Todd Bowles Future with Jets is Up in the Air
For an entire football season the New York Giants have been the team with speculation surrounding the fate of their head coach Ben McAdoo. Now, with just one week left in the 2017 regular season, all of the attention is now on Jets head coach Todd Bowles. Will Bowles join McAdoo in the unemployment line in a couple of days? Will Bowles make the decision for them and bolt for the Arizona Cardinals?
Ask the media in New York, and the consensus is that Bowles will be back with the Jets in 2018. As the New York Post indicated a few weeks back, the Jets set a low bar for Bowles this season, where he would not be judged by wins and losses, but rather on the improvement of the team.
To some the Jets coach has done enough. The Jets have been competitive -- for the most part -- in most of their games. They had a chance to win a number of them, which they blew in the fourth quarter. The team also found some quality young talent in guys like Robbie Anderson, Marcus Maye and Jamal Adams. At 5-10 the Jets "exceeded" the expectations of those who thought this was a team destined to go 2-14 or worse in 2017.
But let's be honest here, did anyone think the Jets were going to be that bad? Really? I had them at 4-12 when the season started. They are going to be 5-11. Just because the Jets won one or two more games then was expected of them, doesn't mean that Bowles deserves to be back. Bowles record is 10-22 in his last 32 games dating back to the Buffalo meltdown at the end of the 2015 season. Should the Jets lose this week in New England, he will be 10-23 in his last 33 games, and 20-28 in three years. That is little less than 10 losses per season.
It will also mark the second straight year that the Jets went 5-11 under Bowles' leadership.
While Bowles has gotten the team to play hard for him this year, there have been moments this season where the Jets failed to show up. Case in point New York's 15-10 loss to Tampa Bay earlier this year, and a 23-0 loss to a reeling Broncos team.
Then there are inexcusable amount of penalties the has been called for this season. The Jets have been called for 110 penalties, or 7.3 penalties per game, which places them 27th in the NFL in penalties per game. Consider the Jets were one of the least penalized teams in the NFL last season. While a lot of the penalties can be blamed of the Jets vast inexperience, the fact that Bowles has failed to address the issue is alarming.
Locker Room: Bowles got a lot of credit early this season for curing the culture around the Jets locker room, but when you consider the drama that is playing out with Muhammod Wilkerson, who has basically been suspended by the team for failing to attend meetings, it is a sign that Bowles still has trouble commanding the locker room. Keep in mind Wilkerson's actions come off the heels of Bowles saying he had no issue with tardiness last year.
Quarterback play: While General Manager Mike Mccagnan deserves all the blame here for the team's inability to draft a quarterback the past three seasons, Bowles deserves as much blame for not developing one. For three years Bowles has relied upon quarterbacks over the age of 35 to get the job done in Ryan Fitzpatrick and Josh McCown. This year, Bowles proved to be particularly stubborn on the issue, mainly because of his knowledge that Christian Hackenberg and Bryce Petty aren't good enough. Instead he entrusted McCown to be his quarterback this season, when conventional wisdom said go with the kids. McCown was good, he won some games and may have saved Bowles job in the process, but at the end of the day the Jets still do not have a quarterback moving forward.
Should the Jets keep Bowles? Considering everything, the Jets are probably best suited moving forward and finding another head coach in 2018.
While Bowles did some good in Year 3, his overall record, questionable in-game decisions, and inability to manage the team as a whole are huge red flags. For a team that is going in 2018 with the idea that it will either sign a big ticket free agent quarterback, or draft one of the top quarterback prospects coming out of college, the last thing the Jets need is a coach who is on the hot seat entering the first week of September.
While there are reports that the Jets are leaning toward keeping Bowles, they should not. And even if they don't fire Bowles next week, he may do them a service and leave anyway. There is a lot of speculation that the Arizona Cardinals are interested in Bowles to take over for Burce Arians who is said to be contemplating retirement.
While Arians has denied those rumors, a lot of people around the league think that Arians is leaving the Cardinals after five pretty solid seasons. Bowles was Arians defensive coordinator for two years, and was quiet popular there; in fact he won Assistant Coach of the Year before he became the Jets coach.
If the Jets don't want to fire Bowles, and Bowles doesn't want to stay in New York, the Jets should dangle him to the Cardinals and get draft pick compensation as a result.
This kind of stuff isn't new, particularly for the Jets. In 1997 they acquired Bill Parcells in a trade with the Patriots, and three years later received compensation from the Patriots, when Bill Belichick stabbed them in the back in order to become the greatest coach ever in New England. In 2006, the Jets traded Herman Edwards to Kansas City when he replaced a retiring Dick Vermeil as the Chiefs head coach.
