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Look, I’m not going start heaping praise on the Jets’ new offensive coordinator based on one practice, but do I want to make a couple of points . . .
The guy set the right tone on Tuesday, the tone being there is a new sheriff in town.
I know we have been down this “new sheriff in town” road before with Jets’ offensive coordinators, so a lot of you are going to take this terminology regarding Morton with a grain of salt.
And I know it’s early.
But I will say this. I can’t recall any offensive coordinator, in over 20 years I’ve covered the Jets, who was as vocal, and blunt, as Morton was on Tuesday.
I told you what he said to a young player on Tuesday – “You put your helmet on, and you forget how to think.”
Now in the day-and-age of participation trophies, this might make some uncomfortable, but let me ask y’all this –
“Do you think that player buried his head in his playbook after this?” I would think so.
Heck, Morton even yelled at Eric Decker.
To me, that passes the “yelling test.”
It’s easy to yell at late draft picks and undrafted free agents. But when you yell at entrenched veterans, that is impressive.
Aside from being a pretty good coach, in my opinion, Bill O’Brien’s greatest resume enhancer was when he was a Patriots assistant and actually yelled at Tom Brady. I found that so cool and impressive. Any QB with the backbone to yell at the perhaps the greatest QB of all time, has unique self-confidence and leadership skills.
And Morton wasn’t just yelling at people to make noise and impress his new bosses or the media throng on the sideline. It wasn’t just window-dressing yelling, but constant teaching within the loud noise.
He kept emphasizing to the players, and then the media in his press conference, that the Jets needs to be very focused on staying away from turnovers, pointing out that teams when 82 percent of their games when they win the turnover battle.
So he was hammering the receivers non-stop about ball security, repeating early and often – “high and tight and elbow locked,” in regards to what you do after a catch.
By the way, he was yelling at undrafted free agent Gabe Marks quite a bit. This is actually a good sign for Marks. Coaches generally don’t spend a lot of time yelling at guys they don’t think have what it takes to help his team.
Once again, I’m not going to put Morton in Canton just yet as an offensive coordinator, but I think the Jets nailed this one.
The guy has worked under some of the best offensive minds of the modern era – Jon Gruden, Jim Harbaugh and Sean Payton. That is quite a troika.
So he’s smart, tough, and a grinder (a 16-hour-a-day game plan preparer).
This guy gets it, and he’s been waiting a long time for this opportunity. He was a position coach, mainly handling receivers, for a long time, and he has no intent on blowing it.
May 24, 2017
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