Red, good point about Pepper Johnson. Most thought at the time that it was just sour grapes for being fired, but he was undoubtedly right. It's probably a good point about Bowles as well, but if you're right about Bowles, then even if we give him credit for being more flexible than we gave him credit for, he's dumber than we thought, because in trying to pay Mac back, he slit his own throat. The only way I can see him just giving up is if he went to the Johnsons and they refused to do anything, but in that case, why wouldn't he just resign? Especially as a former player who is competitive, I can't understand his just giving up and not caring. That only made him look bad and incompetent to the players and the rest of the world. Did he do it (just coast and not care) because of the money? Perhaps. That would make sense, but still I can't see how his pride and competitive nature could have stomached that. If Arians hadn't taken the HC gig with Tampa Bay, would Bowles even have gotten an interview for a job coaching?
I agree that it's a two-way street, but the GM should know the types of players the HC wants for his scheme. Was Bowles even allowed to do that? Bowles should have had some idea at least of the type of players he wanted/needed for his scheme to be successful. Mac and Bowles should have sat down and discussed the types of players they were going to bring in, and then the specific characteristics or abilities that Bowles needed in the players to fit his scheme. Then Mac should tell the scouts to look for players with those characteristics and skills. Then towards the end of preparing for the draft, Mac, Bowles, and the scouts should have met, showed Bowles the players they thought were good fits and see if Bowles agrees. In that scenario, Bowles couldn't unduly influence the scouts. Sure if they were only looking for players with certain skills and characteristics, they may not seriously look at other talented players who didn't have those skills/characteristics, but why would Mac want to draft those players anyway if they weren't going to fit Bowles' scheme? In that scenario, a winning team isn't going to get built, and no quality working relationship is going to get built between Mac and Bowles. IMO only an idiot would draft players that didn't fit a particular scheme and wouldn't want to work closely with the HC. After all, when the HC is successful, then the GM will be successful and look good too. This just demonstrates that Mac had no earthly idea how to do his job. He either wasn't taught well by the GM in Texas, or he just thought that he was smarter and could build a winner by just drafting BPA in every round and that scheme fit or style of play (attacking vs read and react or zone blocking vs man scheme) wasn't important. It's mind boggling to me how Charley Casserly could have recommended Mac or how Woody Johnson could have hired him. I sure hope that Ron Wolf didn't recommend Mac, If so, that tarnishes his legacy considerably.
I did take a pot shot at myself by saying I may be reaching, however he did have a direct line to the owner based on the Jets chain of command, I’m not implying he sabotaged the team or himself but if he did talk to his boss and Johnson backed the GM and his role in drafting the players, then I could see Bowles while making and effort to win simply accepting the cards dealt to him and playing his system with Macs players and trying to make it work. If it didn’t work then the results would be visible to everyone.
Funny thing is when both were hired, I remember hearing great things about Bowles while Macc was a bit of a mystery. Was Bowles sabotaged because he didn't get the players he needed for his schemes? If so, maybe he wasn't as bad a HC as we thought.
I have nothing wrong with getting elite talent at the top of round one. Those were all easy picks to make. Any idiot on here could have handed in the card for most of those top ten picks. The problem from my stand point is reaching for guys with "traits" in rounds 2-4. If you want to take risks on talented athletes on day 3 go for it. The day two picks you should still be finding guys who, while not great, have to potential to come in and start day one, or at the very least be solid rotational guys. Mac spent way too much draft capital on guys who "could be coached up" based on physical abilities and not getting guys who could step in. The years of a 5 year plan are gone. With free agency player movement is at an unseen high and teams can turn thing around very quickly with proper management and coaching. Teams stay mediocre or even bad simply because they are poorly run and for the last 5 years the Jets seemly have had no leadership in the building. The had the man behind the curtain watching tape all day and blowing the draft picks anyway.
Good post. Cracks me up how so many people are worried about the perception of the Jets looking like a circus, yet they just made a great move, timing be damned.
