N.Y. Times Article

Jets Coach Shifts Focus From Age to the Team

By JUDY BATTISTA
Published: March 29, 2006
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla., March 28 ? Perhaps it was appropriate that Eric Mangini's table was in the back corner of a meeting room, as if it was the National Football League equivalent of the kiddie table at a family holiday party.

Mangini is the 35-year-old coach of the Jets. His cherubic face and his does-this-guy-even-need-to-shave appearance have done nothing to dispel the wonder at the league's annual meetings about the Jets' youth movement. When Commissioner Paul Tagliabue mentioned in his address to owners that there were coaches who were not born when he started working in the N.F.L. 37 years ago, Woody Johnson, the Jets' owner, realized Mangini was such a coach.

When a reporter asked Mangini at a news conference Tuesday if Texas quarterback Vince Young reminded him of a young Randall Cunningham, Mangini said that he didn't remember a young Randall Cunningham.

For those inside the coaching fraternity, though, Mangini is merely the latest Jon Gruden, once the youngest coach in the league. They have welcomed him by extending a warning. "A lot of guys have said over and over again that every day you'll come into the office and there will be five things you didn't expect to have to deal with," Mangini said.

For Mangini, that might be a conservative estimate. He has made few public statements since his hiring in January, but he spoke to the Jets as a team for the first time last Monday, when players assembled for the off-season conditioning program. If Mangini is concerned about whether his players will accept a coach who is barely older than they are, he doesn't show it.

There are plenty of other worries. The Jets have no starting quarterback, an aging running back who is recovering from knee surgery, a depleted offensive line and a hole at pass rusher where John Abraham once lined up. Mangini has already spent a few nights sleeping on his office sofa. With the draft ? and the Jets' fourth overall pick ? on the horizon, the youthful countenance may soon be marred by dark circles.

Still, a dose of perspective came last Friday. "The only thing that's been tough was when we were flying down here," Mangini said. "The toughest moment of all this, we were trying to get our 2-year-old and our newborn down here and there were dual meltdowns. It was a complete disaster. At that point, I was thinking, 'This is legitimately hard.' You can't make them run, you can't fine them, you can't cut them."

Members of the league dismiss the importance of age in coaching success. When Mangini was a 23-year-old coach in Australia, nearly everyone on the team was older and he had a 44-year old player nicknamed the Fossil. That worked out just fine. When Mangini was a Jets defensive assistant under Bill Parcells, he was the youngest member of a staff that included Bill Belichick, Romeo Crennel and Al Groh. When he was the secondary coach in New England, he had an older group of players, including Ty Law and Lawyer Milloy.

Still, experience counts. Just a year ago, Mangini was preparing to be a first-time defensive coordinator. The most ready comparison is to Gruden, who was 34 when he was named the Oakland Raiders' coach in 1998, the same age Mangini was when he became the Jets' coach. But Gruden, who won a Super Bowl as Tampa Bay's coach, received the Oakland job after three years as the Eagles' offensive coordinator.

"I think it's the person," said Tampa Bay General Manager Bruce Allen, who worked in Oakland with Gruden. "Jon was always comfortable. Joe Gibbs was a young coach once and now he's an old coach and it doesn't matter. Jon took over a very veteran team in Oakland and they responded to him immediately."

When the Jets interviewed Mangini, the team president Jay Cross said the front office was impressed with his intellect and lack of clich?d answers. Mangini leaned heavily on what he learned from Belichick, a coach lauded for his intellectual approach to building a team.

Mangini wants the same type of players who helped him and the Patriots win: smart, selfless, versatile and tough. Mangini told Jets scouts that if they bring him players who do not fit that description, there will be a problem. And he is committed to sticking with his program, the same way Belichick did in New England even though he started with a 5-11 record.

"It was consistent," Mangini said. "People were trying to get us to move off the program. If we had ever swayed, who knows what would have happened? That's the program we're going to stick with. I've seen it work. I've experienced it. That's what I believe in."

That sounds wise beyond his years.

"It's an interesting thing to talk about," Mangini says of his age. "A lot of coaches don't get jobs because they're too old. I don't know what the right age is to be a head coach."