Under Mangini, the Jets Work Harder, Smarter and Longer HEMPSTEAD, N.Y., Oct. 20 ? The owner of the Jets, Robert Wood Johnson IV, was sitting at his desk at the team?s practice facility earlier this week listening to rap. Not that he could help it. The loud music that Eric Mangini, the Jets? first-year coach, was playing outside at practice to challenge the communication skills of his players was making conversation difficult in Johnson?s second-floor corner office. The soundtrack for practice varies from week to week and is selected by Mangini and his staff, for whom iTunes is a teaching tool. Songs are downloaded specifically to set a tone or send a message. If, for instance, Mangini wants the defense to attack, he will string together songs that prominently contain the word jump. It is but one example of the creative thinking that sold Johnson on Mangini back in January, after Herman Edwards?s abrupt and awkward divorce from the Jets. ?I absolutely could tell during the interview process that he was thinking outside the box,? Johnson said of Mangini, ?and that?s why we hired him.? In Edwards, the Jets had a coach who was colorful during his weekday news media briefings and conservative on Sundays. Mangini, it was pointed out to Johnson, is the opposite. He is dull behind the lectern and daring in his game-day play calling. ?That?s an interesting observation,? Johnson said, leaning back in his chair and letting a smile crease his face. The Jets made the playoffs three times during Edwards?s five years in charge and finished 39-41 in the regular season, including 4-12 last season. A defeat of the Detroit Lions (1-5) at the Meadowlands on Sunday would give the Jets their fourth victory in seven games under the 35-year-old Mangini, the youngest coach in the N.F.L. A chief executive in sweat pants, Mangini values productivity and demands accountability, which helps explain why the Jets have used 32 starters in the first six games. Safety Erik Coleman missed three consecutive starts after starting the first 34 games of his N.F.L. career. He is not to be confused with Drew Coleman, a rookie cornerback who was drafted in the sixth round and has started the past two games. Edwards, a benevolent father figure, ran the Jets like an aristocracy, treating his starters like nobility. The Jets under Mangini are a meritocracy, with the depth chart wiped clean at the start of each week. ?That?s the way it should be, that you?re judged on your performance, not necessarily your contract or your draft status,? Mangini said. ?I believe in that.? Mangini has set about creating a team culture that is less like a fraternity than a Fortune 500 company. Indeed, when Johnson looks at Mangini, he sees shades of his grandfather Robert Wood Johnson II, who managed the family?s health-care company, Johnson & Johnson, in the middle of the 20th century when it became an international corporation. Johnson explained that his grandfather designed factories with one entrance, the better to foster a sense of oneness. ?Whether you were a worker, a manager, an owner, it didn?t matter,? he said. ?Everyone walked in the same front door.? He added: ?I see Eric establishing that same culture of professionalism here. There?s no teacher?s pets, no teacher?s favorites. The only way that you can influence this coach is through your performance on the field and through your preparation.? Mangini believes professionalism is in the details. ?I think there are a lot of guys that have played professional football and there are guys that are true professional football players,? he said. The difference, he said, is ?one is playing the sport and the other is working at his craft, developing his craft and taking a true business approach to everything he does.? Mangini is serious about his players looking like true professionals, which is why he reprimanded the rookie left tackle D?Brickashaw Ferguson during training camp for conducting an interview on the practice field after