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“Robert is the right coach because he is the right man for the job. I love his energy, he is the right man for this job, I have zero doubts about that,” Douglas said., “I love Robert and his staff, they do a phenomenal job and I love their energy and I have talked to you guys about how I love how they teach and their ability to connect, but ultimately I need to do better for them.”
As we have mentioned before, with all due respect, “phenomenal” might be a little strong. He is at 18–33 (.353) as the Jets coach. So that work might be a little too powerful.
But you get the sense Joe just wants to handle the player stuff and leave Robert alone.
However, here in lies a slight problem in post-season evaluations.
Let’s say there are some changes needed to how the team is coached, do you think Joe is going to tell that that Robert?
When you have a head coach and GM who are basically equal, and both report to the owner, it’s hard for the head coach to critique the GM to the owner, and vice-versa. It would almost be back-stabbing.
And if they both report to the owner, and things need to change, and the owner is a businessman, not x’s and o’s guy, who will tell the GM or head coach specific things taht need to change, from a football standpoint?
You can say, “We need to win more games” and that is true, but it’s hard to get to the root of some of the problems, if the GM isn’t going to tell the coach what to do, and the coach isn’t going to tell the GM what to do.
That was kind of what Pete Carroll was talking about.
You are meeting about things with business people, and they are looking at football with a different worldview.
It would almost be helpful if Woody had a right-hand man, who was a football guru, and could lay out fundamental football issues that need to be fixed.
This is why I’ve never been entirely comfortable with the GM and head coach staying in their lanes, and both reporting to the owner.
Who, over the coach and GM, going to get into the weeds on the football minutia that needs to change?
January 15, 2023
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