NOW’S TIME TO FLUSH BOWLES
Jets should get rid of Todd after sorry season
Two seasons is not a lot of time, but it’s more than enough to come to this conclusion: The Jets need to fire Todd Bowles.
Why give him a third year when 28 games into his head coaching career he has proven he’s not the right man to end the Jets’ nearly half-century Super Bowl drought? No need to make a bad situation even worse. This is a multi-billion dollar business and you can’t give away seasons.
Nice man, good defen- sive coordinator in Arizona, over-his-head head coach in New York. Time again for another change. Is Bowles worried the 3-9 record, which could be on the way to 3-13, will get him fired? “No,” he said. He should be worried. Does he think his job is in jeopardy? “You know your job is in jeopardy when you take one of these jobs,” he said.
Bowles’ game management skills put the Jets at a competitive disadvantage nearly every week. I don’t see him growing into this job.
He has divorced himself from the offense, the downfall in the six years of Rex Ryan. Bowles has no feel how to handle his quarterbacks – he decided before Monday night’s humiliating 41-10 loss to the Colts that Bryce Petty would start the final four games of the season even if Ryan Fitzpatrick beat Indy 45-0.
Naturally, he didn’t have to worry about being second-guessed about switching after a 45-0 victory because these Jets don’t seem capable of winning another game. Instead, he accelerated his QB timetable and put in Petty at the half. Of course, Petty threw two picks.
Mid-game adjustments are just not his thing. He looks lost on the sideline. He rarely shows fire, although he did f-bomb his defensive line in the first half Monday night. Finally, a pulse. “Too many cuss words to mention,” he said.
He sounds comatose at this news conferences and weekly spot on the radio. Is that important? It’s how he communicates to Jets Nation and his lack of passion inspires no confidence. Football teams reflect the personality of their head coach. The Jets don’t have much of a personality.
Bowles said after the game, “For the first time this year, we got our ass handed to us.” Then he said, “I think they kicked our ass. I don’t think we showed a lot of effort,” followed by, “We got our ass handed to us,” and then, “I just know we got our ass kicked.”
He’s got it all figured out. Wellington Mara used to say he could handle Giants fans booing, but it was the apathy represented by empty seats that would signal the right time to make a change. The crowd at Met Life Stadium on Monday night was announced as 78,160. It appeared to be an invitationonly audience with only about 40,000-45,000 actually using their tickets.
Huge pockets of empty seats were all over. Upper deck seats were selling for $5 – that’s $5 – on the secondary market Monday. Jets owner Woody Johnson entertained vice president- elect Mike Pence, the governor of Indiana, in his suite. It had to be humiliating for Johnson that his team played its worst game of the season against Pence’s team and the Jets fans showed their disgust by not even bothering to show up. Johnson is reportedly under consideration to become the ambassador to Great Britain. The job would certainly require him spending a majority of his time out of the country. It might be in the best interest of his health if he spent football seasons abroad. The farther away he is from this slop, the better off he will be. The Jets not only stink, as their 3-9 record solidly attests, they give no effort. Muhammad Wilkerson fought for years for a big contract, finally got one, and has mailed in the season. Darrelle Revis has taken early retirement on game days. The Jets desperately tried to dump Sheldon Richardson at the trade deadline. These were supposed to be foundation players. Bowles couldn’t get any of them to play. In the third quarter, two knucklehead shirtless fans ran on the field. The state trooper who took down one fan and the security guard who took down the other showed better tackling form and more desire and passion than the Jets defense, which was carved up by Andrew Luck, just three days out of concussion protocol.
Bowles put together a 10-6 record in his rookie season taking over a 4-12 team from Ryan. He benefited from a career year by Ryan Fitzpatrick and an easy schedule.
All the Jets had to do to make the playoffs was beat a dysfunctional team coached by Ryan in the final game in Buffalo. The Bills had their bags packed, but Bowles didn’t have the Jets ready to play. Fitzpatrick threw away the playoffs with interceptions on the final three possessions of the season.
As a result, the Jets had no momentum to carry into this season when their schedule early-on was brutal.
Bowles, like every Jets coach before him for the last 40 years, has been handcuffed by not having a franchise quarterback. He compounded the problem by handing his offense to Chan Gailey, an old-school coach in a hightech offensive era. Bowles did not put together a great staff.
Johnson decided on Bowles and then picked GM Mike Maccagnan. He didn’t learn from his mistake of forcing John Idzik to inherit Ryan.
Maccagnan gave his approval to Bowles. He really had no choice. He wanted this job and nobody else was hiring Maccagnan as a GM. Maccagnan can’t find a QB. He picked Petty in the fourth round in 2015 and Christian Hackenberg in the second round this year. Petty isn’t good enough and Hackenberg can’t get a uniform on game day.
The Jets’ last six head coaches have all been from the defensive side. They need an offensive coach in an offensive era. They haven’t hired a head coach with NFL head coaching experience since Bill Parcells in 1997.
Two years is enough for Bowles, and once again, it’s time for the Jets to start over.