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A culture change was absolutely needed. There is no doubt about it. Another case-in-point in the news today.
Yesterday, Chris Johnson ripped the Jets for how he was handled last season.
We shot all kind of holes in his comments yesterday.
You can rip the Jets for many things during last years’s debacle of a campaign, but the handling of Johnson wasn’t one of them.
“Chris Johnson is not lying,” Kellen Winslow wrote on Twitter today. “My role was never explained to me. Wanted to help Geno/Jets as route runner. Politics got in the way – Idzik.”
Once again, it wasn’t Rex, it was John Idzik.
Idzik was the reason Winslow didn’t have more of a role in 2013?
That is ridiculous.
What is going on here is simple. As I pointed out yesterday, it was “good cop, bad cop.
Whatever problems stemmed from the “evil” GM, not the player’s coach.
The “evil” GM was telling Rex what to do – telling how to use players.
That is such nonsense.
Bart Scott used to call the former Jets coach, “Uncle Rex.”
That is apropos.
Most of us have that favorite uncle who is the life of the party, fun to be around, always generous with his time and his gifts.
Uncle Rex.
Another analogy would be when you have two parents, and one is a disciplinarian, and the other is a softy, the child often goes to the softy parent when they want to hear the word “yes” to a request.
You know when I present this “good cop, bad cop” scenario with Rex and Idzik, it’s history repeating itself.
Mike Tannenbaum complained to Rex when he was the GM that he was “tired of being the bad guy,” in player dealings.
Rex always claimed that he and John were on the same page and every decision was a “Jets decision.” That clearly wasn’t the case.
They too often weren’t on the same page.
But instead of taking a passive aggressive approach and pretending he was okay with John’s player personnel game plan, he should have put his foot down more often.
A league source told me Rex wanted to start Mike Vick much earlier, but Idzik wanted Smith to play. I heard this from the source around the San Diego game.
Okay, so what was Idzik going to do if Ryan played Vick? Fire him.
With most NFL teams, aside from a few, the GM picks the players, but the coach decides who plays on game day.
To me, Rex had nothing to lose by playing Vick.
If you coaching for your job in 2014, who are you starting Vick or Geno Smith? I think if you polled every GM and coach in the league, Vick would win in a landslide.
Look what happened in Philly this year. Chip Kelly didn’t like what he was seeing from first round pick Marcus Smith, and hardly played him. Kelly didn’t have final say his first two years (now he does). He wouldn’t play the kid.
Bill Parcells with the Giants and New England limited the P.T. of players who were added he didn’t like, even though he didn’t have final say in the draft with those two teams.
The bottom line is this – it’s best for the GM and head coach to be in lockstep. When there is a philosophical divide, it’s hard to win.
A few years ago Tony Dungy was asked how he got along with GM Bill Polian in Indy since Polian had final say.
“It’s pretty easy when you share a common philosophy of football and a common philosophy about how you want your team to look,” Dungy said.
It’s so important for the Jets moving forward that Mike Maccagan and Todd Bowles are on the same page.
That is why is made so much sense for Woody Johnson to leave them alone for a couple of days, get to know each other, interview each other, before Bowles was hired.
They seem to be on the same page. Time will tell.
Rex and Idzik too often weren’t on the same page, and it hurt the Jets on the field.
February 17, 2014
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