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Over the years, offensive line coaches were usually amongst the most fiery on the staff.
One reason for that is when you’re coaching some of the biggest guys on the field, you need to keep pushing them, because carrying all that weight, sometimes they could get a little sluggish, and their motors amp down, and you don’t want that to happen.
This has also applied to defensive line coaches as well over the years.
But perhaps in a society that seems to have softened a little in recent years, with a lot of helicopter parenting, we will see a different kind of offensive line coach.
Some are looking for fiery Jets offensive line coach Keith Carter to extinguish his fire a little.
We have heard this rumor coming out of the Jets throughout the off-season, and in a recent minicamp, Robert Saleh didn’t deny it.
“Keith (Carter) is a phenomenal teacher,” Saleh said. “He truly is and I’ve said it before, sometimes your great message can be lost in tone. He’s gone through a lot of self development just as we expect our players to develop, we expect coaches to develop too. He’s gone through a development program that I think has really helped him. Excited to see it progress.”
So it sounds like the Jets O-Line coach was sent to some kind of sensitivity training.
The world has certainly changed when offensive line coaches are sent to counseling to stop yelling at linemen as much.
Now the challenge is for Carter is to take the training to the field in training camp and in games. It’s one thing to do it in OTA practices which are pretty chill, with little contact and no tackling. But when the pressure amps up, and so does the physicality, will Carter still be able to encourage guys to do violent things more politely?
“Obviously, executing change in a non-stressful environment is kind of easy,” Saleh said. “Once training camp hits, and the season hits, where it becomes high-stress, high-adversity, that’ll be the challenge, but the way he’s been working, he’s been very deliberate with it and his messaging has been the same where he’s teaching great, great technique and great scheme, great fundamentals. The tone has gotten a lot better and he’s been working at it. And I think his players, I think the o-line appreciates it too.”
The players appreciate it.
When you have happy players does that mean you have a successful team?
I don’t know?
Ask Bill Parcells, Bill Belichick or Nick Saban.
I would look for players who can take hard-coaching, and even in a world of lawnmower parenting, there are still plenty of prospects coming up who can take hard-coaching, and a lot who want it.
Look, I’m not pinpointing any Jets lineman as complainers about Carter’s style, because I don’t have any information on who might have complained.
And maybe none of the current guys did, maybe it was guys who are gone, or players who never played for the Jets, like Taylor Lewan, a former Tennessee Titans lineman who ripped Carter on his podcast.
But I can assure you a guy like Joe Tippmann can take tough coaching as a protege of Jason Fabini.
I can assure you a guy like Olu Fashanu, raised by strict Nigerian immigrant parents, can take tough coaching.
I’m not saying you call people names or anything like that, but I’m not entirely comfortable with this kindler, generally NFL seems to be in the offing.
Perhaps my disagreement with making Carter soften his style is because I’m old-school, but I do think you need to push offensive linemen hard if you want to have an elite line.
You gotta push the big fellas hard.
Hey, Maybe Carter can still push them hard with a nicer style.
We shall see.
July 8, 2024
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