GETTIN’ HOT IN HERE
Bowles under fire, but says focus on next game
Welcome to the hot seat, Todd Bowles.
The Jets head coach’s job status is topic No. 1 in New York City after his team’s no-show on Monday night against the Colts. The 41-10 debacle in front of a lot of empty seats at MetLife Stadium and Vice President-elect Mike Pence has fans and media calling for Bowles to be fired after just two years with the team.
Bowles said his focus is on Sunday’s game with the 49ers, not his job status.
“I believe I’m going to coach and try to beat the 49ers this week,” Bowles said on a conference call with reporters. “When I signed the contract, I knew what my job status was, and I’m not worried about that. I’m going to do the same thing and keep grinding like I always do.”
Bowles is 13-15 as coach of the Jets, hardly a terrible record. But this season has been a terrible disappointment. The Jets entered the year with playoff hopes after going 10-6 in his first year. At 3-9, they officially were eliminated from playoff contention Monday night.
Jets owner Woody Johnson decl i ned to comment when approached by The Post after Monday’s game other than saying, “I’ll talk to you later.” Johnson was clearly upset and was leaving the building rather than going to the locker room where he often greets players after wins and losses.
Bowles said he spoke to Johnson on Tuesday.
“We talk every week like we always do,” Bowles said.
Bowles was asked if Johnson is upset.
“Everybody in the building is upset,” Bowles said.
Bowles said he and Johnson did not discuss his job status at all.
It still seems unlikely Bowles will get fired after just two years and following a 10-6 debut. But the optics of Monday night — the empty seats, the lack of effort in the first half — have increased the odds Bowles could be fired. No Jets coach has been fired after only two years since Rich Kotite in 1996.
Monday night was the worst loss of the season. The Jets looked uninterested, undisciplined and unprepared. Bowles sai d he believes he still has control over the locker room.
“I don’t believe I ever lost it,” he said. “It’s been the same for me. We had a bad game. We had a terrible game. That’s without question. You have every right to think that. But I know what we have in this locker room, I know what we have in this building so I’m okay with that.”
Bowles will now turn to secondyear quarterback Bryce Petty to start the final four games, hoping to get a better read on the quarterback situation for 2017. It is a move for which fans have been begging for weeks. Bowles said he decided 2-3 weeks ago that he would give Petty the final four games of the season to show what he can do.
It won’t matter who is at quarterback, though, if the Jets play like they did against the Colts. Despite questioning their effort after the game, Bowles changed his mind about that after watching the film on Tuesday.
“Actually, I thought the effort was a lot better, but I thought we made some bonehead mistakes that cost us,” Bowles said. Such as? “[There] are probably too many to mention, because there was a lot of people that made them, whether it was offense or defense or on special teams,” Bowles said. “We had busts that we normally don’t have, and there were certain things that we didn’t execute. We didn’t execute at all.”
Bowles said he will talk to his coaching staff about lineup changes beyond the quarterback. After the game, Bowles said he wanted to find players who wanted to play. But that stance seemed to soften Tuesday.
“We got effort,” he said. “We just didn’t play with much intelligence last night. You address it, I address it, it is what it is. When you get in this business, you coach for your job and you play for you job every day — win, lose or draw. That’s no different now.”
“When I signed the contract, I knew what my job status was, and I’m not worried about that. I’m going to do the same thing and keep grinding like I always do.” — Todd Bowles