taking off his sweaty jersey. He is serious about his players developing their craft. That is why he requires them to run a lap around the field for every mistake they make during practice. That is also why there are pop quizzes during team meetings. Rather than risk being called on by Mangini and not knowing the answer, many more players this year are leaving the facility every night weighed down by backpacks stuffed with their playbooks and pages of notes. After-hours study sessions, which used to be the bailiwick of the super studious few, like quarterback Chad Pennington and linebacker Jonathan Vilma, are now widespread. ?You could say it definitely was different in the past,? said tight end Chris Baker, who is in his fifth season with the Jets. Under Edwards, he added, ?We were always prepared.? The difference then and now, Baker said, is, ?There wasn?t as much ownership as to what was going on.? ?Coach has more of an emphasis on players knowing what they?re doing,? Baker said. ?You can?t come in and think the coaches are going to spoon-feed you anything.? In the beginning, players privately railed against Mangini?s rules. Some felt an intense loyalty to Edwards that made embracing Mangini hard. Others could not figure out where their new coach was coming from. Linebacker Matt Chatham, who played in New England during the six seasons the defensive-minded Mangini worked under Patriots Coach Bill Belichick, said it was natural to have a period of adjustment. ?For any guy to go from Herm Edwards?s system to one of the Belichick-tree systems, it?s dramatic,? he said, referring to coaching descendants of Belichick. ?For those guys it?s going to come like a baseball bat to the side of the head.? With each passing week, Chatham sees more players buying into Mangini?s system. ?You begin to kind of understand the limits of your body and what it needs to feel to feel like you?re prepared,? he said, adding, ?I think in this system it?s built-in where guys think if I don?t feel like I?ve watched X amount of hours of film or I don?t feel like I really pushed myself physically in practice, I have that little fear that I might be tired in the game or not prepared.? The Jets have not lost a game this season because they were physically spent in the fourth quarter. They have not lost a game because there was confusion on the sideline about which play to call before a critical down. ?They?re working hard and they?re working smart,? Johnson said. And they are working the lunchroom, which is perhaps the best sign yet. Mangini was dining by himself recently when running back Kevan Barlow plopped down beside him. ?I felt like he?s almost like one of my friends,? Barlow said. ?That?s the type of vibe and energy I get off of Coach.? When he was traded by San Francisco to the Jets in late August, the 27-year-old Barlow criticized 49ers Coach Mike Nolan. After starting only two of the Jets? first six games, he is speaking positively about Mangini. I don?t know how other guys feel about Coach Eric,? Barlow said, ?but me, personally, I like him a lot, and I respect what he?s trying to do here, and I?m going to go out there and try to play hard for him.?
Funny story. I go to Hofstra and my room is the farthest dorm from the jets bubble, and i can hear the music or J-E-T-S chants from the bubble.
Funny how the Times has changed its tune. Do you all remember the very negative article that the Times published in the preseason? The reporter argued that Mangini, unlike Belichick, hadn't yet earned his "hoodie," meaning his right to be controlling and rigid: http://select.nytimes.com/gst/tsc.h...2A)..bQ5DaQ5CQ5CQ2AQ22rQ3E.Q5DoQ3EbgiybQ5BQ5C It's amazing what a few wins can do . . . TBTF
I also like how now they mention Ferguson not being allowed to talk to the media during camp as Mangini trying to instill professionalism in his players. But back when Ferguson was forced to dodge the press on the first day of camp, it was Mangini being an ass to the media.
