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If Jets coach Todd Bowles and GM Mike Maccagnan don’t realize this is a problem, they are mistaken and perhaps need to reevaluate . . .
Brandon Marshall just won’t stop talking. Quote after quote. Headline after headline.
“I think last year the whole Fitz situation took a lot out of me,” said Marshall, who is at the Super Bowl working as the official social media correspondent for AT&T’s Audience Sports. “I think that was something that made me realize I need to focus on myself and football. I need to do my job. My job is to be a wide receiver. Going into this offseason, that’s all I want to do is be a football player. I’m getting out of the front office department.”
Exactly. He needs to focus on himself and football. His job is to a be a wide receiver.”
Right his job isn’t to be a GM and his job isn’t to be Stephen A. Smith, either.
If the Jets’ brass doesn’t realize that they need to get this guy to pull back, then you have to wonder about them and their vision.
Such a big part of football is football culture.
And Marshall isn’t great for the Jets’ football culture right now.
Every few days he seems to make news. He one of the biggest news-makers this week during Super Bowl Week. The Jets got nowhere near this Super Bowl. They had an awful season. But he’s still center stage.
“Last year was a down year for several reasons,” Marshall said on ESPN, “I’m not even in the top 30 (right now). I had 700-and-something yards. But this year, I promise you, I’ll be in the top five.”
I will get into the problem with all this talk in a minute, but first I want to say something about this quote.
Receiver stats don’t matter. The Jets don’t need Marshall to be in the top five. They need to win. It’s rare that a New England receiver leads the NFL in catches. The Patriots run an egalitarian offense. Tom Brady consistently spreads it around – always looking for the weakness in the defense, and then going there, no matter who the receiver is. It’s usually based on pre-snap reads.
I heard an interesting stat today. In the six games when Atlanta’s Julio Jones was somewhat taken out the game, they were 6-0. Matt Ryan is taking advantage of the attention Jones receives, and throws to other guys like to Travis Benjamin, Mo Sanu or one of the tight ends.
So no, the Jets don’t need Marshall to be in the top five. They need to win games. Stats mean very little. Football is the ultimate team sport.
Marshall has become “The King of All Media II.” Showtime, AT&T and so forth.
The quotes just keep on company.
“I think last year the whole Fitz situation took a lot out of me,” Marshall said earlier.
Who cares?
I’m telling you, all this talk from Marshall is bad for the Jets culture, and a distraction.
Have you heard any of the interviews from the New England Patriots this week?
I heard a bunch of them. They say nothing – over and over and over again. No bulletin board material, no money quotes, no nothing.
“I’m so sick and tired of everyone talking about Coach Belichick. Yes, he is great,” Marshall said on Showtime. “The reason why I’m so sick and tired of everyone talking about Coach Belichick is because they think he does everything and he’s the only one in the building that’s working. They have a defensive coordinator by the name of Matt Patricia in New England, who’s awesome. He has the best third-down defense, and it’s not because of statistics. It’s because of the creativity.”
Good idea. Take a shot at Belichick. You think he will forget this next year.
If Todd Bowles and Mike Maccagnan don’t see that all this talk from Marshall, non-stop, is bad for the Jets culture, they are wrong.
It’s time for Bowles and Maccagnan to do something about this, whether it’s releasing Marshall or sitting him down, and say, “You can come back, but no Showtime, and stop trying to win media awards with your great quotes. You need to be all about football 100 percent of the time, or we are going to move on.”
February 1, 2017
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