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By most accounts, the two leading candidates to land the Jets GM job are John Idzik and Omar Khan. Let’s take a closer look at the two men.
It’s pretty interesting that the two leaders in the clubhouse are salary cap gurus.
When you read Idzik’s bio – you have to be impressed.
“John Idzik begins his sixth season with the Seahawks after joining the club on February 16, 2007. With Seattle, Idzik oversees player negotiations, the team’s compliance with the NFL salary cap, player personnel transactions, all football operations budgets, staff and team contracts, team travel and most aspects of the day-to-day football operations while also remaining active in player evaluations. In addition, he serves as the club’s primary liaison to the NFL Office and represents the club at League meetings.”
The man is a jack-of-all trades.
As for Khan, he is considered a math genius and cap guru. When you look at the directory of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ personnel department, he is listed second. He is second in command to GM Kevin Colbert.
If Khan doesn’t get the Jets’ job, he will land a GM job eventually. He’s only 35, and he’s held in high regard around the NFL.
But there is one thing we have to remember.
While it’s easy to stigmatize somebody as “a cap guy,” we have to remember, guys like Idnik and Khan are in the personnel meetings for their respective teams.
It’s not like they sit in their office all day crunching numbers, out of touch with the player evaluations.
They know a lot about player personnel.
And if one of them gets the Jets’ job, there will be a director of college scouting, and the other myriad scouting support people you generally have if an NFL front office.
So it’s not like Idzik and Khan will be sitting on an island making decisions willy nilly.
But it’s pretty interesting that the two leading candidates for the Jets GM job are, first and foremost, cap gurus.
And they would be replacing a guy, who made his name as a cap guy.
However, while Mike Tannenbaum has a good history of good cap management, he kind of lost his way the last couple of years.
I’m not sure what happened, but he lost a little bit of his golden touch; with the bizarre extension of Mark Sanchez that guarantees $8.25 million next year, the Santonio Holmes deal for $24.5 million guaranteed, when the Jets were bidding against themselves, and the monster contract for David Harris, a good player, but he’s being paid like a star.
You get the sense that Woody Johnson, and his right hand man, Ira Axelsrad, are tired of wasting money. It’s not a matter of pulling in the purse strings, it’s a matter of not wanting to waste money, and cap space.
So they clearly want a new GM who is going to do a better job on contracts than the Jets have done the last few years.
Headhunter Jed Hughes is very good at his job, and sometimes the guys he recommends for jobs, don’t make perfect sense to the public, but end up working out.
A perfect example is Larry Scott.
The Pac=10 Conference was looking for a new commissioner in 2009. They hired Hughes, and he ended up suggesting Scott for the job.
What was Scott’s previous job – the Chairman and CEO of the WTA (Women’s Tennis Association.)
While people at the time thought it was a strange hire, it’s worked out very well.
Hughes is an out-of-the-box thinker.
We will see what happens the next few days.
But with Hughes leading the search, the Jets are in good hands.
January 16, 2013
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