An Open Letter to Jets Fans on Eric Mangini Posted on November 15th, 2008 by Andrew Weiss After watching the Jets beat the Pats, I wrote my recap and went to bed. Next morning, I got up at 6 to drive my daughter to Massachusetts to look at a college. I?ve just gotten back to find the blog full of attacks on Mangini. What is this? After a road win against a favored division opponent who, incidentally, went 18-0 last year and went to the Super Bowl and who has beaten us 11 of our last 12 meetings? What?s wrong with you? You argue that Mangini doesn?t make enough adjustments compared to Belichick. First, there were adjustments all over that game. Belichick talked about it in his post-game. Knowledgeable observers were fascinated by the back and forth, calling it a chess match. Second, Belichick is asking guys who think they are going to win (especially when playing the Jets) to make adjustments they have made dozens of times before. They?ve seen every scheme. His defense had two players who had never played for him before this year, the rest were veterans. His offense, except for Cassell and the running back (I don?t even remember seeing his Jersey, do you?) was intact from the last few years. For most of his players, he can call out a scheme and snap his fingers. They execute it to perfection. For the Jets, there are eight new starters of the first string?s 22 players. This includes his quarterback and nose tackle, who, by the way, has never played a 3-4 until this season. When Mangini changes his scheme, he?s talking to players who aren?t sure if they can win, aren?t all on the same page and who won?t, necessarily, execute it to perfection. They HAVEN?T seen it all before. Is Mangini a bad coach because he?s been on the field less than Belichick and he?s got a lot more new players? Belichick has honed his system through five years in Cleveland and eight in New England, not to mention a dozen or so as DC and myriad others as a coach. His first coaching job was for Ted Marchibroda in 1975. Mangini, at the time, was starting Kindergarten. If BB?s got a few more wrinkles up his sleeve, maybe it?s because he?s got a few more in his brow, too. If you?re going to give Belichick credit for catching up, why doesn?t equal credit accrue to Mangini for his team going up by 18 in less than two quarters? If the Jets convert a third and fourteen in the second quarter, NE never comes back. Is Mangini going to be pilloried because the team didn?t convert a crucial, and difficult, third down? They managed to convert nine first downs in the game including the 3rd and fifteen that won the game. They failed in an important spot in the first half. Get over it. As for the ?prevent? in the fourth quarter, I admit that I didn?t like it. I prefer an attacking defense. Still, this is the guy?s 43rd game as a head coach. He was a coordinator for one year. Does he get a chance to try different strategies the way Belichick tried them twenty-five years ago without you calling him a loser when you?ve got the benefit of hindsight and he was trying to win the game? Despite his choice of defense on the last drive, Mangini?s eight seconds away from his strategy working. If Moss is ruled out of bounds, as he might well have been, it doesn?t get overturned and the game?s over. If it?s a better punt, they never get close enough to score and it?s game over. If Cassel doesn?t shake off the would-be sack, it?s game over. If Moss bobbles it, it?s game over. If it?s not a perfect pass on the run, it?s game over. And, if it?s game over in regulation, is Mangini a bad coach for his strategy or just a victim of the mercurial hand of fortune? Now that I mention it, how about Keller?s drop in the first half? What about Lowery?s drop of the sure INT? Either one means there are no Moss heroics to ruin your evening. Down by eleven or fourteen, the touchdown doesn?t matter. Listen, Jets fans. Your team is in first place with six to go. You haven?t been in first place for seven years. Mangini takes you to the playoffs in his first year (and beats the Patriots with Tom Brady, btw) despite having some mediocre personnel and a rubber-armed quarterback. The following year, through no fault of Mangini?s, he has the worst offensive line in the game and a plethora of injuries, particularly to the wide receivers. Without good wide receivers, your quarterback, who has little margin for error starts making INTs by the bucket load. You bring in a talented rookie, but he?s overmatched behind the ghastly Oline. You go 4-12. The following year you give Mangini a crafty old veteran quarterback and seven new starters. In the first ten games, he takes you to 7-3 and first place and beats Belichick into the bargain. What were you hoping for? Snap out of it. The old Jets are gone. What you saw in 2006 is still there. Give Mangini a little time, a little room to make some mistakes and relax. The sky is not falling. __________________
I'm so tired of posters (and bloggers, and occasionally beat writers) writing off any criticisms of the team/coaching staff as irrational because "They won the game!" Seriously- you don't go from up 24-6 to tied 31-31 and on the ropes if the coaching staff made all the proper halftime adjustments and stayed a step ahead. These guys need to realize that being blindly optimistic just because of a W sets you up for a let down big time. I prefer to look at the work that is yet to be done, so as to not fool myself into thinking we're better than we are. This is from an article in another thread- That is just another confirmation of many fans' belief that this team is excellent at breaking down the tape, and preparing for games, but God-awful at making changes/effective adjustments on the fly.
