Content available exclusively for subscribers
In the first installment of a new feature called, “News to me,” Dan takes a look at something that happened today in another city, with another team, that points back to a mistake Rex Ryan made a little over a year ago, that probably had a negative impact on last season.
It came out today that Bill Callahan will call the offensive plays for the Dallas Cowboys this season, taking over from head coach Jason Garrett.
“I’m flattered, I’m honored and just do the best job for our fans and our team,” Callahan said.
So what does this have to do with the Jets?
Well a year ago, Rex Ryan made a very poor decision, that seemed to have a negative impact on the 2012 Jets season.
He, Woody Johnson and Mike Tannenbaum moved on from Brian Schottenheimer to throw a bone to the fans, and hired Tony Sparano to take his place.
I’m not going to be a hypocrite. I had good things to say about the Sparano hire at the time. I thought he’d install a simple Bill Parcells-type offense with a lot of running, very simple QB reads (like we saw in 1998 when Vinny Testarverde had a magical season, and the Jets went to the AFC Championship Game), and this would be good for Mark Sanchez.
Boy, was I wrong.
But more importantly, Rex was wrong.
That move seemed to be driven by the Jimmy Sexton cabal. The super-agent, at the time, had Brian Schottenheimer, Tony Sparano and Rex Ryan.
Also, Bill Parcells is a Jimmy Sexton client.
Mike Tannenbaum is very close with Parcells, and “The Big Tuna” is a mentor to Tannenbaum.
So in turn, Tannenbaum always had a close relationship with Sexton (why do you think he gave Aaron Glenn a scouting job after he retired a Houston Texan – JIMMY SEXTON).
In retrospect, hiring Sparano was a huge mistake. You can point to the weapons, Mark Sanchez, or whatever, but Tony really didn’t do a good job.
His lack of experience calling plays showed.
While Rex is no offensive guru, he could see, during the season, he had made a big mistake hiring Sparano.
From what I hear, the two had a shouting match in the locker room after one game.
The bottom line is simple – Rex should have handed the keys of the offense to Callahan last January.
Callahan was the Jets’ offensive line coach for four seasons, from 2008-2011
While the line had issues, especially a right tackle, during his last year, for the most part, he did a very solid job.
Callahan is extremely bright, and a very good offensive play-caller.
When he was the head coach of Oakland in 2002-03, he also called the offensive plays that season, and the Raiders led the NFL in passing for the first time in team history and led the league in total offense for just the second time in team history.
If Rex had just promoted Callahan, a terrific offensive strategist, the 2012 Jets season, might have worked out a lot better for the Jets.
Callahan is light years ahead of Sparano as a play-caller.
June 4, 2013
Premium will return by 9:30 pm on Wednesday.