I never quite got that either, but he got us from 1-15 to 9-7 to 12-4, so I let it slide. I'd say releasing Hugh Douglas was his only big mistake, that and the Leon Johnson option pass in Detroit in the 97 finale.
Yeah, you can't argue with the coaching results but the drafting left little to be desired with such epic high picks as Dorian Boose, Scott Frost, Rick Terry, etc. He did set Groh up for the big 4 in 2000 but only two of them are left on the team as well, with one patched together with band-aids....
I think even Kotite would put Kotite on the bottom of this list. He always struck me as a decent guy, who cared about his players, and grossly overestimated how they would perform. Leon Hess was just as culpable for the mess of those years, with his lazy-fair helmsmanship. He just wasn't the one the cameras zoomed in on.
Hess not only screwed up making Kotite the coach, a bigger error was Kotite the GM. He passes on Sapp in 95 to reach for Brady. In 96 we already have Graham and Chrebet as WRs, then he grabs Keyshawn with the #1 pick (a good move), BUT then he uses the first pick in the second round to take Alex Van Dyke. To take Van Dyke, he passed on Alstot and Tony Braakens--two guys that at the time I wanted the jets to grab with that pick. Ranks right up there with passing on Reed for Thomas.
