Wow, I think I remember reading this. Two things jump out at me. First, we traded two #1s to draft Lam Jones? Ouch. Also, the great Dr Z never saw the Sack Exchange coming, did he? And the pieces were mostly in place, too.
The Jets received Craig Penrose, the 20th pick, and the 47th pick from Denver for Matt Robinson. The Jets then traded their 1st rounder (13th overall) and the 1st round pick they acquired from Denver (20th overall) to San Francisco for the 2nd overall pick. 2- Jones to Jets 13- Earl Cooper to SF 20- Jim Stuckey to SF 47- Ralph Clayton to Jets (never played with Jets; had a 7-game NFL career; all 7 games came in the '81 season with Saint Louis)
I voted for Parcells. Michaels was a close second as that team he built gelled at the right time. Parcells got my vote as he turned around that 1-15 team to a playoff contender with essentially the same players. Although it may be more a testament to what a crap coach kotite was in '96 (or any year). If that '96 team was 4-12 not sure I would vote the same. Parcells not only got 8 more wins but had to turn around all the attitudes of the players.
I believe that if there had been an 18-game schedule that year that the Jets and Chiefs would have made the playoffs instead of the Dolphins and Seahawks. The Dolphins and Seahawks were playing bad football in December whereas the Jets and Chiefs finished strong. The Seahawks won the AFC West on a tiebreaker. Both Seattle and KC were 9-7. Seattle was the 3 seed and the Chiefs did not qualify for the playoffs. The Dolphins snuck in as the 6 seed. The Jets finished only one game behind Miami and owned the tiebreaker over them. Sickeningly, the Dolphins and Seahawks met in the wild card round, so one of those turds was going to win a playoff game. We know what happened in the next round. The Dolphins got blasted by Jacksonville by a score of 62-7.
Voted for Michaels as well. When the Jets fired him and replaced him with Joe Walton it nearly caused a mutiny on that team. Whatever success Walton had was due in large part to Walt Michaels' work. Players from that era still sing the highest praises for Michaels and point to Walton's hiring as the beginning of their demise (despite a couple of winning seasons under Walton in '85 & '86).
Ewbank was the total opposite of say RR when it came to personalities so he was not the throw your chair into a locker type of guy. Nor use the media as a message board. The papers said that he was in a tizzy the morning after the night before when he found out about JWN guarantee remark but I do not think he said anything about it in public. I am sure that in his heart besides wanting to beat the Colts as a AFL team he also probably had malice in his heart for the Colts for the way they treated him when he was their HC & wanted to doubly beat them. Besides that Weeb was not much of a newsmaker
I know that. I think both seasons were fairly even and chose Michaels for the reason I said. Otherwise it was a tossup for me.
Great topic, BTW. I voted for Parcells merely since we had a future at that point after being beyond dismal. When you look back at the dreadful 1-15 year one thing stands out - they were not getting their asses kicked each week. Many games were close, but they just couldn't do enough to win. Parcells gave them that edge, and we haven't "sucked" as an organization since. He made them winners. The '81 team is special since it was my 2nd year with tickets, and my friends and I had a blast going to Shea for those game. Sack Exchange games were awesome. That playoff game against the Bills - damn, that still hurts. Should've been the 2nd greatest win in team history... When Walton replaced Michaels at the time I thought it'd be a good thing because at my young age my focus was more on offense than defense, and Walton seemed to have his act together more so than Michaels. Perhaps Walt wasn't too good with the press because he was never really portrayed in a favorable light. Once he had a few in him, you never knew what might happen - and it happened on that flight home from Miami after swamp bowl. Also I believe there were rumors of other teams hiring Walton away from the Jets, and we didn't want to lose him. I could not have been more wrong, as the then "offensive wiz" Walton, became more conservative as HC, and a great defensive tough guy coach, Walt Michaels, was no longer a part of the organization, which hurt.
I know that Herm Edwards is massively unpopular on this site, but I still voted for his 2002 season. In hindsight switching to Pennington was a completely obvious call, but at the time it was a serious leap of faith. Plus, I believe that Herm deserves a ton of credit for preparing the team to come out in the first round of the playoffs and obliterate a talented Colts team 41-0. Herm may have had serious deficiencies as a strategist, but (before they eventually tuned him out) his players would follow him to hell and back. It showed in 2002.
