Mopping Up

Edition #1018: What a mess we find ourselves in. Where do the jets go from here?

Good morning ☕

Here’s the honest truth. I did not want to write today. Had this been a free publication, it wouldn’t be landing in your inboxes for a while.

The Jets are a complete mess.

The little faith I had in this organisation has evaporated as the last three weeks unfolded. Aaron Glenn’s decision making has swung like a pendulum and all those coaches are going out into the NFL world with only negative things to say.

That won’t change with the reports that surfaced late on Wednesday.

The Jets hired former Dolphins assistant Brian Duker as their new defensive coordinator, he only interviewed virtually on Tuesday but did spend three years with Aaron Glenn in Detroit.

According to a report from Connor Hughes, the Jets and Wink Martindale had been talking since December. Everyone believed the deal was done and Wink had started work on assembling his staff. He flew in on Saturday only to be told by Glenn that he’d changed his mind and wanted to call plays. Wink wasn’t willing to agree to that which is why we end up with Ducker getting the job less than 24 hours after a virtual interview despite a real lack of experience.

This screams bring in a friend who will accept being DC largely in name only. Glenn will almost certainly call the plays as Duker has absolutely zero play-calling experience.

We’ll get into this hire a little more tomorrow, today I don’t have the energy to discuss another underwhelming move from Glenn which makes the Jets look like an utter joke.

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🟡🟢Here’s a little story that I hope can in some ways relate to the Jets. Because actually writing in detail about the jets today is far too difficult. We’ll get to some Jets news and notes at the bottom including a new OC candidate, but let me indulge my other passion for just 5 minutes.

As many of you know, I’m a lifelong Norwich City fan and season ticket holder since I was old enough to go to the football.

You open my wardrobe and you’ll see a wall of yellow. Shirts from years gone by, largely the same with subtle differences. In my kids rooms you’ll find Norwich teddy bears, dinosaurs, and small footballs. In my office you’ll see signed memorabilia and a program collection dating back to the 1920’s.

Last summer Norwich were looking for a new manager. They turned to a man called Liam Manning. He was born in Norwich, grew up a Norwich City season ticket holder. We were told he knew what it meant to support this fine club. You see Norwich is a one sport and one team city. Unlike many cities around the UK, we don’t have professional rugby teams, cricket teams, hockey teams, basketball teams and we certainly don’t have any other football teams.

If you come from Norwich and you like sport, you’re a Norwich City fan, that’s it!

We were told that Liam Manning was one of our own! Someone who shared our passion, someone who would work tirelessly to turn this club from a mid-table championship team to an established Premier League outfit. We had new American owners with the financial muscle to compete with any team in the division and a “vision” for how the club would operate on and off the field.

We were told to have patience and trust in the plan. We were told it wouldn’t happen overnight, but we would see an established DNA, a brand of football that we could be proud of. After all, we were being led by someone who knew all about the team, the city, the fans. We were in safe hands.

Fast-forward to the 8th of November. The season just three months old.

Norwich find themselves 23rd in the table with only Sheffield Wednesday below them thanks to a points deduction for financial issues. Carrow Road which is often a fortress for the home team has yet to see a win, every home game to this point has ended in a loss. 7 home games, 7 losses, 0 points to show for it.

Leicester are the visitors on a cold and blustery night. The stadium is quiet, after going ahead thanks to a Mathias Kvistgaarden goal Norwich have conceded an equaliser in the 75th minute. The home side are holding on for dear life, praying that they can secure their first point of the season at home. Then with the clock having hit the 92nd minute, Leicester steal the points and the stadium explodes. Angry fists are waved towards the dugout, the atmosphere turns toxic. Following the game there are protests outside the directors box, flares are lit, chants are sung, abuse is hurled.

This vision. This patience. This DNA. This Brand. It’s not what anyone signed up for.

Just days before Liam Manning had said that nothing would change by sacking him. The problems ran deeper. We needed to be more patient, believe that he knew what he was doing, there was a plan and they were sticking to it.

Rumours surfaced that our US owners (owners of the Milwaukee Brewers) were reluctant to fire him. They’d already had to dish out compensation to our last manager who was fired less than a year into the job, they weren’t going to stump up the cash to fire another.

Some fans agreed with that approach. Liam was one of our own, it’s the players they said, it’s the sporting director, it’s the schedule, it’s the injuries, it’s the fans not getting behind the team. Excuse after excuse after excuse. A fan behind me let out a roar every game in response to 75% of the stadium chanting they wanted the manager out… “It’s not his fault, it’s really not his fault”.

