WSJ: Jets' Headhunter Is Key to Their Recovery

[GenoT]

Originally Posted by intelligentjetsfan

strike one was the fact that ryan will have a say in whether you are hired. That was confirmed in the press conference.

Strike two was also confirmed in the press conference when woody said that he will handle the fate of the head coach.

strike three may or not be speculative.

Your making the false assumption that these candidates, will not take this job unless they can bring in there own HC. That's speculation. In two or three days, our new GM will be in place

[jetsfan1983]

Originally Posted by intelligentjetsfan

strike one was the fact that ryan will have a say in whether you are hired. That was confirmed in the press conference.

Strike two was also confirmed in the press conference when woody said that he will handle the fate of the head coach.

strike three may or not be speculative.

I think you need to change your handle...

[intelligentjetsfan]

Originally Posted by jetsfan1983

I think you need to change your handle...

No problem, because that is very important to this discussion, but can you tell me which part of the post was incorrect?

[crasherino]

Originally Posted by intelligentjetsfan

Lets play it out this way;

You are a prospective candidate who obviously is coming in highly recommended.

You sit down for the interview and hear that the head coach from the previous regime will be making the decision on whether to hire you (as well as the owner of course)

Strike one.

Next, you are told that you will not have the ability to fire the head coach. Only the owner will have that authority. So you now are aware that you will not be able to set up the franchise in the manner that you plan, in arguably the most important position.

Strike two.

Next you are told that the head coach will have final say on all personnel matters. That includes the draft and free agency.

Strike three

And there are other preconditions that are speculative yet based on the owner's history are not out of the question to consider (ex: does he not want to enter into a rebuilding phase due to marketing/financial considerations, as but one example?).

Bottom line: If I were good at my job and was already part of a successful organization I would seriously consider turning down this position or at least refusing to agree to those stipulations, which in effect, is the same as saying no. A couple of them already have.....

Your strike 1 is the only stipulation in place. The other two are fabrications. And you are assuming that a prospective GM doesn't either 1) like Rex or 2) can't bare to have him in place for one measly year. Total speculation on your part.

I'm not a real big Woody fan. I think he's pretty much a dope - a lightweight amongst a pretty shrewd group. But to say that he has too many stipulations that would dissuade a GM from coming here is not grounded in reality.

[intelligentjetsfan]

Originally Posted by crasherino

Your strike 1 is the only stipulation in place. The other two are fabrications. And you are assuming that a prospective GM doesn't either 1) like Rex or 2) can't bare to have him in place for one measly year. Total speculation on your part.

I'm not a real big Woody fan. I think he's pretty much a dope - a lightweight amongst a pretty shrewd group. But to say that he has too many stipulations that would dissuade a GM from coming here is not grounded in reality.

fair enough and we can agree to disagree. But to be fair, the second stipulation that the new GM cannot fire Ryan next season was said in the press conference by Woody Johnson.

[GenoT]

Originally Posted by intelligentjetsfan

No problem, because that is important but can you tell me which part of the post was incorrect.

Your making assumptions with no personal knowledge on how any of these candidates feel about Ryan. You also said Cohen is the guy, i guarantee he won't be.Remember that.Heckert was the only guy who turned down the Jets interview request,and that was for the salary cap situation were in,which is not as bad as people think.

[intelligentjetsfan]

Originally Posted by GenoT

Your making assumptions with no personal knowledge on how any of these candidates feel about Ryan. You also said Cohen is the guy, i guarantee he won't be.Remember that.Heckert was the only guy who turned down the Jets interview request,and that was for the salary cap situation were in,which is not as bad as people think.

It was confirmed from the owner's mouth in the press conference that a. no one can fire the coach next season but him and b. the coach will have a say in who the next GM will be.

Its as easy as listening to the press conference again. There are also sources that stated two candidates have already turned down the position. Could they be wrong? Absolutely but I did make an assumption from thin air.

