths and highlight his weaknesses, but the real question and my biggest concern is simply this: Of the names floated about so far, who inspires confidence and brings a more credible package than Rex, and if so what are the chances that he chooses us versus SF, Chicago, or even Oakland. Or worst, he chooses none of them starting with the Jets.The aforementioned teams have a GM in place already. We don't. They have a real leg up. Quite frankly out of the names so far I cannot go much past Dan Quinn before I think we are in no man's land. HC talent does no grow on trees, and say what you will the names surfacing so far do not seem to say...fuck yeh, What are we waiting for? I don't know about you guys but I cannot stomach the notion that Rex will have a HC job with a better team while we are still fumbling around trying to get someone than in most people's eyes...is a step down and a compromise. I welcome your views. I am all for taking a chance on a rising star HC versus rehashing old failed HC with similar issues. This selection is as important if not more important than getting your stud QB. Whatever the case might be, Woody better get it right.
Please get over the Rex bullshit. He doesn't have the ability to take this team to the next level. After a reset, he may change his ways and have success somewhere else, I don't F'n care. He couldn't get it done here, he's out, he's gone, he's not coming back. Rex had a half dozen good games as our coach in 6 years...very timely good games, but still not enough of them. Any of the people we are looking at could work out, they may all suck, we won't know until we bring someone new in. We have to hire someone, if they suck, we'll hire someone else. I think the talent they bring in is more important than the HC. ...Sorry, didn't mean to be an ass. Happy New Year.
Great post...GREAT post! I think what the Rex haters...and lovers in most cases really seem to be missing the boat on is are we going to get better at the HC position/whatever side of the ball they may come from? The grass is ALWAYS greener on the other side no matter how you look at it. It's human nature and there is no real way of changing it. I think you pointed out a very real scenario. Unfortunately, there really are no "WOW" candidates this year. Every one of them is going to require a certain amount of "faith" from Woody and the fans. Whether they deliver remains to be seen. However, I do believe we have the potential to get VASTLY better at the GM position. That could...and should...offset the deficiencies in HC by, hopefully, bringing in better talent. Let's face it...talent wins games. Rex Ryan is still coaching the Jets if he had the talent the last couple of years...but that is neither here nor there.... People talk about Mike Smith as a possibility...that's an example of a HC not winning with talent....be that as it may. Woody has GOT to get the GM position 100% (or as close to 100%) accurate as possible. He finds a good GM and the rest is academic.
Even if we were to stipulate that Rex Ryan was one hell of a guy, a defensive genius, and a good head coach all of his assistant coaches outside of defensive line were crap. Anyone else worth a damn jumped ship already except for Sal Alosi who got canned (our injuries seemed to mysteriously increase after he was let go). Even if our new head coach falls short of the Rex Ryan standard (whatever that is) we get new blood in the form of assistant coaches that can fix many of our problems that only seemed to get worse over the last couple years.
Rex was a decent coach with some very good qualities and some bad ones as well. Over the last three seasons the bad ones came to the forefront and the Jets chances diminished a bit as that happened. He wasn't the problem overall, that was the lack of talent. However he was undisciplined and he led an undisciplined team that frequently made unforced errors on the field. His coaching staff made some unforced errors as well. The Jets were not a tight ship under his leadership and that ultimately led to his downfall, alongside the talent deficits. I'm really looking forward to having a guy who gets the p's and q's right and dots his i's and crosses his t's. I'm hoping he has more sustainable success than Eric Mangini did. Mangini was a process oriented guy who mostly had his act together. He just had a huge blind spot about what would fly and what wouldn't in terms of player relations. That blind spot ultimately led to his downfall.
I'm worried about the overhaul that the gm will have to do. We have money and draft picks so year one for the new gm might end up being the most pivotal year in the new gms tenure... This offseason is HUGE, the jets can change their identity right here.
its certainly an anxious time in Jetland. the odds of stepping further back are just as likely as moving forward in the right direction. these decisions are huge. if i had more confidence in the owner, i would feel better about this process. Woody recognizing he needs help in these decisions is a good sign though, and Casserly and Wolf are step in right direction so far. we'll see. at the end of the day, we'll ultimately be taking a chance on unproven commodities. my hope is that whoever they are, they continue to prioritize defense and Oline as the foundation, until we can land that much needed QB.
I was right with you up until this point, getting your stud QB is way, way more important than who is coaching the team. There are plenty of teams with good coaches that struggle but its hard to think of a team with an elite QB that has consistently struggled.
Not to act like a dick, because I know we have some promising talent on this team, but how far back can we really go? We're a 4-12 football team with no QB, and a handful of guys that you can call good. There's plenty of more space to go up than there is to go down and that's how I see it.
we spend up all of your cap resources, and go 4-12 again. that's how. this team can easily set it self up for multiple years of disaster if they make the wrong moves here.
Rex's fundamental misunderstanding of today's NFL was his greatest liability. The rules require an offensive mindset. Developing a young quarterback is his most important job. If he is going to trust that job to someone else while he is coaching the defense then he can't come in during the week and tell him to run the ball.
As far as people saying we need to wait for the gm to hire a coach ,You need to set up interviews before candidates are off the market it has nothing to do with a new gm.People buy into the GM having more power then he really does ,the owner gets to do whatever he wants and the GM can't say shit just ask John Idzik and the mandate to keep Rex Ryan.There's only so many good candidates that the obvious choice is the obvious choice regardless of who the GM wants.What if the GM loves Tom Cable?and it happens to be one of his buddys does that mean its a good hire?
The other thing is that Rex absolutely ruins most young QB's when he faces them. It's not clear that a young QB can stand up to Rex's schemes in practice on a regular basis either. Part of developing a young QB is instilling the confidence in him that will take him through the rough patches. Facing "Aaaaaaahhhhhhh blitz!!!" in practice all the time leaves very little room for developing the skills you need against the 90% of NFl defenses that do not blitz like madmen with their hair on fire all the time.
It's ok- all in good fun. There are a lot of things in life that are important. People making typos on the internet isn't one of them.