Quote:
Originally Posted by eaglenj
Few thoughts on a good thread...
Rex was a great coordinator, but his style of coaching (no dicipline, playing veterans) was a "perfect storm" for him in Baltimore because ray lewis handled motivation, he had one of the best pass rushers of the past 10 years in suggs, and a HOF safety in reed.
If you want to make an argument for why rex should stay, just ask yourself "What does Rex does well?"....the answer is not a lot.
He stays too loyal to underachieving players. Greene, Bart, Eric Smith, etc. To stick with bart and greene in particular shows no feel whatsoever for what the team needed on offense or defense
He did not adapt his coaching style to fit the new rule changes in the NFL. Its a passing league, with more space on the field, yet he has stuck with the plodding 3-4 defense and it has failed.
He is terrible with timeouts and game/roster management (How did tebow dress last week) and has not improved one bit
His locker room is a joke with allowing players to say what they want. Anonymous quotes, backstabbing, even the strength coach tripped a player on the field....just an undiciplined circus.
He has not hired a good staff. Schotty was ineffective here and the whole league knew his offense, but he stayed too long. Cavanaugh has not help make sanchez better yet he is still here. Sparano is overmatched as an OC and that was Rex's choice. He even had a former DB in mark carrier as our dline coach for 2 years to "Help make Mark's career more well rounded for future opportunities"
Not sure what else the guy needs to do wrong....its been 4 years, and i dont care what his record is. Those were excellent teams in 2009 and 2019 and barely made the playoffs. I dont care who your QB is, if you run the ball like we did and have that defense you should get to 10 wins easily. You shouldnt be standing on the sideline and watch your QB throw 5 picks in a game when you run for 300+ yards...you should ACT.
At the end of the day, Rex simply doesnt ACT...no accountability, no benchings, no firings, no changes. Hes everyones best friend, and that does not work!
|
I concur; Rex’s future really needs to be decided based upon what he’s likely to do as a head coach as much as what he’s done. Is he a good head coach now? Is he evolving as a head coach? What have we seen since he was hired until now to show he’s evolving/ improving as a head coach?
Based upon what I’ve seen so far, the data does support the fact that Rex has significant limitations as a head coach and has not been evolving / improving.
The number one job of a head coach is to have his team prepared and ready to play well on game day. Show me a coach who is a brilliant schemer and I’ll show you a good coordinator. Show me a coach who is a strong judge of talent, a good motivator and disciplinarian such that his teams are prepared and focused, overachieve for their talent level and minimize mental mistakes and I’ll show you a good head coach.
Which of those describes Rex the best? Maybe the former but certainly not the latter. Mental mistakes and issues with focus and discipline have been a consistent problem with the Jets, and seem to be on the increase. When your talent is low, a head coach needs to minimize the mistakes and maximize the mental and emotional output of his players while his coordinators work on outscheming the opponent.
If the Jets were a team that made few mistakes and were just physically overwhelmed by opponents, I’d be inclined to give Rex the benefit of the doubt. But many Jets losses come from avoidable mistakes. When they’ve had better talent, they could overcome those. When they haven’t, we’ve seen what happens.
So Rex the head coach in team preparation does not grade well. And there has been no trend toward improvement over the four years he’s been with the Jets. He may be a bit better in clock management and challenges.
In talent judgment and development, Rex grades low as well. Tannenbaum gets killed for not putting enough talent on the jets. He should, as GM he is ultimately responsible for that aspect. But I’ve never gotten the sense that Tannenbaum is primary the talent picker; I tend to believe Rex has the largest input of anyone. Rex’s confidence in his ability to turn any player, no matter how raw, into a strong contributor is something I tend to see in many Jets personnel moves. However, looking at how well Jets players have developed under Rex on both sides of the ball, but particularly on the offense, shows that confidence is largely misplaced. So as a judge and developer of talent, Rex comes up short.
So what does he do well as a head coach? His players like him, but that’s not a very good criteria. He tries to take the attention/ heat off the players by being outspoken. I admire this, but it often backfires. He’s known for being a good defensive schemer, but that just makes him a good DC.
And that’s likely what Rex ultimately is; a good DC. This may be his ceiling as a coach. Nothing wrong with that; look at how many great DCs failed as HCs: Buddy Ryan, Wade Phillips, Dick Lebeau.
For Rex to succeed (unless he evolves to become a real strong head coach), he’d need a good GM providing him lots of superior talent; a very good Asst HC/OC to handle the offense and put up 24 pts per game; on the field leadership to take care of the focus issues. Basically, a strong support network to make up for his head coaching deficiencies and allow him to craft and run a man-eating defense and make in game decisions about going on 4th down, timeouts, challenges, clock management, etc.
In a way Rex is to head coaching what Sanchez is to quarterbacking; you can see there’s talent there but it just never shows up consistently and only in the right confluence of circumstances will it bear fruit. Not what you want out of either role; is one “coachable”? Neither?
When a change is made I hope that a good GM is brought in and handed the keys; he should make all the decisions, without being told what to keep or dispose of. I don’t think any good GM would take the job under more limited conditions.