Of course it just my opinion that the team will hire Cohen. And I never said that I knew how these candidates felt about Ryan personally.

[crasherino]

Originally Posted by intelligentjetsfan

fair enough and we can agree to disagree. But to be fair, the second stipulation that the new GM cannot fire Ryan next season was said in the press conference by Woody Johnson.

I don't recall that exactly but let's be realistic - Woody is not the most articulate guy in the world. I wouldn't take anything he says as established policy. His past is riddled with nonsense public statements.

He's a dope. But, for the most part, he leaves the football side alone.

[MDL_JET]

Originally Posted by intelligentjetsfan

fair enough and we can agree to disagree. But to be fair, the second stipulation that the new GM cannot fire Ryan next season was said in the press conference by Woody Johnson.

When did he say that? I thought all he said was is that Playoffs aren't a must for Rex to keep his job.

[C Mart]

For all those discussing what was or wasn't said in the presser please see:

http://www.jetsinsider.com/forums/sh...99#post4772999

[GenoT]

Originally Posted by intelligentjetsfan

It was confirmed from the owner's mouth in the press conference that a. no one can fire the coach next season but him and b. the coach will have a say in who the next GM will be.

Its as easy as listening to the press conference again. There are also sources that stated two candidates have already turned down the position. Could they be wrong? Absolutely but I did make an assumption from thin air.

Of course it just my opinion that the team will hire Cohen. And I never said that I knew how these candidates felt about Ryan personally.

You make it sound because of Woody's position on Ryan, that were going to get ground round instead of sirloin, i take the wait and see approach

[Jet Fumes]

Originally Posted by Astoria

IJF is right on. Korn/F got us a great GM prospect, Gamble, and woody turned him away because he was too strong of a personality. ARE YOU FING KIDDING ME.

Only the truly servile and weak in life are afraid to surround themselves with strong personalities.

Now Korn got us another quality batch, really good candidates like Popp, and Woody fawns over Cohen and starts the process with Cam Cameron. Korn/F is doing a great job, but Woody is throwing his family's money away by not listening to it.

We turned Gamble away?

Last I heard about Gamble is he didn't interview well. In fact, I haven't read or heard anything else about Gamble since then. Not another interview, not that he has been hired.... Nothing.

The Gamble front has been real quiet. Too quiet. "Didn't interview well" and the man just disappears? Peculiar being that there are still openings out there. Either it's true and he sucks at interviewing as evidenced by him not being hired anywhere else, or he hasn't gone anywhere else for some other reason.....?

The team has been mum. No one from the Jets said he didn't interview well, did they? Thats rumor.

[norm428]

Originally Posted by intelligentjetsfan

It was confirmed from the owner's mouth in the press conference that a. no one can fire the coach next season but him and b. the coach will have a say in who the next GM will be.

Its as easy as listening to the press conference again. There are also sources that stated two candidates have already turned down the position. Could they be wrong? Absolutely but I did make an assumption from thin air.

Of course it just my opinion that the team will hire Cohen. And I never said that I knew how these candidates felt about Ryan personally.

I love ya IJF, but I disagree with your interpretation of the press conference. Woody stated that Rex will be the HC next year so that means no one will fire him until this time next year at the earliest. He never said that it will be only his decision after next year.

He never said that the HC will have final say on personnel decisions, in fact he said the opposite.

The PC was a disaster. I think both Woody and Rex were lying through their teeth. I'll reserve finally judgement on this until we see who the new GM is. That PC will tell us more about everyone's role going forward than this last sham of a PC did.

Yes, two candidates turned us down. One was Caldwell who was able to make the HC decision in Jax, so having Rex cost us any shot at him. The other was Heckert who supposedly used the salary cap as an excuse, but he's been speculated as going to KC in some capacity. I don't interpret this as meaning that everyone else will turn us down so we'll be stuck with Cohen. I really want Popp, but i could live with Gaine or Idzik. I do agree that our worst nightmare would be Cohen, Cameron but I don't see that happening.