Well, any sane person would have to take exception to this. "The following year, through no fault of Mangini’s, he has the worst offensive line in the game and a plethora of injuries, particularly to the wide receivers." He had a draft before the season and he decided to get rid of Kendell. It was he who decided to draft a CB and MLB when their needs on both line were far greater. Obviously, that has been proven this year. Secondly, injuries are never an excuse in the NFL. This guy is just a fan, not a journalist.
to be fair that isn't all mangini. the gm has a say in that stuff too. i wouldn't say that mangini had no fault in how last years team ended up, but i wouldn't put all the blame on him either. id give mangini most of that blame i just can't see putting it all on him.
I'm not giving Mangini a pass for being young until the league gives us points for him being young. In other words, never.
I have to completely agree with all I have read. But as usual some people are never happy. Most because of our befamed Prevent(a win) defense. We have seen it before a number of times and we always seem to get bit in the ass. Injuries may not be an excuse , but in our case they were the reason. Cant play and win with a lousy offensive line....PERIOD. We got a better one ...PROBLEM SOLVED!!!! One dimensional passing game also not a big help in the past. New passing attack has helped greatly. Nose Tackle in the 3-4 ....end of story. Thats why we are 7-3. Any adjustments not being made could have a lot to do with all the new people we have.
I agree with you on that but most people say they are a team and make all decisions together. I don't know if it's true or not but that is what you hear.
The other side of this is that the Jets really just looked like a bad football team for more than a half against the Pats. I went to a school play om Thursday night and walked back in the door with the score 24-6 Jets. What I actually got to see was the Jets get outscored 25-7 over more than a half against the Pats, followed by winning the coinflip and kicking a FG for the win, The Jets team I actually saw play on Thursday night looked weak, confused and out of place in a big divisional game against the team they had to beat. Yes, they pulled it out in the end but it was ugly as hell along the way. Yes, the early start must have been great to watch but the Jets seemed to go into a shell after that early start and damn near threw the game away.
Well, as they say, "just win baby". The Pats are still a good team, and we beat them in their house. I think we really need to get away from the prevent D that we keep playing to preserve leads late in the game though because one of these games, we're going to get burnt badly -- most likely when it counts most. It's funny because casual fans that watched the game kept saying to me that we need to get away from the soft prevent D that we keep playing. The same thing happened in the Cardinals game, we were blowing them out and we let them back into the game, playing right into their hands by allowing them to run and gun all over the field.
And if the play you went to started an hour and a half later...you would have seen fantastic execution....complete control etc... Both views are wrong of course.
