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New Jersey – As you know, the Arizona Cardinals are without their top two quarterbacks – Carson Palmer and Drew Stanton. Palmer is out for the year. It’s possible Stanton, who has an MCL injury, could be back for the playoffs.
So they’ve had to play Ryan Lindley the last couple of weeks.
You might remember Lindley from the Jets 7-6 win over Arizona in 2012. He was beyond terrible in that game. In his defense, he was a sixth round rookie who was over-his-head.
Last week, he played very poorly in a Cardinals loss to Seattle (most quarterbacks struggle against that defense).
So earlier this week, Bruce Arians announced that Virginia Tech rookie Logan Thomas would start the Cardinals’ season finale against San Francisco.
But today it came out that Arians is going back to Lindley.
Thomas didn’t practice well. He wasn’t displaying a good enough grasp of the offense.
Arians is awesome. He totally gets it.
Why am I writing about Arians here in the Jets premium section? For two reasons.
First of all, it shows what a poor job teams often do vetting head coaching candidates.
This guy was sitting out there for years, as a quality NFL assistant, with Pittsburgh, Kansas City, New Orleans, Cleveland and Indianapolis, and I don’t think he got nibble.
The only reason he was able to land the Arizona Cardinals job was because in 2012, he took over the Colts as interim coach, after Chuck Pagano had to take a leave of absence for medical reasons, and Arians did a great job.
Arians signed a four-year deal to coach the Cardinals in January 17, 2013.
And he’s done a wonderful job.
He’s a great motivator, strategist, the whole-kitten caboodle.
So this is a teachable moment for the Jets, or any other NFL team that might be looking for a new head coach.
Look beyond the hyped candidates. There are a lot of quality coaches (and GM) candidates who might be under the radar, perhaps because they don’t have agents with surrogates in the media pushing their clients.
Here is the other angle related to the Jets.
Too often we have seen in recent years – loyalty to the point of defiance.
No matter how certain players played, they just kept rolling with them, even if they weren’t ready to play, or weren’t sure of their assignments (rookies Dee Milliner and Calvin Pryor are two good examples)
This has to stop.
If the Jets make a coaching change, they need to find a guy who is going to be all about accountability.
What Arians did was awesome.
How many guys would make a QB decision, and then late in the week change his mind because the kid’s grasp isn’t up to his liking.
Not many.
“Rex would have done nothing if it were Geno Smith,” tweeted Jets fan Todd Hoven.
You can’t worry about the media reaction
You can’t worry about the player reaction.
You can’t worry about hurting people’s feelings.
Always do what is expedient.
Rex is a great guy, but too often it seems he wants to be loved too much.
This is humiliating for Logan Thomas.
But you know what, this isn’t about Logan Thomas, it’s about the Arizona Cardinals.
If the Jets make a coaching change, they need to bring in a coach with this kind of mindset.
December 25, 2014
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