Anyway, until we hire a GM and see his PC, everything is just speculation.

[crasherino]

Sorry guys, I mistakenly merged it with the Westhoff thread whilst trying to get rid of a duplicate thread. If someone could repost the article here, I'd appreciate it.

Sorry for the screw up.

[TJ]

Originally Posted by crasherino

Sorry guys, I mistakenly merged it with the Westhoff thread whilst trying to get rid of a duplicate thread. If someone could repost the article here, I'd appreciate it.

Sorry for the screw up.

I thought I had a brainfart, my post wound up in the Westhoff/Tebow thread.

Can you move that, Crash?

I think the Jets need "Team Building" the same as the Chargers:

Team building!

Tom Telesco, the Chargers’ new general manager, took to the podium earlier this week, and the key phrase he used was “TEAM building.”

Telesco went on to explain that everything he knows about how to build a team, he learned from his mentor Bill Polian.

Polian has known Telesco since his high school days in Buffalo, N.Y., where Tom grew up with Bill’s sons. When Telesco decided to get into scouting, it was Polian who hired him in Carolina, then took him for the ride to Indy.

During that time, Telesco was getting his Ph.D. in football from one of the original “football guys.”

To understand what Telesco meant about “team building,” we went to the source: Bill Polian.

Bill, we asked, what did Telesco mean when he used this phrase?

Polian then explained why the Chargers hired Telesco, because he will be the anti-A.J. Smith.

According to Polian, the general manager must set a tone within the organization of communication and respect. Polian described how the GM must work hand in hand with the head coach building the roster. The GM need not dictate who is in or out, rather consult with the coach as to who the coach needs or wants.

Had A.J. been a better student of Bill’s — and he had the chance to be that in Buffalo — he might have consulted with the coach about decisions on key players, and many of them might still be wearing a Chargers uniform.

On the communication front, Polian went on to describe an open-door policy in which players, coaches, trainers and even ball boys could stop by and talk to the GM.

That didn’t happen with the prior regime, as described by Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers last week, when he said he had virtually no relationship with A.J.

Point is, this young man, Tom Telesco, will take the Chargers organization, based on who he learned from, and make everyone within it feel like they have ownership, whereas we know how the last GM ruled.

This phrase “team building” is likely what convinced Chargers President Dean Spanos to hire Telesco. Spanos knew there was a lack of organizational unity.

“This job isn’t just about picking players,” Spanos said. “How do you make it all work? How do you unify the team? I don’t think we had that.”

You didn’t have that Dean, but you have it now!

[crasherino]

Sorry again, guys. I know there was a lot of good discussion in the other thread (which is still there). Here is the article that yankee posted.

WSJ: Jets' Headhunter Is Key to Their Recovery

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By MIKE SIELSKI

Jed Hughes is at once spearheading the Jets' search for a new general manager and remaining in the shadows.

It is the nature of the job that Woody Johnson, the team's owner, hired him to do. On Dec. 31, Johnson announced that he had fired Mike Tannenbaum and that Hughes, who heads the sports practice of the global search firm Korn/Ferry International, KFY -0.89% would lead the hunt for Tannenbaum's replacement. Though close to a dozen candidates have reportedly either interviewed or been considered for the position, neither the Jets nor Hughes have commented on the situation, making it a challenge to gauge how close Johnson and the Jets' other power people are to making a decision.

Still, Hughes's history as a sports headhunter does provide a bit of insight into how he might be conducting the search. A former Division I football coach at Michigan, Stanford and UCLA, and a former NFL assistant with the Vikings, Steelers and Browns, he is well known and well regarded among professional sports executives and college administrators. When Korn/Ferry announced his hiring in January 2012, the company called him "the world of sports' pioneer of senior-level search and organizational assessment." And his background gives him an advantage in placing the right person in the right position, said Larry Scott, commissioner of the PAC-12 Conference.

