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Orchard Park – The Jets finished the season 6-10, and now their hot stove league starts, with a new GM a strong possibility . . .
According to CBS Sports, the Jets a consultant to help them find a new GM.
“The New York Jets have hired Jed Hughes of Korn/Ferry International to lead their search for a new general manager to replace Mike Tannenbaum, according to a league source,” wrote Lisa Zimmerman.
I totally believe this story. Being around the team, my sense is that she got this from a very high-ranking source in the organization.
So who is Hughes?
He is considered the top sports executive head hunter in the country.
His expertise is finding the best people for spots like general managers and athletic directors.
For instance he placed Mark Murphy as the CEO of the Green Bay Packers, and Larry Scott in the position of Big 12 commissioner.
He also placed Neil Glat in the position of Jets president. It remains to be seen if that was a good move.
Glat and what he’s doing for the Jets, is a big mystery right now.
He’s a very smart man – a Wharton Business School and Harvard Law School graduate. That is quite a combo.
But some in the business didn’t see him as team president material. Let’s see what happens over the next few years.
We will get more into Glat at another time, but it should come as no surprise the Jets president is on board with having Hughes find the team’s new GM. He knows Hughes very well, and he’s a big fan of his work, after all, the headhunter helped him get the Jets’ gig.
The Jets are clearly best-suited having Hughes find their next GM, because he’s more qualified to find a good football man than the Jets’ three most powerful figures – Woody Johnson, Glat and Ira Akselrad.
When Woody Johnson was leaving the stadium in Nashville after the Jets loss to Tennessee, he was flanked by two men – Glat and Alexrad.
Akselrad is the president of The Johnson Company (the private investment company of the Johnson family).
In other words, he manages Woody’s money.
He is more involved in the Jets than people realize.
In fact, according to a league source, it was Akselrad’s constant involvement in Jets business, was a big reason why Matt Higgins left the organization after last season.
So the point here is simple – if the Jets are looking for a new GM, you don’t want the troika of Johnston, Glat and Axselrad handling that search process.
Johnson is a business man, and Glat and Axselrad are accomplished lawyers.
They aren’t the ideal people to find the right man to run the football side of the Jets operation.
So bringing in Hughes makes perfect sense.
See aside from being a talented sports executive headhunter, he has an extensive football background. From 1972-1989, he was an assistant football coach with stops at Stanford, Michigan, the Minnesota Vikings, the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cleveland Browns.
He coached under some outstanding men – Bo Schembechler (Michigan), Chuck Noll (Pittsburgh Steelers), Bud Grant (Minnesota Vikings), John Ralston (Stanford), and Terry Donahue (UCLA).
So this is just your run of the mill headhunter – this is a football man.
And the Jets fans can thank their lucky stars that a guy who knows a heck a lot of about football and leadership
(Hughes is known for being great at identifying leaders) is heading up the search.
One other factor to consider about Hughes – he’s from New Jersey, Newark to be exact. He knows how tough this market is.
So knows he’s got to find at guy who isn’t going to be chewed up and spit out by the New York media, a group that brutalized Mike Tannenbaum, and quite honestly, he didn’t handle them very well.
Hughes is the perfect guy for the job.
December 30, 2012
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