TODD BLESSED!
Despite shameful loss to Bills, seems like Bowles is safe for rest of Jets season:
Woody and Christopher Johnson made a shrewd and smart decision Monday to refuse to give into an angry mob looking for a pound of flesh.
The Daily News first reported that embattled Jets head coach Todd Bowles is expected to stick around for the rest of this disappointing season.
Ownership will evaluate everything by season’s end as it intended all along. Although it’s tempting to give into emotion and impulse, the Johnson brothers have chosen the proper path given all the dynamics at play.
There are myriad reasons why I don’t think it make sense to fire Bowles with six games left.
First things first: The fans don’t run this organization.
Rightly or wrongly, there’s a feeling in league circles that Jets ownership has been too swayed by frustrated – and sometimes illogical — fans in the past. General managers, front-office executives, coaches, players, agents, head coaching candidates and general manager candidates have told me through the years that that perception has shaped their opinion of the organization.
Christopher Johnson has helped bring a rationale and measured edge to the franchise in the past year and a half. It’s naïve to believe that Woody Johnson, serving as the UK Ambassador for the Trump Administration, isn’t in the loop for major decisions, but his brother has taken a decidedly mature approach on big-picture decisions.
You don’t need to be a mind reader to know that everyone is frustrated over the current state of affairs on One Jets Drive. There are culprits far and wide that got this team to 3-7 entering the bye week.
Bowles, who signed an extension last December through 2020, hasn’t been good enough. General manager Mike Maccagnan, who signed an extension last December through 2020, hasn’t been good enough. The rest of the coaches haven’t been good enough. The players haven’t been good enough.
It’s unfair to blame one person, because it takes far more than one person to induce this kind of headache. But the head coach is ultimately responsible for the product on the field. It’s not necessarily fair, but this is a cut-throat business where fairness ranks 101st on the Top 100 List of things that matter.
Do the Jets need talent upgrades at about seven different starting positions? Yes.
Did Maccagnan whiff on way too many premium-round picks (first three rounds)? Yes.
Has Maccagnan distin-
guished himself as a scout who can unearth late-round gems in the draft? No.
Will any of that ultimately help Bowles’ case on Black Monday? No.
The Johnsons have not fired a head coach in-season since Woody bought the team in 2000. There’s a ripple effect that will do more harm than good if they did it this time.
Fans out for blood don’t understand or care about the deleterious ramifications that an in-season firing will have on this team for the final seven weeks.
“It’s not my first rodeo,” Bowles said about the booing and venom from fans at MetLife Stadium on Sunday. “When you win games. People cheer. When you lose games, people boo. I get it. It’s part of sports.”
Those fans want Bowles out right now, but what would that actually accomplish?
Getting rid of him during the bye week would be nothing more than a public relations move that would satiate fans, who aren’t exactly going to be energized by the interim head coach for the final six games anyway.
I’m sure there were a litany of factors that were considered before keeping Bowles.
Firing him now could adversely affect this young team and create unneeded chaos.
Team leaders repeated their belief in Bowles after Sunday’s embarrassing 41-10 loss to the Bills. It’s fair to think that players will try to rally around Bowles after the bye week and down the stretch.
One source told me that “it’s a foregone conclusion” that Bowles will not be coaching the team in 2019, but something good could be salvaged by the players with a strong finish. Pulling the plug on Bowles now might prompt the younger players that believe in their head coach to shut it down.
There’s also no good reason to create additional in-season disruption for Sam Darnold. One of the primary goals for this season was to help cultivate Darnold’s prodigious talent. So, getting rid of offensive coordinator Jeremy Bates would affect Darnold in the wrong way. Remember: Bates is also the quarterbacks coach.
Bowles admitted Monday that he will be “reevaluating everything as the days go by,” including staff and/or playcaller changes. Bowles is the primary defensive play-caller, so moving on from him would inevitably make the defense worse.
Another reason why keeping Bowles the rest of the way made sense: There’s not a slamdunk interim replacement. There is nobody on the staff with prior NFL head coaching experience. Wide receivers coach Karl Dorrell (college head coaching experience) and offensive line coach/run-game coordinator Rick Dennison (offensive coordinator four different times) would have been the two top options.
In some ways, Bowles got a raw deal given that he hasn’t exactly been stocked with talent on his roster.
There are swings and misses all over Maccagnan’s drafts. Some of that is a product of the GM’s poor evaluations. Some of that is the GM giving in to the coaches’ preferences.
The bottom line: The Jets brought in players who were ultimately cut and couldn’t even stick on other teams’ rosters (see: Christian Hackenberg, Devin Smith, Lorenzo Mauldin, ArDarius Stewart, Chad Hansen, etc).
In other ways, there’s no excuse for not being competitive against one of the most horrific offenses of this generation on Sunday.
Rational people knew the Jets would experience growing pains with a 21-year-old rookie quarterback, but the team’s inconsistency has been maddening. Bowles had a 16-year veteran quarterback on Sunday, but the offense still stunk.
And his defense got embarrassed by Matt Freakin’ Barkley. Something different seems to crop up virtually every week.
The weekly preparation has been solid, but the inability to adjust to new wrinkles from opponents on gamedays has been a fair and legitimate criticism.
Everyone shares the blame for what has happened this season, but everyone isn’t getting fired.
Christopher Johnson has repeatedly said that he will evaluate the team’s progress by development of the younger players rather than the team’s record. He’s been patient and fair at a time when his paying customers wanted him to give into impulse. He wisely did not.
Seven more weeks remain in his evaluation. Bowles’ fate seems inevitable, but pulling the plug now never made sense.