Edwards One Step Closer to KC
It’s been widely reported that the Jets negotiations with Kansas City for granting the Chiefs permission to speak with head coach Herman Edwards about their vacant head coaching position concluded with the Jets receiving only a fourth round draft pick as compensation should their coach change sidelines. Regardless of anything I have said about Edwards in the past I still believe this is too low a price. Edwards is a good coach despite my opinion that he gave up this season and his NFL head coaching record (just below the .500 mark).
The Jets are taking heat from the press on the whole Herman Edwards to KC situation but I think most of the heat is unwarranted. The biggest thing I’ve heard was how the Jets were not communicating with their coach and had they just asked him he would have said that he wants to remain a Jet. Most of the people who take this stance say that the Jets have become league laughing stocks over their anateurish communications skills. Though I’m sure that would have been the case I’m also sure that if the GM Terry Bradway and owner Woody Johnson wanted him as their head coach that communication would have happened. It’s obvious to me that he was not wanted back.
The bigger question for this franchise is where that decision came from. If it came from Johnson then this team is in even more trouble than I may have originally thought. There have been many reports that have said that Johnson was very frustrated with the rumors connecting Edwards to the Kansas City job even before this season was over. And if that’s what motivated Johnson’s actions then he needs to learn how to leave football related decisions to his football people. Only bad things come when people not familiar with the business (even if they own the business) get too involved in it.
Now the Jets have a very uncertain road in front of them. Even if talks between Edwards and the Chiefs don’t lead to him moving to KC it is obvious that the damage done between the coach and his (former?) employer is irreporable. The Jets will have a new coach next season but there really aren’t any candidates out there that would be any improvement on what Edwards has given them the last 5 years.
Getting back to the point I was really trying to make. The point about the Jets looking bad around the league for not communicating with Edwards. I don’t have any league connections but I’d have to think that if the Jets didn’t ask Edwards about this then it’s not because they were too dumb to do so (as the critics would have you believe) but rather that they had already made their decision to go in a different direction so what would have been the point? When thinking of it this way you can see how a fourth round pick may not be so bad after all since they would have fired him anyway and got nothing for it. I’m not saying that Jets management is so smart to have planned that out in advance (I really don’t think they are). But when you look at it with the idea that they were going to cut himn loose anyway then the rest makes some sense.
Either way this whole situation could have been handled better. By Bradway, by Johnson, by Edwards. It’s going to take some time to clean up this mess and see how things shake out. Let’s just hope that the next coach isn’t some loser like Jim Haslett. (I’m not a big Jim Fassel fan either.)
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