That was Selena Roberts who was writing critical columns about Mangini from day 1. She had an obvious bias towards Herm. The above article was written by the NYT Jets beat writer, Karen Crouse. Columnist William Rhoden also wrote a rather complimentary and similar piece on Mangini in last week's NYT: HEADLINE: With Mangini, Professionalism Is Part of the Job BYLINE: By WILLIAM C. RHODEN. E-mail: wcr@nytimes.com DATELINE: HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. BODY: Eric Mangini faced the news media yesterday afternoon for his weekly day-after news conference. He was bland, as usual. The Jets had beaten Miami by 3 points when the Dolphins' Nick Saban made the kind of endgame miscalculation that had been associated with the Jets under Herman Edwards. Instead of losing on some last-minute mistake, the Jets won and improved to 3-3. Mangini gave the injury report, and recognized individual effort in his pleasant but humorless style. I haven't seen a lot of Mangini, but I've seen enough to know these interview sessions have become a cat-and-mouse game of trying to get beneath the surface. Someone asked if he had an affinity with other first-year, first-time N.F.L. coaches. Yes. He said they talked about the unexpected twists and turns of a first-year coach. Could he share one such moment? He couldn't think of just one. Couldn't come up with anything that stood out. Later, someone asked how he would feel about a player who went on the radio and blasted the organization or about a player who blasted other players. Mangini essentially said that his focus was on the Jets and the Jets' environment. Later, however, he revealed a core part of his coaching philosophy as he singled out Bryan Thomas, Chris Baker and Brad Smith as examples of what he wants to build. ''That's what I'm looking for: selfless play whatever role, figure out how to get to the game, figure out how to make the team win,'' he said. His enthusiasm about those players prompted me to think about some well-known veteran players who seem to be more about self and less about team. Most players start out this way: passion, team first, dedication. Then for some, the gleam is lost, the passion fizzles, the game becomes a job. Why? ''Well, they wouldn't be ending their career here,'' said Mangini, who then mentioned Jets General Manager Mike Tannenbaum and the owner, Woody Johnson. ''We're committed to smart, tough, hard-working, competitive guys that are selfless, guys that football is important to. And that's what we're going to draft. And philosophically, that's what Mike, Mr. Johnson and I believe in and that's the New York Jets.'' Later in the Jets' locker room, as reporters waited for veteran players, I struck up a conversation with Leon Washington, a rookie running back from Florida State. Washington, 24, was a fourth-round draft pick of the Jets. I asked him how he had enjoyed his first couple of months of professional football. Everything was fine, he said. Except that there was more involved with the professional aspect of professional football than he -- or his family and friends -- could have ever imagined. We're around so many veteran players that we sometimes forget that athletes -- like everyone else -- have to learn how to act in their industry. ''A lot of people from the outside don't realize how much of a profession this is,'' Washington said. ''My college turned out a lot of athletes for the National Football League, but I had a little tough time adjusting to handling myself as a professional. I mean, just some of the simple things that we do out in practice -- as far as catching punts -- trying to catch every punt. Sometime in college, you make a bad play, Coach might say something to you and just kind of brush it off. But here, they'll drill it in your head that you can't make that mistake anymore.'' This is the snapshot of a moment in the life of a young N.F.L. coach and a young N.F.L. player making his way in his first N.F.L. season. ''This is the N.F.L.,'' Washington said. ''People see guys out there playing and they see us having fun and dancing in the game, but they don't realize how much professionalism it takes to come into the league. I try to emphasize this to my family. ''They don't realize: I come in and work. You go to work from 9 to 5, or 7 to 3. I come to work from 7 to 6, I got an hour lunch break before I go back to work. So, it's the same exact thing. I wish more people knew about it that way.'' Far too many athletes who should know better see professional sports as mostly fun and games, the Promised Land, a fantasy rather than a profession that requires study, sacrifice, dedication, discretion and discernment. Washington played for Bobby Bowden at Florida State. Bowden, 76, has been the Seminoles' coach for more than 30 years. ''He can be relaxed now that he's in his later stages and because he's seen it all,'' Washington said. ''But then again, that's college. Accountability's a lot different from college to the National Football League. ''I wasn't used to Bobby Bowden standing on top of me all the time. But now I got a head coach on top of me all the time, and honestly, it's made me a better player.'' Eric Mangini is no day at the beach for the news media. He offers no colorful quotes or dramatic speeches. But he just may be the coach to pull this franchise from the flames and teach a young pro like Leon Washington how to become an old pro who stays inspired. URL: http://www.nytimes.com GRAPHIC: Photo: Jets Coach Eric Mangini shares little information with the news media, but it seems that his players are receiving his message loud and clear. (Photo by Suzy Allman for The New York Times) LOAD-DATE: October 17, 2006
This was a very good article by Karen Crouse. The Times has changed its tune about Mangini, as many people have. Karen is a good writer and I listen to Mangini's pressers everyday and I hear her asking excellent questions.
