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There are things that impact it you might not think of.
Jets GM Joe Douglas was asked recently about how you build a strong football culture
“I’d say it starts at the top and I think when you have a head coach that brings the energy, the juice, the genuine love of the game that Coach Saleh brings, his communication abilities and then with his staff of teachers, high energy teachers,” Douglas said.
And Douglas also feels it’s about bringing in the “right type of [players].”
“I feel like our personnel staff has done a great job pinpointing the right types of competitors, right type of football character to bring in here and mix with our coaching staff based on the criteria that we have in terms of what we are looking for,” Douglss said. “After that, you try to get as many good people in the building as you can and good things are going to start to happen and I feel like we are progressing there.”
And of course the GM and head coach need to be in lockstep with their vision.
“I think it starts with the alignment of the vision and the culture that both Joe (Douglas) and Robert (Saleh) have and the type of profiles that they want on Robert’s coaching staff and what Joe wants in our player personnel staff, the type of people we want, the great teammates that we want to have within those two groups and then it spills over into the locker room,” said Jets assistant GM Rex Hogan.
All good points, but it can’t just be about bringing in the right players and coaches, and the GM and head coach being aligned. Those are important things, but it goes deeper than that.
You need everyone in the building on board, not just the football side.
And with that being said, you must not let people outside the football department overhype young players, “put them in Canton,” as Bill Parcells used to say.
This is so important.
Heck of a prospect, but things might be going a little too fast right now on the Sauce Gardner hype before he’s played a real game..
If a team’s football brass talks about taking it slow with rookies and how they have a lot to learn, but then the social media or marketing department are hyping the heck out of rookies before they’ve done anything, that isn’t ideal.
You all need to be singing from the same hymn sheet.
Zach Wilson had a rough rookie season, but while that was going on, people were promoting him for the NFL Pepsi Zero Sugar Rookie of the Week award (fans vote) and then after he won, he was asked to pose with the belt, which he won three times, like after the Jets lost to the Philadelphia Eagles. Another time Wilson won the award, he threw for a nondescript 102 yards in a win over Jacksonville.
Hyping a rookie QB winning a somewhat meaningless award like this, and having the rookie pose with a belt after a loss, while he’s struggling quite a bit on the field, trying to learn the whys and the wherefores of being an NFL QB, is not good for a football culture.