Jan 21, 2015; Florham Park, NJ, USA; New York Jets new general manager Mike Maccagnan (left), owner Woody Johnson (center), and new head coach Todd Bowles (right) pose for a photo during a press conference at Atlantic Health Jets Training Center. Photo Credit: William Perlman/NJ Advance Media for NJ.com via USA TODAY Sports
While the Patriots and Seahawks prepare for Super Bowl XLIX, the rest of the league was making news with new head coaches and general managers.
Denver’s hiring of Gary Kubiak following John Fox heading to Chicago left only the Falcons without a head coach. Well, only in a manner of speaking.
It was no secret that Seattle defensive coordinator Dan Quinn will become the Falcons’ head coach once the Super Bowl is over.
One of the intriguing new pairing is in New York where Mike Maccagnan was hired as general manager and Todd Bowles as head coach after John Idzik and Rex Ryan were fired.
Jets owner Woody Johnson essentially admitted making a mistake when he hired Idzik in 2013, while keeping Ryan. Not that Ryan isn’t a quality coach, but when the general manager and head coach aren’t on the same page, results will likely be bad.
After Maccagnan and Bowles were hired. Johnson said, “It’s always a learning experience, whenever you go through the process. It’s very important to me. Hopefully, I’ve gotten better. I hope I’ve gotten better. I’ve been at it 15 years. Hopefully, I make better decisions because you have to win those games and you’ve got to get to the next level.”
Johnson hasn’t been right often. In 16 years as owner, these are the fifth general manager and head coach he’s hired.
Speaking of decisions, Maccagnan acknowledged the importance of working together with the head coach.
Speaking of his 15 years with the Houston Texans, most recently as director of college scouting, Maccagnan said, “The thing I took from that organization was the realization that the head coach and general manager always had to be a team. You’re not always going to see things the same way, but always working through that process as a team and kind of go forward (making) decisions in the best interests of the Texans.”
Notably, both are from New Jersey, and when Bowles was a safety for the Redskins in 1990, Maccagnan was an intern for the team and went to the airport to get Bowles for the start of training camp.
As Bowles said, “You can’t go into a job not feeling comfortable with the people you’re working with. I’ve been around front offices where they are in disarray and I see how those things work and you definitely don’t want that kind of job.”
Of course, one of the biggest decisions the team has to make is at quarterback where Geno Smith has had moments, but has lacked consistency in his two seasons with the team.
Asked about Smith, Bowles said, “I think it’s an open slate right now. It won’t be fair to say he is or isn’t the quarterback. Geno obviously is a heck of a football player, but there’s things we’ve got to evaluate and judge as a whole team. It’s not just Geno, it’s everybody. He’s the focus because he’s the quarterback, but everybody is going to be judged the same way. It’s an open slate on everybody coming in.”
The irony is that Ryan is now with the Bills and faces similar questions at quarterback that he had with the Jets. Buffalo quarterback EJ Manuel, who also has played two seasons, was benched in 2014 and replaced by Kyle Orton, who has retired.
Ryan brought quarterbacks coach David Lee with him from the Jets, and Lee said erratic quarterback play will obviously affect any team, no matter who is coaching.
Lee said of Smith, “Rex and I talked about it, he had some inconsistency and the up and down part is what killed us. He would get loose with the football. We played good enough defense to win over there both years, but his play it’ll cost you and it cost us.”
Lee did say, though, “He also did some great things. The last five games this season he was the seventh-rated passer in the league. He had a perfect passer rating in his last game at Miami. The potential and ability is there.”
Speaking of the Jets …
There were some raised eyebrows when the Browns hired Raiders quarterbacks coach John DeFilippo as offensive coordinator. However, DeFilippo and Cleveland head coach Mike Pettine worked on the same staff with the Jets in 2009. And Pettine nearly hired him last year, but went with Kyle Shanahan because of his experience as a play-caller.
Pettine couldn’t keep from gushing about DeFilippo. He said, “The things John brings to the table are exactly what we were looking for. He’s the total package. He’s very bright. He has great energy about him, great passion. Loves the game. Works extremely well with other people. You could see that when I brought him in and had a chance to meet with not just the offensive staff, but he spent time with the defensive staff. That was a big part of it, making sure we weren’t bringing in just a playbook; we were bringing in a good person. That, to me, is one of the biggest reasons why he’s here.”
Too many changes at offensive coordinator can set a team back, but DeFilippo has a smart approach. He said, “We’re not going to just scrap something just because I’m here. I don’t have that type of ego. If something’s good that our players do well and they know it, we’re going to keep doing it. That’s going to be my job here the next few weeks is I’m going to really study our last 16 games of this season and see what we’re good at, see where it fits and see where it meshes with myself and coach Pettine seeing this offense.”
DeFilippo added, “One of the things Mike and I talked about in our interview was if there’s something these guys are familiar with in terms of a name, I don’t need to change the name just because I see it as, for example, the play’s called ‘smash’ and they call it ‘hammer.’ I can learn. Let one guy learn the new tag for it. We’re going to make this offense, the transition as simple as we can for our players. I think they’ll really like playing in this offense.”
Finally, Pettine talked about the typical late nights coaches have during the regular season, saying, “Defensively, we worked late and worked some real late hours (in New York). A lot of times we’d look over on the offensive side and in the little area where the coaches were, his light would be the only one on. We spent a lot of late nights in New York talking football. That’s when I knew this guy had something to him.”
The Quote
Asked if he realizes how hard the job ahead of him in Chicago is, Bears head coach John Fox said, “It’s like holding Jell-o. It’s a tough job.