So if Bowles wants to head to Arizona, the Jets shouldn't stop him, in fact they should help drive him to the airport. It's time for the Jets to get a new head coach who can get this team moving on the right track, instead of going another 12 months wondering when Todd Bowles will be fired.
Ask the media in New York, and the consensus is that Bowles will be back with the Jets in 2018. As the New York Post indicated a few weeks back, the Jets set a low bar for Bowles this season, where he would not be judged by wins and losses, but rather on the improvement of the team.To some the Jets coach has done enough. The Jets have been competitive -- for the most part -- in most of their games. They had a chance to win a number of them, which they blew in the fourth quarter. The team also found some quality young talent in guys like Robbie Anderson, Marcus Maye and Jamal Adams. At 5-10 the Jets "exceeded" the expectations of those who thought this was a team destined to go 2-14 or worse in 2017.
But let's be honest here, did anyone think the Jets were going to be that bad? Really? I had them at 4-12 when the season started. They are going to be 5-11. Just because the Jets won one or two more games then was expected of them, doesn't mean that Bowles deserves to be back. Bowles record is 10-22 in his last 32 games dating back to the Buffalo meltdown at the end of the 2015 season. Should the Jets lose this week in New England, he will be 10-23 in his last 33 games, and 20-28 in three years. That is little less than 10 losses per season.
It will also mark the second straight year that the Jets went 5-11 under Bowles' leadership.
While Bowles has gotten the team to play hard for him this year, there have been moments this season where the Jets failed to show up. Case in point New York's 15-10 loss to Tampa Bay earlier this year, and a 23-0 loss to a reeling Broncos team.
Then there are inexcusable amount of penalties the has been called for this season. The Jets have been called for 110 penalties, or 7.3 penalties per game, which places them 27th in the NFL in penalties per game. Consider the Jets were one of the least penalized teams in the NFL last season. While a lot of the penalties can be blamed of the Jets vast inexperience, the fact that Bowles has failed to address the issue is alarming.
Locker Room: Bowles got a lot of credit early this season for curing the culture around the Jets locker room, but when you consider the drama that is playing out with Muhammod Wilkerson, who has basically been suspended by the team for failing to attend meetings, it is a sign that Bowles still has trouble commanding the locker room. Keep in mind Wilkerson's actions come off the heels of Bowles saying he had no issue with tardiness last year.
Quarterback play: While General Manager Mike Mccagnan deserves all the blame here for the team's inability to draft a quarterback the past three seasons, Bowles deserves as much blame for not developing one. For three years Bowles has relied upon quarterbacks over the age of 35 to get the job done in Ryan Fitzpatrick and Josh McCown. This year, Bowles proved to be particularly stubborn on the issue, mainly because of his knowledge that Christian Hackenberg and Bryce Petty aren't good enough. Instead he entrusted McCown to be his quarterback this season, when conventional wisdom said go with the kids. McCown was good, he won some games and may have saved Bowles job in the process, but at the end of the day the Jets still do not have a quarterback moving forward.
Should the Jets keep Bowles? Considering everything, the Jets are probably best suited moving forward and finding another head coach in 2018.
While Bowles did some good in Year 3, his overall record, questionable in-game decisions, and inability to manage the team as a whole are huge red flags. For a team that is going in 2018 with the idea that it will either sign a big ticket free agent quarterback, or draft one of the top quarterback prospects coming out of college, the last thing the Jets need is a coach who is on the hot seat entering the first week of September.
While there are reports that the Jets are leaning toward keeping Bowles, they should not. And even if they don't fire Bowles next week, he may do them a service and leave anyway. There is a lot of speculation that the Arizona Cardinals are interested in Bowles to take over for Burce Arians who is said to be contemplating retirement.
While Arians has denied those rumors, a lot of people around the league think that Arians is leaving the Cardinals after five pretty solid seasons. Bowles was Arians defensive coordinator for two years, and was quiet popular there; in fact he won Assistant Coach of the Year before he became the Jets coach.
If the Jets don't want to fire Bowles, and Bowles doesn't want to stay in New York, the Jets should dangle him to the Cardinals and get draft pick compensation as a result.
This kind of stuff isn't new, particularly for the Jets. In 1997 they acquired Bill Parcells in a trade with the Patriots, and three years later received compensation from the Patriots, when Bill Belichick stabbed them in the back in order to become the greatest coach ever in New England. In 2006, the Jets traded Herman Edwards to Kansas City when he replaced a retiring Dick Vermeil as the Chiefs head coach.
So if Bowles wants to head to Arizona, the Jets shouldn't stop him, in fact they should help drive him to the airport. It's time for the Jets to get a new head coach who can get this team moving on the right track, instead of going another 12 months wondering when Todd Bowles will be fired.
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