But the protests became too loud to ignore, the evidence that Manning was out of his depth too obvious to disregard. The news came the same night, hours after the final fans who protested outside the stadium had retired to their homes, or headed to one of around 170 pubs in the city. Norwich were moving on, three months after hiring the man who understood what it meant to lead this team, born and bred in the county, in the city… they’d seen enough.

The search for a new manager was robust, most of the names rather uninspiring.

But just 10 days after Liam Manning had been given his marching orders, Norwich announced the hire of Phillipe Clement. A well-respected manager who had nearly 400 games of managerial experience. The owners had convinced a man who had managed the likes of Monaco and Rangers to join a team in a relegation scrap in the second division.

The fact that Clement was available was a stroke of luck.

Fast-forward to Monday 26th of January. It’s another very cold and blustery night at Carrow Road, the league leaders arrive and take the early lead through a fortunate ricochet. Norwich who under Manning had a tendency to wilt under pressure and in the 2nd half of games fly out the traps, scoring 34 seconds into the 2nd half, and quickly take the lead.

At one point he decides to have a right back play left back and a left back play right wing. Eyebrows are raised in the stands, but then someone makes the simple claim “What do we know, I’m sure Clement knows what he’s doing”. He did know what he was doing. Norwich hold on. At the final whistle the stadium erupts in jubilation.

Clement has just won his 8th game and 4th game in a row. Norwich who were sleep-walking to relegation are clear of the relegation zone and quickly closing the gap to the playoff places. Having been the 23rd/24th team under Manning, Norwich are the 5th best team in the league under Clement. An argument can be made that after having to spend the first month cleaning up the mess that was left behind, the softly spoken Belgian has taken them from walkovers to one of the most feared teams in the league. Nobody has scored more goals in the Championship than Norwich under Clement.

As he takes an appreciative walk around the stadium promising more to come, fans look back to that November night when the owners made a difficult but necessary decision.

Ownership didn’t want to do it. But they took the opportunity to show the fans that what was happening was not acceptable and the fans were being heard.

They chose experience over familiarity, composure over bravado.

There are a lot of similarities between the situation we found ourselves in as Norwich fans back in November to where the Jets find themselves today.

Difficult decisions need to be made but one key decision can alter the outlook considerably. The Jets missed the boat by not being in the sweepstakes for John Harbaugh, but give me Sean McDermott, give me Mike Tomlin. Give me any established manager over someone who’s making it up as they go along.

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NEWS & NOTES

• The Jets met Cowboys TE coach Lunda Wells for the vacant OC position. Wells has never once called plays at any level and has been the Cowboys TEs coach since 2020. He received multiple interviews in this cycle, but the cynic in me believes this is a classic case of the Jets ticking a box when it comes to the Rooney Rule. They simply can’t do from an inexperienced OC to another inexperienced OC.

• Former Jets public relations director Frank Ramos has passed away at the age of 87. He worked for the Jets for nearly 40 years and started in 1963 before the glory days of Namath and finished in 2002. RIP Frank.

• According to PFF, the one free agent the Jets should prioritise is linebacker Devin Bush: “The Jets’ escape from purgatory didn’t get off to an auspicious start under Aaron Glenn, with most of the team’s staff not being retained. The good news for New York is that general manager Darren Mougey has both the No. 2 overall pick and over $66 million in cap space, which could enable the team to sign a stud. Bush has played like one of the premier linebackers in the NFL since 2024 with an 88.9 overall PFF grade as well as a 90.6 PFF run-defense grade. More specifically, his 80.4 PFF coverage grade from last year would aid a defense whose linebackers posted the fourth-worst coverage grade. Glenn had a centerpiece linebacker in Jack Campbell in Detroit, and he could attract another in the 27-year-old Bush this spring”

• The Jets announced 5 offensive coordinator interviews and now they have complied with the Rooney Rule, I think we’ll see Frank Reich hired in the next 24 hours. Glenn wants a seasoned play-caller on that side of the ball so he can focus on his defense.

  • Darrell Bevell (Mia QBs/pass game)

  • Ronald Curry (Buf QBs)

  • Frank Reich (Stanford adviser)

  • Greg Roman (LAC OC)

  • Lunda Wells (DAL TEs)