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He left them a huge gift.
“I know people outside of this building, they may not see it at this time, but [Adam Gase] did some really good things here that are going to help us moving forward,” Jets GM Joe Douglas said on Tuesday.
Don’t know about “really good things,” but I would say, “really good thing.”
I’m not being flippant. I can’t think of multiple good things he did for the Jets, but I can think of one really good one, and that was getting Douglas in the building. And it was Gase who pulled a coup to get Mike Maccagnan ousted in 2019. Macccagnan is a wonderful man, but gave out some of the most reckless contracts in Jets history. Gase forced him out.
I told Christopher Johnson once, “Getting Joe Douglas was the best hire, GM or coach, that you guys have made.”
Douglas gets it. People hating on him now, I just don’t get it. The Jets are fortunate to have him now heading into an off-season where they need a new coach, QB, and have a ton of draft picks and cap space.
Florham Park wasn’t built in day. Some of Joe’s decisions have been good, and some have been bad (like the Indianapolis 3), but you could say that about any GM. We have plenty of time this off-season to go over his record, but honestly, he inherited a suboptimal situation at coach and QB. Who can win being being suboptimal in the NFL at those two spots? Seriously.
“Obviously, organizations that have long-term success, they’ve gotten the head coach and quarterback right,” Douglas said on Tuesday, not specifically talking about Adam Gase or Sam Darnold, but just in general.
The Jets need to fix those two spots, and Jets fans should be thankful they have a man with Joe’s skillset in the building to do this.
They also need to fix their football culture.
Douglas has talked a ton about culture, including on Tuesday, but you can’t build a strong football culture with the wrong head coach, regardless of who the GM is. The coach has more of an impact on the culture than the GM.
So the building of the culture Douglas wants will start, once he hires the next head coach. The only thing Douglas could do was pick players who he thinks will fit the culture he wants to build, but as far as building a big-time football culture in the locker room and the building, that was basically on hold.
With culture being a top priority with the new coach, the Jets can’t hire one of those hot coordinators, some of the media insiders are pushing, who are good at drawing up plays, but don’t have dynamic personalities.
“If you are going to get somebody who has the best scheme in the world, but is going to hide in his office, and draw up plays all day long, you’ve got the wrong guy,” said one former NFL scout.
Exactly.
That is why I’m bullish on some of these college coaches who have shown they can build a culture – Matt Campbell, Dan Mullen, David Shaw and so forth. These college coaches can learn the nuances of the NFL, but you can’t learn to build a culture if it’s not in your DNA.
Hey, maybe Joe feels there is an NFL assistant coach out there who can build a culture, like Joe Judge seems to be doing with the Giants.
I think an underrated assistant is KC special team’s coach Dave Toub. He must not leak stuff to NFL media insiders, because his name doesn’t come up a lot, but remember, Douglas was in Baltimore when the Ravens hired Eagles special team’s coach John Harbaugh to be their head coach. That has worked out pretty well.
But the bottom line is the Jets need to hire a big-time culture builder as their next head coach.
And they have the most qualified GM they’ve ever had, under the current ownership, to help them do that.
January 6, 2021
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