"He has an understanding of the football landscape and an understanding of the dynamics of that culture," said Scott, who had been the chairman and chief executive officer of the Women's Tennis Association when Hughes tabbed him in 2009 to lead the PAC-12. "He's got a great feel for a particular situation and people, and he's good at synthesizing their needs, getting them on the same page."

Through a spokesman, Hughes declined a request to be interviewed, but those who have been involved with some of his previous inquiries described his work as thorough, efficient and often surprising. Mark Murphy, president and CEO of the Green Bay Packers, used Hughes to help him hire Tim Connolly, the franchise's vice president of sales and marketing, and Ed Policy, its vice president and general counsel. Murphy had a good reason for reaching out to Hughes. When the Packers had asked Hughes in late 2007 to find them a new president and CEO, he recommended they hire Murphy.

It was a rather unusual suggestion. At the time, Murphy—a former All-Pro safety with the Washington Redskins—had been the athletic director at Northwestern University for five years. He met Hughes, who was working for the search firm Spencer Stuart then, at an NCAA conference when they appeared together in a panel discussion about diversity in football coaching. The two of them stayed in touch, and when the Packers reached out to Hughes, he contacted Murphy to gauge his interest in the position—even though Murphy had never been an NFL executive before.

The Packers hired him, and during his tenure, they have collected 10 wins or more in each of the last four seasons, including a victory in Super Bowl XLV and a league-best 15-1 record in 2011.

"I was an out-of-the-box candidate," Murphy said. "I'd played in the NFL, but that was a long time ago. That's what Jed is really good at. He really views his job now as similar to when he was a coach, in that he's trying to put people in positions where they can have success."

Three years earlier, in 2004, Hughes helped Syracuse University hire Daryl Gross, the successor to the school's longtime athletic director, Jake Crouthamel. When he met with the university's search committee, Hughes gave each of the 10 members a list of 100 possible qualities in an effective athletic director, asking each person to pick his or her top three criteria in a candidate. He then asked each member again to select his or her three most valued traits in an AD, this time from the shorter list. "He was forcing a conversation about, 'What are you really looking for?'" said Syracuse economics professor Michael Wasylenko, who chaired the search committee.

The candidate whom the committee wanted, Wasylenko said, was "someone who was outgoing, externally oriented, someone who would hire people inside to do the day-to-day management. And we found him." As a senior associate athletic director at the University of Southern California, Gross had played a key role in the rise of USC's football program—he directed the search that led to coach Pete Carroll's hiring—and had overseen nine sports there.

"Jed got right to the point," Wasylenko said. "We said, 'The chancellor wants to move quickly.' He said, 'Look, I've worked with a lot of institutions. The holdup will not be on my end.' He was true to his word."

Crouthamel had announced his retirement in mid-November. The university hired Gross in mid-December. The entire process took four weeks. The Jets are at 12 days and counting.

Write to Mike Sielski at mike.sielski@wsj.com

[ARodFLKeysJetsFan]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...823328846.html

Jets' Headhunter Is Key to Their Recovery .
By MIKE SIELSKI

Jed Hughes is at once spearheading the Jets' search for a new general manager and remaining in the shadows.

It is the nature of the job that Woody Johnson, the team's owner, hired him to do. On Dec. 31, Johnson announced that he had fired Mike Tannenbaum and that Hughes, who heads the sports practice of the global search firm Korn/Ferry International, KFY -0.89%would lead the hunt for Tannenbaum's replacement. Though close to a dozen candidates have reportedly either interviewed or been considered for the position, neither the Jets nor Hughes have commented on the situation, making it a challenge to gauge how close Johnson and the Jets' other power people are to making a decision.

The mood of this Jet fan may soon brighten if professional headhunter, Jed Hughes, is able to find a general manager capable of turning the team around.

