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Newark – Jets GM Mike Maccagnan is starting to put together his staff, and the Jets’ fans should feel very good about his ability to handle this in a pragmatic fashion.
Expect an excellent scouting staff from Mike Maccagnan.
He’s been on the road for about a quarter century scouting players, and has been “scouting the scouts.”
He can separate the wheat from the chaff.
He has seen these guys in action on the college campuses all across the country.
He knows who asks good questions and bad ones.
He knows who pays close attention at college practices, and who makes these practices a social event.
He knows who asks good question when talking to the college coaches and college liasons.
So when he jumped on Rex Hogan to be his director of college scouting, this wasn’t a stab in the dark.
He has seen the guy in action over and over.
Hogan has been a college scout with the Chicago Bears since 2003. He was promoted to national scout in 2012.
The Jets are poised to have a heck of a draft this year?
Why?
Well aside from Maccagnan having a very good eye for talent, he’s basically bringing the Houston Texans’ scouting information with him.
Maccagan was overseeing a scouting department in Houston that as preparing for the 2015 draft from May-January.
A lot of information has been compiled already.
So he is able to bring that information with him to the Jets.
Now he’s getting a lot of Chicago info compiled from May-January with Hogan coming on board.
And on top of that, while the Jets did move on from scouting executives Terry Bradway and Jeff Bauer, they did keep all the scouts, which is commonplace when a new GM comes in.
A new GM doesn’t want to throw all the work down the drain. So new GM’s generally keep the scouts, and then make changes after the draft. The new GM will be scouting the Jets’ scouts.
Maccaganan will spend the next three months working with the scouts, and seeing who he likes and doesn’t like.
The Jets’ scouting department should improve a great deal with Maccagan’s feel for who the good scouts are across the league.
John Idzik and Mike Tannenbaum weren’t out there as road scouts, going from the campus to campus, for a quarter century, like Maccaganan.
They don’t know the lay of the land of the scouting community like Maccagnan.
And there was a little bit too much cronyism in the Jets’ scouting department.
Did you know that Bauer was a high school football coach in Kansas City who coached Terry’s son? Then he became a Jets scout and eventually the college scouting director.
A scout fired last year, who recommended Titus Young (who has been in-and-out of mental hospitals unfortunately), was hired because he was Herm Edwards’ best friend.
Jets need to upgrade their scouting department in order to improve the quality of their drafts.
And it looks like Maccagan will do just that.
January 26, 2015
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