It's a new year and that means the Jets are on the hunt for a new head coach.
It will be their third in five years.
How depressing.
Anyway, it's been almost a week since the Jets were eliminated from the postseason and already two coaches have taken themselves off the team's wish list. Bill Cowher and recently fired Mike Shanahan are no longer on the radar.
Cowher took himself out of the running on Tuesday.
"After reaching out to coach Cowher's representatives, we were informed (Tuesday
night) that he's not a candidate for the position," the Jets said in a statement.
Shanahan followed suit on Friday.
Guh.
What would make two veteran head coaches pull out so quickly?
Two words: Brett Favre.
How
attractive could the position be with Favre contemplating whether or
not he feels like strapping on the pads for another season? Not very.
I'm sure there were other factors involved for Cowher and Shanahan, but
the idea of having No. 4 lurking in the shadows couldn't have helped.
Earlier in the week it was believed that owner Woody Johnson wanted
Favre to return to the Green and White, but that talk may have been
just that -- talk. The Jets will move into their new stadium with the
Giants in 2010 and it was believed that Woody wanted a marquee player
to help with the higher ticket prices and PSLs.
Football is a business, after all.
But I think it's time to pull the plug on the Favre experiment. And according to Favre's go-to guy
Peter King,
it
looks like No. 4 will retire (for real, this time). I pray that's
true. Favre was a disaster in the final quarter of the season and
looked old and tired by the final game against the Miami Dolphins.
Thank God football isn't baseball or Favre might consider pulling a
Roger Clemens and want to come back after Week 8 of the regular season.
Thomas
Jones caught some heat this week with his comments about Favre. I
thought it was a tad overblown, but whenever someone has something to
say about Favre, it's news. Still, TJ's comments weren't exactly
glowing.
"The other day, the three interceptions really hurt us. I mean, that's just
reality. If I were to sit here and say, 'Oh,
man, it's OK,' that's not reality. ... I don't like it, I know everybody else on
the team doesn't like it.
"If somebody is not playing well, they need to come out of the
game. You're jeopardizing the whole team because you're having a bad
day. To me, that's not fair to everybody else. You're not the only one
on the team. So when you get to the wire and somebody is just giving
the game up, I mean, it's just not [fair]."
Jones tried to clear up his comments on Friday.
"I'll
talk to Brett. Everything is cool with me and Brett. He's a great guy.
We have a lot of fun over there at work. I answered the question. I
would expect him to answer the question the same way about me if I had
two fumbles and it was a situation where I wasn't playing well and he
answered the question the same way. I wouldn't look at him any
different. I wouldn't be sensitive to the answer because we all know in
this league you have to protect the football to win."
I guess.
Still, to blame Favre for
the Jets late-season collapse is a cop out. The whole team was
responsible -- that goes for the players (all of them) and the coaching
staff.
The Jets interviewed two in-house
candidates for the coaching vacancy on Friday -- offensive coordinator
Brian Schottenheimer and offensive line/assistant head coach Bill
Callahan. Both are considered long shots and I would be flat-out
shocked if either landed the job.
Giants defensive coordinator
Steve Spagnuolo and Ravens defensive coordinator Rex Ryan are now
reported to be at the top of the list for the Jets.
Stay tuned.
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