Still, Hughes's history as a sports headhunter does provide a bit of insight into how he might be conducting the search. A former Division I football coach at Michigan, Stanford and UCLA, and a former NFL assistant with the Vikings, Steelers and Browns, he is well known and well regarded among professional sports executives and college administrators. When Korn/Ferry announced his hiring in January 2012, the company called him "the world of sports' pioneer of senior-level search and organizational assessment." And his background gives him an advantage in placing the right person in the right position, said Larry Scott, commissioner of the PAC-12 Conference.

"He has an understanding of the football landscape and an understanding of the dynamics of that culture," said Scott, who had been the chairman and chief executive officer of the Women's Tennis Association when Hughes tabbed him in 2009 to lead the PAC-12. "He's got a great feel for a particular situation and people, and he's good at synthesizing their needs, getting them on the same page."

Through a spokesman, Hughes declined a request to be interviewed, but those who have been involved with some of his previous inquiries described his work as thorough, efficient and often surprising. Mark Murphy, president and CEO of the Green Bay Packers, used Hughes to help him hire Tim Connolly, the franchise's vice president of sales and marketing, and Ed Policy, its vice president and general counsel. Murphy had a good reason for reaching out to Hughes. When the Packers had asked Hughes in late 2007 to find them a new president and CEO, he recommended they hire Murphy.

It was a rather unusual suggestion. At the time, Murphy—a former All-Pro safety with the Washington Redskins—had been the athletic director at Northwestern University for five years. He met Hughes, who was working for the search firm Spencer Stuart then, at an NCAA conference when they appeared together in a panel discussion about diversity in football coaching. The two of them stayed in touch, and when the Packers reached out to Hughes, he contacted Murphy to gauge his interest in the position—even though Murphy had never been an NFL executive before.

The Packers hired him, and during his tenure, they have collected 10 wins or more in each of the last four seasons, including a victory in Super Bowl XLV and a league-best 15-1 record in 2011.

"I was an out-of-the-box candidate," Murphy said. "I'd played in the NFL, but that was a long time ago. That's what Jed is really good at. He really views his job now as similar to when he was a coach, in that he's trying to put people in positions where they can have success."

Three years earlier, in 2004, Hughes helped Syracuse University hire Daryl Gross, the successor to the school's longtime athletic director, Jake Crouthamel. When he met with the university's search committee, Hughes gave each of the 10 members a list of 100 possible qualities in an effective athletic director, asking each person to pick his or her top three criteria in a candidate. He then asked each member again to select his or her three most valued traits in an AD, this time from the shorter list. "He was forcing a conversation about, 'What are you really looking for?'" said Syracuse economics professor Michael Wasylenko, who chaired the search committee.

The candidate whom the committee wanted, Wasylenko said, was "someone who was outgoing, externally oriented, someone who would hire people inside to do the day-to-day management. And we found him." As a senior associate athletic director at the University of Southern California, Gross had played a key role in the rise of USC's football program—he directed the search that led to coach Pete Carroll's hiring—and had overseen nine sports there.

"Jed got right to the point," Wasylenko said. "We said, 'The chancellor wants to move quickly.' He said, 'Look, I've worked with a lot of institutions. The holdup will not be on my end.' He was true to his word."

Crouthamel had announced his retirement in mid-November. The university hired Gross in mid-December. The entire process took four weeks. The Jets are at 12 days and counting.

Write to Mike Sielski at mike.sielski@wsj.com

[RMJK]

Originally Posted by crasherino

Sorry guys, I mistakenly merged it with the Westhoff thread whilst trying to get rid of a duplicate thread. If someone could repost the article here, I'd appreciate it.

Sorry for the screw up.

Let he that is without sin cast the first stone.

[crasherino]

Thanks ARod. I switched over to the computer as my mod skillz from the Ipad leave much to be desired.

[ARodFLKeysJetsFan]

Originally Posted by crasherino

Thanks ARod. I switched over to the computer as my mod skillz from the Ipad leave much to be desired.

No sweat crash, sorry I was a little late apparently....