When Jeff Ulbrich was introduced to the media on Monday as Atlanta Falcons defensive coordinator, he admitted to learning a valuable lesson as Jets interim head coach this past season.
“I learned even more than I knew the value of truth-tellers on your staff,” Ulbrich said. “There’s certain things that need to be told to the head coach that are occurring because a lot of times what I found in that interim role was, although it was interim, it was like I felt the shift in the way people talked to me and treated me and what they said to me and the lack of truth sometimes was really detrimental, you know?”
A “lack of truth” was a problem during Ulbrich’s stint as head coach and before that with the previous head coach.
And this manifested itself with certain personnel decisions on game day, where the former staff seemingly ignored the film, and kept rolling with certain players who were not helping the team – going with feelings instead of facts.
An example was using a 236-pound defensive end on the goalline defense. Who does that?
It’s like coaches weren’t being honest with each other and coaches weren’t being honest with the personnel department, perhaps not to hurt feelings or ruffle feathers.
It was weird.
That probably won’t be an issue with new Jets coach Aaron Glenn, a pretty straight-shooter.
But if you don’t learn from the past, you are doomed to repeat it.
All coaches and personnel people need to be “truth-tellers” when dealing with player personnel decisions/schemes that aren’t working moving forward and make the requisite changes.
Putting lipstick on a pig doesn’t lead to a lot of winning.
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