Jets Shouldn’t Look Backwards For Better Future

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Leave it to the Jets to bring in a familiar old name to help spearhead their search for a new General Manager/Head Coach duo this offseason. For if there is a poster child for moving backwards in the modern age of football, it’s the Jets.

The 33^rd Team, led by former NFL executives Rick Spielman and Mike Tannenbaum, New York’s GM from 2006-2012, has been engaged by Jets owner Woody Johnson to consult during the process. Such services were expected, because Johnson may have 25 years of experience in the league, but he still knows squat about how to run a football operation.

I don’t think The 33^rd Team will pull a Dick Cheney, where the group massages Johnson to land on one of the two partners for the GM job, but I wonder how wide they can cast their net. They’ve already had an oopsie where they had to take down a post on their website showing their list of top candidates to replace fired Jets GM Joe Douglas, claiming the article was written before they were hired. Possibly, but was it also posted before they pitched the Jets? That has yet to be answered.

As for the soon-to-be-vacant HC position, why are people assuming Tannenbaum will lobby for other “blasts” from the past? Rex Ryan, based on his ESPN appearances, clearly wants it, but has all the cacophony from the ensuing disgraces made people forget how his tenure ended? Even with two AFC Championship appearances in six seasons, he accumulated a 46-50 mark in New York thanks to a 4-12 2014 campaign. Afterwards, he actually went on HBO’s “Real Sports” to accuse then GM John Idzik of intentionally sabotaging that team to get him fired. Yeah, right, because that season was such a good look for Idzik’s own job security.

Ryan failed to register a winning record in the next two seasons as Buffalo’s HC and has been out of the coaching business since. Nine NFL seasons away might as well be a century; his old “ground and pound” philosophy would further limit any Jets future ceiling. As Fox Sports NFL analyst Peter Schrager wondered on a recent podcast, who does Ryan know to bring on a theoretical staff? His family? Sounds like a recipe for disaster.

Two other former Jets HCs have been thrown into the ether by the media: Eric Mangini and Pete Carroll. Like Ryan, Mangini is a TV pundit who hasn’t been on an NFL sideline in a decade. He was Tannenbaum’s first HC hire and the duo is credited with putting together the roster that Ryan then took deep into the playoffs. Mangini was portrayed as the victim when Johnson insisted on bringing in aging Packers quarterback Brett Favre, who played through a torn biceps as the Jets collapsed down the stretch of the 2008 season. Sound familiar?

Of course, it’s not like Mangini brought genius to his next stops—he was fired after two miserable seasons as Cleveland’s HC and spent a few nondescript years on San Francisco’s staff before pursuing TV opportunities. The Athletic’s Dianna Russini was really the first to posit a Mangini return, but it seemed like conjecture rather than fact-based reporting.

Even worse was The Athletic’s suggestion for the Jets to give Carroll, who was the oldest NFL HC last season in Seattle, a ring. Carroll’s ties to New York go back to 1990, when he was Bruce Coslet’s Defensive Coordinator before succeeding him in 1994. One 6-10 season later, and he was off to the college ranks until the Seahawks, who invade MetLife Stadium on Sunday, gave him another NFL whirl.

Though Carroll was a Super Bowl champion, I’ll remember his Seattle tenure most for sparking the plea, “Let Russ cook!”, a critique of his conservative ethos that often forced dynamic young QB Russell Wilson to extricate the offense out of horrible third-down situations. Again, a 20^th century mind for a 21^st century game.

While Carroll has been kicked upstairs as an “advisor” in Seattle’s executive suite, at least one name with Jets’ ties that has been bandied about is currently on an NFL sideline: Lions Defensive Coordinator Aaron Glenn, who excelled at cornerback in New York for the first eight seasons of his 15-year pro career. Glenn has worked his way up from lower coaching levels and has been praised for developing the young Lions defense into a top ten unit on an 11-1 club.

Glenn certainly deserves an interview, but can this franchise just once go with a bright young offensive mind instead (Adam Gase doesn’t count, since his “brightness” didn’t extend to how to deal with people)? There are just too many extra challenges that come with hiring a HC with a defensive bent, not the least of which is that any Offensive Coordinator that has success will surely be approached with his own HC opportunity. I know that hasn’t happened here, but that’s because the OC’s under Robert Saleh, Todd Bowles, Ryan, et al did not have success.

I keep reminding you readers that most of the top teams have an offensive play-caller as their HC. You have the odd DC ducks like Buffalo’s Sean McDermott and Houston’s DeMeco Ryans, but I’ll be shocked if one of their OCs isn’t poached this offseason. As a long-suffering Jets fan, give me someone in the mold of Andy Reid (Kansas City), Kevin O’Connell (Minnesota), Matt LaFleur (Green Bay), or Sean Payton (Denver) over another defensively trained HC like the unemployed Mike Vrabel.

There will be several qualified offensive play-callers for The 33^rd Team to check in on during this upcoming hiring cycle. Detroit’s Ben Johnson and Baltimore’s Todd Monken would be atop any team’s list. If they are unattainable, I’ve always liked Joe Brady, currently Buffalo’s OC. Keep an eye out for unexpected firings—for now, Kevin Stefanski appears safe in Cleveland, but they have a tough final six games, so maybe things will change if they finish something like 4-13.

Consultants advise. These hires will be Johnson’s. perhaps his final decisions before jetting off to take on another gig in the Donald Trump Administration. Johnson must think about the probability that the Jets will be turning the page from Aaron Rodgers to a rookie QB sometime in the next two years. If Johnson learned anything, it would be that it pays to have a HC who understands how to develop a young QB instead of a defense guru.

That’s assuming a guy who was quoted as saying, “Thinking is overrated” has the capacity to learn. Is it really too much to ask the Jets to try being forward thinking for a change instead of looking backwards?

Prediction: Seattle 26 Jets 19