So who did a worse job? The coach who's team lost an 18 point lead and pulled it out of the bag with a great Q4 drive and gutsy OT drive or the coach who's team fell 18 points behind, never led, converted only about 4 of 14 third downs and needed a ridiculous miracle play to even take the game to OT?
the only coaching errors i really saw was not calling the time out before we got the delay of game penalty, and the prevent defense. everything else was execution errors. seymore just killed faneca on one seres, brett missed a wide open keller on 3rd down and threw it to leon who was double covered for an incompletion, on another drive brett decided to run for the first on 3rd down instead of hitting a wide open leon in the flat. then there was cotch's fumble. i dont see how the coaching staff can be blamed for any of that. while all that was going on the pats themselves were playing some pretty sloppy football. the missed snap, and the ben watson fumble. both teams made some errors. we made less and we won the game. if we would've made ONE less error, if one of the above mentioned drives would've went for another seres of downs, the pats would've ran out of time in regulation. all in all it was a really good game to watch as a fan of both the jets and football.
I think Mangini has done a pretty good job this year. With all of the changes the slow start was expected. Although I think the Jets could be 9-1 right now instead of 7-3 (they shouldn't have lost to Oakland and should have beat a shocked NE team who just lost their star QB), but overall they've won some important games and are a few wins away from being a playoff team. Do I agree with everything that Mangini does? No, but he gets paid a lot more money than me to do what he does, so I can only complain so much. Plus, I think he knows a lot more about each of his players abilities and how to use them than we do.
The CB and ILB being Darrelle Revis and David Harris, two of the best young players in the league at their positions. And Kendall decided to get rid of himself...again.
The only problem I have is that the coaching staff tends to take their foot off the oppenents throat when they have them at their mercy. This happened on thursday night when we had a 3rd down and 2 at the end of the first half. Instead of being agressive like the previous 28 minutes and throwing the ball downfield, Mangini decides to be conservative and run up the gut. Instead of keeping the ball and possibly driving for at least another field goal, we ended up punting and Cassell drove the Pats down for a T.D. I still don't think Mangini has full confidence that Favre won't throw a pic in these situations but that will have to change for the remainder of the season.
We're in the hunt with our own destiny in our hands. If we get to 11 or 12 wins and win the division you have to give credit to management. If we don't do well down the stretch with a relatively healthy team than the coaching staff should get a good share of the blame. We have two home games against division opponents and two WC games against totally over matched opponents. Denver at home should be road kill. We don't get to 11 and win this division the coaching staff should take a good dose of the beating. We do and they deserve high praise.
Did you guys really expect to throw 24 points in the first half against a team that doesn't even give up 24 points a GAME and expect them to roll over and die? In their own house? With Bill fucking Belichick coaching them? The coaching staff has failed to adjust so much that we went from blowing it in overtime vs. Oakland to slicing through the Pats in overtime in their own house. They've failed to adjust so much that we've only won 6 out of the past 7 games. They've failed to adjust so much that that offense everyone was crying about at the beginning of the season is the second highest scoring offense in the league. Has anyone stopped to think that theres two sides to a game? The coaching staff can make adjustments, and so can other teams. BB has coached that team for what...8-9 years and has had a core group of guys together for 7+. Which team do you think will make those adjustments more efficiently? Maybe if more thought went into it than "ZOMG the Pats almost came back, that means we can't adjust, we got lucky!!" maybe I'd buy the complaints. But as with every other complaint this season, I'm going to call bullshit and let my team do it's thing. Why? Because whatever the fuck the idiots we have running the team have been doing has been WORKING enough to give us first place in the division and tied for the second best record in the AFC. You guys must expect to steamroll every team...did some of you older and wiser fans really expect us to steamroll just because we spent alot of money this offseason or something? I mean some of you guys have been watching football for 40+ years right? How many perfectly coached and executed games have you watched in your lifetime? How many of those teams did it from Day 1 of being together? We saw a Giants team execute a gameplan PERFECTLY in last years Super Bowl, where was that execution in the other 18 games? I have no idea WTF some of you really expected out of this season, but all I've seen is my team pull wins out and improve and gain more confidence while doing it. Great post ScotsJet...probably why it'll go ignored by many. Anwyay: You guys harp on the minor mistakes of a very obviously good team. Keep us hooked on the past. I'll enjoy watching my team move forward.
I think the writer of the posted article said that, he wrote the recap because he's a beat writer, probably.