I thought that because Edwards was a rookie head coach, it was the opportune time to make a quarterback change. Testaverde was terribly mediocre for the Jets in 2001. I know passer rating is not the best statistic, but it does hold some value. Judging by that stat, Testaverde had a worse year than such "luminaries" as Kordell Stewart, Jay Fiedler, Brian Griese, Alex Van Pelt, Aaron Brooks, Charlie Batch, Kerry Collins, and Jake Plummer. Among passers who qualified (minimum 224 attempts) Testaverde ranked 21st in the league. Arguably the worst interception he ever threw in his NFL career came in the 12/2 game. The Jets entered the game at 7-3. The Patriots were 6-5 and the Dolphins were 7-3. The Jets led the Patriots 13-0 at halftime. Hackett and Edwards seemed to be thrilled with that lead and coached not to lose in the second half. Testaverde did not help matters by throwing two second half picks. The one to Terrell Buckley was particularly brutal and was the key play in the game which the Patriots won by a score of 17-16. The Patriots never lost the rest of the season. I was already sick of Testaverde before that game. I was pissed when Edwards lacked the smarts and courage to go to the 2nd-year QB who was wasting away on the sidelines. Drafting a QB in the 1st round in the salary cap era and letting him waste away on the sidelines for two seasons is foolish. Basically, I wanted Edwards to do what Mike Shanahan did with Plummer and Jay Cutler in 2006.
I think Mangini in 06 should be on the list.. I know he's not the most popular guy around here and his tenure didn't end so well, but he did a tremendous job in 06. Don't forget, everyone was calling him a genius around here after that season. There was not that much talent on that team and he took them to the playoffs. I mean Kevan Barlow was the starting running back. That being said, I vote Parcells in 97
Someone not on this list OR Rex Ryan. Depends on if we're looking back on three rings in the teens in 2030. I voted for Herm, but seriously how fucked up is this list? All of our coaches for the last fifteen years start out like a house on fire and then turn into a flaming bag of dogshit. I think Rex ends up different though, only because if you stuck him in Buffalo or St. Louis or Tampa he'd show the same steady progress he's shown here. He's just friggin good at what he does. And unlike Parcells we don't have a clock counting down from the second he took the job til the moment where he inevitably retires for the fifth time. That's the Dolphins problem now. :beer:
That's fair. I considered putting that team on the list, in hindsight I should have. Two rookies on the O-line, a patched up Chad at QB, no real #1 RB. They beat the Pats at New England, won 10 games and made the playoffs. I agree. What I found striking was that I couldn't think of anything to even consider for this list between 1981 and 1997--that's a long time. I thought Bruce Coslet had us going in the right direction after Joe Walton and the Michaels players all got old, but neither he nor Pete Carroll got us better than 8-8, despite Coslet getting us to the playoffs in 1991.
Parcells 8-8 with Ray Lewis as QB. Joe Walton would be king of the list had he benched OBrien at 10-1 when Kenny hurt his hand.
I agree. Rex's 2009 finishes behind Mangini's 2006. I think Rex is going to be the best coach in Jets history, but let's face facts: he inherited a pretty fucking talented team. So talented, in fact, that all he needed to do with his first draft as head coach was go get his quarterback. Mangini didn't have shit going into 2006. He had to switch from a 4-3 to a 3-4 with no secondary, no 3-4 linebackers and no nose tackle. He had no left tackle, he had to replace the best center in Jets history, he had to replace the best running back in Jets history. Victor Hobson, Anthony Clement, Justin Miller, Kimo Von Awfulhoffen, Kevan Barlow and DeWayne Robertson were starters on that team and we won 10 games. That's pretty insane.
Technically, Esiason replaced Browning Nagle. Coslet made the right call. O'Brien was shot after his lackluster 1991 efforts. He was not good in the chances he got in 1992. He didn't do anything with the Eagles either. Of course he was only a backup there, but my point is that he wasn't even worth having around as a backup much longer. For a 1st round drafted QB O'Brien did not have a long career.
The bolded part is where I disagree with you. Mangini didn't have to switch to a 3-4, he chose to do it despite not having any of the proper personnel.
He was on the team for ten years and took quite a beating over that time. I think Boomer had a lot more left than O'Brien when Coslet made the move, and Boomer was a natural for Coslet's offense which they ran in Cincinnati with a lot of success. It was the way they handled the move that most people didn't like, myself included, and I liked Coslet for the most part.
Let's not get into the Herm debate as a good coach, both in NY and KC he took over underachieving talent and led them to postseason. In NY we didn't go into total rebuilding mode like KC although we re-tooled a few times and kept making postseason. Parcells is an all-time great HC, he's a mediocre evaluator of talent. What he did in '97 was aamzing as was what Hermr did in 2002 but the '02 team wouldn't have needed a great coaching job if Parcells didn't destroy our cap and force us to get rid of some guys we wanted to keep. It wasn't just O'brien, we still would have lost games. We had a million key injuries down the stretch of that year. He did a good job and I still think he is a good coach that needs to be a little more flexibile BUT that team had talent. Remember we played most of '05 w/ a 4th string QN, 3rd string RB, we had one OL start and end the season in the same position. That team was beat up more than it was bad and in '06 he got a healthy year out of Chad and when Chad was healthy we always made the playoffs.
