I don’t think Saleh has been a particularly good head coach, but I think he’s capable of being one. People forget that Lovie Smith, Ken Whisenhunt, Jim Caldwell, John Fox (2x), Ron Rivera, Zac Taylor, Mike Martz, Jeff Fisher, etc. have been to Super Bowls in the last 25 years. Bruce Arians and Gary Kubiak are both SB winning coaches. No knock or praise on any of these guys. And you probably need a better head coach than not for longer term success but it’s not impossible for a Saleh-type coach to catch lightning in a bottle and go on a short run.
He seems to be doing a better job this preseason in terms of getting the guys ready- viz., tough camp--of course game 1 will be the test. Learning on the job is admirable--lets hope.
True with Wilson. But he has Rodgers now and JD put together a pretty damned good team for him. Let’s see how it goes.
I still think MLF was a decent coordinator who Douglas scapegoated to find someone to blame for the bust QB he drafted.
Let’s be honest, it all boils down to the quarterback. No matter what team, which head coach, how good the head coach is it’s about the quarterback. Look at New England… Before Tom Brady, Bill was a nobody. Every so often you heard someone float he was a defensive genius but at no point in time was there ever a discussion about him being a legendary head coach. Tom Brady arrives and he’s unstoppable, Tom Brady leaves and he can’t win a game. It’s why Douglas’ failure to find a quarterback will doom the regime. The only way those two survive another year, or longer, is if the team goes deep in the playoffs and that all centers around Rodgers.
This Mez, the gospel truth. Could not agree more. Same with Andy Reed, McCarthy, et all. A top QB makes good teams great, and good coaches winners, while potentially great coaches with mediocre QBs get fired eventually.
We’ll never know for sure, but for me, I 100% believe that Hackett was actually a Rodgers hire. He was hired to help convince AR to come here. No doubt about it. I fully believe that if it wasn’t for Rodgers, we wouldn’t have hired Hackett. As stupid as the Jets have been with hiring failed HCs (Kotite, Gase) right after they were fired for … wait for it … SUCKING… I still don’t believe Hackett was the same case…I think Hackett was hired to get Rodgers everything he wanted.
You think it was Saleh's choice to fire his buddy who made every JAG QB not named Zach Wilson look competent?
That is debatable. I am certain that increased likelihood of Rodgers factored into the decision, but this cannot be the sole reason. That would be just too much gamble and too dumb even for the Jets FO. Whether he would have been hired or not otherwise is not clear, but at the very least the Jets must have liked Hack, with the possibility of Rodgers maybe being a tie breaker. It would be too stupid even for the Jets to hire Hack if they didn't like him only because he gave very slightly more probability of Rodgers coming here. They still had to like the guy to bring him in.
Liking Hack and hiring him after the disaster that ensued in Denver WITHOUT wanting to lure Rodgers here makes it even dumber dude. He was an unmitigated disaster as a head coach. You don’t give a guy like that the keys to the offense when you’re a franchise that’s had a putrid offense for a decade+. So I get the argument you’ve been making for a year and a half that it didn’t necessarily have to do with getting Rodgers here (similar to your Lazard argument) but it makes the Jets look so inept if those two moves had nothing to do with Rodgers.
Yes, Joe Douglas does technically outrank Saleh and Hackett may have been hired to try to reel in Rodgers, but I still think it was Saleh's call to make and he was 100% on board with the Aaron Rodgers plan.
I never said it had nothing to do with Rodgers, I just said it wasn't the main reason why they got him. There was a very small chance at the time to get Rodgers, and getting Hack slightly increased that chance, so that could factor in a very small way, like as a tie breaker perhaps. But you don't pick a guy who you think is terrible because he MIGHT slightly increase a small chance of getting Rogers. That's would be just idiotic. As far as Lazard, again, I am sure Rodgers recommended him: he played pretty well in GB. I mean it does make sense to ask your key player who played with and threw to a certain guy you are targeting about the feedback you didn't see on tape. But the buck stops with the GM.
If they got Hackett to run the offense based on his “success” and offensive chops with little to nothing to do with Rodgers (as you’re alluding to) we should be very fucking angry with the Jets.
Whether or not Rodgers had any active behind the scenes role in the signing of Hackett, I think Hackett is his dream OC. A guy who will never push back about anything, who is universally considered an idiot so that Rodgers looks like a hero every time he throws the team to a win... always overcoming the built-in disadvantage of the Barney Fife of offensive coordinators. Hackett is also the built -in scapegoat for everything that could be viewed as a mistake by Rodgers on the field, if he wants it.
And we were - if you recall many wanted to completely clean house last year. But Woody didn't and I can see JD made at least some adjustments. Hoping for the best at this point - not much else we can do.
And they should have, but they didn't because Woody doesn't seem to want to upset legendary former Packers QBs. He should have retained Brett Favre's rights back in 2008 instead of granting his release, so that when he inevitably wanted to come back out of retirement again, he would have had to do it for Rex's Jets. There's not a doubt in my mind that, with Favre, those two teams Rex had in the first two years would have at least gotten one Super Bowl appearance out of it. They got to two AFC Championship Games with Mark Sanchez at QB. Even an angry, disinterested Brett Favre is worth another game or two more than a rookie QB who struggled so much during that season that they gave him a color-coded wristband to let him know when it was OK for him to take chances with the football. If they felt it was going to be a problem with Rodgers, Woody should have sat him down after the season and explained to him that Saleh and Douglas had to go. It's not hard to reach that conclusion when you see the abject incompetence they have put on display in 3 and 5 years respectively since they've joined the franchise. He didn't come here because of Sales and Douglas, he came here because we were the only franchise that was close enough to delude themselves into thinking that they were a QB away that really had room for an older, veteran QB. It also helped that our defense made his life miserable in that game against the Packers in 2022. But, since we don't want to run the risk of irritating former Packers QBs, we're literally now going to waste a second year of Aaron Rodgers as a Jet because this front office and coaching staff is in no way equipped to lead this team to anything other than another pathetic 7-10 finish.
