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The game will be played
outside.
Taking about the Cleveland Browns-New York Jets game on Sunday at MetLife Stadium.
But the Jets have practiced inside the last two days.
Because the fields are still covered with snow from last week’s storm.
Some coaches like to take their teams outside in the winter to harden them, especially when they have to play games outside in winter conditions. Bill Belichick and Bill Parcells come to mind.
Kind of a culture thing. This is football, not checkers. Weather is often a factor.
The New York Giants have been praticing outside this week in New Jersey. They travel to Baltimore to play the Ravens this week.
Joe Judge is doing a nice job building a strong football culture in East Rutherford.
Adam Gase is the quintessential player’s coach. Players like playing for him. He’s not a hard ass with them.
Gase might get fired after this season. I say “might” because you never know what might happen in they win the last two. I mentioned the Rex Ryan being retained in 2013, after beating Miami in the season finale.
But if the Jets do fire him, they need to hire a big-time culture builder.
Joe Douglas knows culture is a huge part of winning in sports.
“The plan is to create the best culture in sports,” said Douglas, when he was introduced as Jets GM in June of 2019. “Every great team has that culture. It’s gonna take people with the right level of commitment, character and competence.”
If the Jets fire Gase, they need to hire a great culture builder to team with Douglas. While he said he wanted to build a strong culture when he was introduced, he inherited a coach, and he’s not empowered to tell him “boo” about how he coaches the team. That is not how the Jets are structured. The coach coaches the team and the GM picks the players.
And let me make something clear here after running that Douglas quote about culture. He never has said anything negative about Gase, regarding culture building or anything else. So I want to make it clear that I’m not implying that Douglas has questioned Gase as a culture guy.
Joe has stayed in his lane, farmed his own land, whatever cliche you want to use.
But while Douglas hasn’t said anything, and has always taken the high road in relation to the struggles of his coach, it’s pretty clear, the Jets need to team him up with an elite coach/program builder.
And he should probably lead the search for that guy, sans people from the team’s business side.
The Jets’ last two games are outside, in the winter, against Cleveland at home, and then at New England.
Not sure exactly what happened here in terms of the fields, so I don’t want to be too judgmental, but all I know is the Giants, who play and practice in the same state, are practicing outside this week.
Culture, culture, culture.
December 24, 2020
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