Serious question guys. Who on our roster do you look at and say “that guy was born to be a Jet” Like a specific player who fits our style of play and mindset. Edelman, Hightower, McCourty for example were all meant to be Patriots Chancellor, Sherman and Lynch were all meant to be Seahawks. We have not developed an identity and I think we suffer from that. Not just now but forever. The best teams are developing unique identity’s for their players and they’re getting those guys into the building.
Word. The only “issue” is the timing but even then it would have been worse to know we have to move on and keep dude around because of perception.
Steve Wilks and Vance Joseph's got DC jobs. Bowles is head and shoulders better than both of them as a DC.
It is unbelievable, isn't it? Equally unbelievable is that it took five years for the Johnson brothers to realize that the coach and GM had this type of relationship (or lack of it) every year going into the draft. If I ever made an investment of over 600 million dollars (when they purchased the jets) , I would damn well sure be paying attention to every detail of it.
Did you see Charley Casserly on NFL network last week when he was asked about MacCagnan's firing? He was PISSED. He acted as though Maccagnan had the jets on the verge of a Super Bowl title.
Robby Anderson. Chris Herndon. Sheldon Richardson. Dylan Donahue. Austin Seferian-Jenkins. Rashard Robinson. Not every team can lead the league in arrests. http://www.espn.com/blog/new-york-j...ad-nfl-in-dubious-category-and-it-must-change
Great point. I always thought the name of the franchise and the Namath legacy meant the Jets should have been a pass-first vertical team. We took a 20 year detour down Ground and Pound Street while the rest of the NFL was on Air-it-out Boulevard. Maybe Sam can get us back on track.
For the sake of our favorite franchise, we all should hope the Maccagnan Era was the cornerstone for a golden era of Jets football. It will either be the time when Maccagnan drafted the Jets franchise quarterback for the next 15 years or just another in a long list of failures. When Jamal Adams becomes a perrenial Jet probowler or he leaves the first chance he sniffs free agency and heads down to N.O. It will either be the era of Quinnen Williams and Leonard Williams destroying Brady, Allen and Rosen or the era where they are lumped in with Sheldon Richardson, Mohammed Wilkerson and all the other D Linemen over the years who never recreated the Klecko/Gastineau magic. If we get all three, we may be celebrating a Super Bowl and lifting a glass to Mac because he layed the foundation. If we dont get all three, its likely just more of the same for Jets fans for another decade. I'm hopeful Mac wasnt quite the incompetent we've read about the last week.
All these articles that have come out after the firing really make both Mac and Gase look extremely bad, which in turn make Johnson look really bad. We need Johnson to just sit tight at this point, put a moratorium on player movement and clean house after the season.
I don't think they change anyone's perception of Gase. We all knew he was an asshole from the start. The things being brought to light about Mac make me wonder how in hell he had the job this long to begin with.
Great post! I've been saying this for years now. Building a great, sustainably, winning team starts with a blueprint of the TYPE of team you are, and then acquiring the players and coaches to build that team. The last time the Jets had anything like an identity was with the NY Sack Exchange, but even then it was only a partial identity. And it led to a wrong turn in trying to develop an identity of a great defense, which went contrary to the direction the NFL took. No, the last REAL identity was the Namath Jets - high flying and high scoring. Yes, they actually had a great defense too, but it was the offense that set the tone. That's what they need to get back to...they're the freakin' JETS, right? Do jets crawl along the ground? No! They soar! This is why I think Peyton Manning would be the right guy to build that blueprint and ensure it gets followed.
Interesting thought, but I seriously doubt any coach would do something like that. And frankly, if he really was that frustrated to even consider doing that, he should've either gone public with it, or quit.
I don't view that as being anything to give Bowles credit for, as if it is true it is a complete betrayal of the good of the team, and idiotic from a selfish point of view as well. I think giving Bowles a little less blame could be supported, however, in that it seems clear that he was allowed no input on personnel. Even then, however, he showed how unprepared he was to be a head coach, as supposedly he never said a word to the Johnsons about this, despite the fact they he explicitly was equal to Maccagnan in the pecking order and was a direct report to the owners.
