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The fascinating world that is the New York Jets continues to crank out the intrigue. Let’s get into some of today’s developments . . .
There was an unusual bit of guidance given to reporters on Sunday night.
Reporters were wondering why Mike Tannenbaum wasn’t going to be available on Monday, for his annual review of the season with the press.
Obviously some were reading into this lack of availability as sign that he was on shaky ground.
Not the case, according to the guidance.
The explanation from the source was that Tannenbaum never planned on addressing the media because he had meetings all day, and was going to do it at a more convenient time. So the explanation was that the lack of availability wasn’t a reflection of his job status.
He was fired the next morning.
I’m not saying there was intent to mislead here, but this guidance was obviously of little use.
One reporter was livid about this.
“How can you put that our there, and fire the guy 13 hours later?” asked the unnamed writer. “You make the media look bad – it doesn’t help [reporters]. It makes you think the next time you get background whether you are going to buy it. How do you give out bad background the makes reporter look good for 12 hours? It doesn’t make sense.”
Like I said yesterday, when Lisa Zimmerman reported on Sunday that Jets had hired Jed Hughes (pictured above) to lead the search for their new GM, I knew Tannenbaum was gone.
I’m not going to pull a Mike Francessa, guess on a source, and out the person, but I’m pretty sure who she got it from, and the person is very high ranking.
It’s hard to hide in plain sight.
Remember, she also had it that Tannenbaum was going to be fired on Monday.
She nailed both stories – dead-on. Both scoops – she hit the bulls-eye . . .
There was a report today in USA Today that the Jets reached out to Bill Polian to gauge his interest, and he said he wasn’t interested.
While the Jets looked bad on this one, this would not have been a good fit.
Bill Polian is a control freak – he wants control over everything. He’s not interested in just picking players.
And Bill Polian was constantly fighting with the media in one of the NFL’s smallest media markets – Indianapolis – what would have happened in New York, especially with the Jets, a team with 15 beat writers, and countless other people who cover the team on and off. He and Indy Star columnist Bob Kravitz were constantly going at it.
It would have been a disaster.
Can you imagine Polian dealing with Manish? Are you kidding me?
Plus Bill Polian wants his son to be hired with him to be the GM in waiting, and some teams want nothing to do with that. I know if I owned a team, I wouldn’t go for that.
While Polian is a football genius, and the Jets’ job would be a nice homecoming (he’s from the Bronx), this was not the ideal spot for him.
He much rather go to a smaller media market, and smaller organization (the Jets have a very large staff), like Jacksonville, Arizona or maybe Kansas City, if that opens up.
Those teams basically have one paper covering each team.
As for two first two candidates – Marc Ross (Giants) and Tom Gamble (49ers), both, to me, have a marks against them, that might sound frivolous, but consider how bad the Jets image is right now, you have to keep these facts in mind.
The Jets are constantly trying to come out from the Giants’ large shadow. The Jets’ bad season in 2011, combined with a Giants Super Bowl win, really ate at Woody Johnson. Also, one Giants executive, and the co-owner (John Mara) have taken shots at Jets in the media over the last couple of years.
So why would Woody want to hire a Giants executive to turn his franchise around?
As for Gamble, he was an assistant coach on two of the worst teams in Jets history – 1995-96. He worked for Rich Kotite with the Jets, and Philly. You know darn well the press is going to make fun of this. I like Richie a lot personally, but his era with the team conjures up bad memories for Jets fans. Why go there?
Unless either guy is a phenomenal candidate and interview, I don’t know if it’s worth going down either road.
December 31, 2012
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