NEED A LEADER
Bowles to create ‘council’ to help guide Gang Green
The biggest difference for Todd Bowles entering Year 2 as head coach of the Jets comes down to one thing: trust.
After getting to know his players in his first year with the Jets, Bowles now feels he knows who he can lean on in the locker room.
“We’ve come a long way,” Bowles said in an interview with The Post last month. “We have some ways to go, but there’s more trust now because we know each other well. I know the players more and I give them a little more leeway.”
One of the ways he gave them leeway was by allowing music to be played during individual drills during minicamp. The players lobbied for it to be on for the entire practice.
“That’s not going to happen,” the old-school Bowles said with a smile.
Bowles, 52, had a very successful first year with the Jets, leading the team to a 10-6 record after inheriting a squad that went 4-12 in 2014. He dealt with the off-the-field curveballs thrown at him in training camp when Sheldon Richardson’s arrest came to light and IK Enemkpali punched starting quarterback Geno Smith and broke his jaw. Bowles appeared unflappable and showed the leadership skills players at his former teams raved about.
Now, Bowles is ready to hand over some of that leadership. He plans on establishing a “Senior Leadership Council” during training camp. He did not say who will be on the council, but the Jets have some good candidates in Nick Mangold, Brandon Marshall, Eric Decker, Muhammad Wilkerson, David Harris, Darrelle Revis and Marcus Gilchrist.
“We have some senior guys that understand my message now and they’re relaying it a lot more, so you’d like the locker room to take over and that’s what some guys are doing,” Bowles said.
Bowles talked in March at the owners’ meetings about finding leaders. He said he wanted to wait until the entire team was to- gether in training camp before making his choices for the council, which he will meet with weekly.
“I’ve seen quite a bit of leadership, but you want to wait until camp,” Bowles said. “You want to give everyone a fair shake. A lot of things [in the spring] are voluntary and people have appointments and things that I knew about, so I didn’t want to do it this spring. I wanted to do it when everyone is here full time.”
In 2015, Bowles was building the foundation of his program. Now he is ready to build upon that.
Bowles said he strives to remain unpredictable in front of his players. He constantly is trying to keep his message fresh. He said it is not a challenge, though.
“I’m quite a character,” Bowles said with a big laugh, knowing this is the opposite of how he is during his press conferences. “I’m sure if you heard some stories, you would laugh. It’s not hard to keep it fresh. If you have a pulse of your guys, you know when not to be too loud, you know what point needs to be made. It’s a constant give and take.”
The most immediate challenge facing Bowles is the Ryan Fitzpatrick situation. The quarterback’s absence is going to hover over the Jets until the situation is resolved. Bowles fielded a ton of questions in the spring before shutting them down at the end of the team’s minicamp. This week, he will face more Fitzpatrick questions, as will his players. It will be interesting to see the approach Bowles takes.
In June, Bowles was focused on the players who were in the locker room, not the one who was absent. He was asked about the 2016 roster.
“I like it,” Bowles said. “We’re young. We have to get some experience. You can only get experience by playing. We are athletic and we just have to gain some more poise and be smart, but I like our roster.”