The New York Jets are back to the drawing board in the search for a head coach that can turn the franchise around. Three years after firing the moderately successful Rex Ryan the team has parted company with the man who replaced him. Head coach Todd Bowles was fired on Sunday evening in a move that was anything but surprising. Earlier in the day, the Jets were manhandled by the New England Patriots in a 38-3 rout at Gillette Stadium. It\u2019s doubtful that even an upset victory could have saved Bowles\u2019 job but the non-competitive showing by his team in the final game of the 2018 season made it a foregone conclusion.<\/p>\n
Although the Jets quickly and summarily dismissed Bowles team ownership didn\u2019t \u2018clean house\u2019 as many observers were anticipating. General Manager Mike Maccagnan was hired on the same day as Bowles in 2015 but will be retained and be involved in the search for a new head coach. Maccagnan at least created some \u2018upside\u2019 for the franchise as he turned over the roster and put the team into rebuilding mode. He also acquired a promising young quarterback in Sam Darnold. The team is so high on Darnold that the expectation is that they\u2019ll be looking for an \u2018offensive oriented\u2019 replacement for Bowles in hopes of furthering the young quarterback\u2019s development.<\/p>\n
For Bowles, however, there wasn\u2019t much that could be considered an \u2018upside\u2019. He was brought back after a 5-11 season in 2017 since ownership was impressed with how competitive the team was despite a roster full of young prospects and devoid of established talent. The 4-12 record this year was a slight regression in the standings but Bowles\u2019 real undoing was the team\u2019s shoddy defense. The Jets allowed 411 points in 2018 making it the second worst 16 game defensive performance in franchise history. In the process, the team finished near the bottom in every significant statistical category including scoring defense (28th), total defense (26th), passing defense (26th) and rush defense (26th). <\/p>\n
There were also plenty of negative \u2018intangibles\u2019 that hastened Bowles\u2019 demise. The team played hard for most of the year but fell apart late in a number of games. This problematic tendency was vividly clear during the three December losses prior to the season ending blowout at New England. The Jets blew fourth quarter leads in defeats to Green Bay, Houston and Tennessee. Against the Titans and Packers they held double digit leads during the game but still managed to lose watching a 16 point lead vanish against Tennessee and a 15 point lead obliterated against Green Bay. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to put any type of positive spin on Bowles\u2019 tenure with the team. He leaves with an overall record of 24-40 as New York Jets head coach including 21 losses in the team\u2019s last 27 games. This was New York\u2019s third straight losing season and their eighth straight season without a playoff berth. His .375 winning percentage is the worst in franchise history for a coach with three seasons or more at the helm. <\/p>\n
Jets\u2019 CEO Christopher Johnson gave this statement thanking Bowles<\/a> following the announcement of his dismissal: It was obvious that Bowles had to go but the question now turns to his replacement. The problem that the Jets are facing is that experienced, successful offensive oriented head coaches are in short supply. There\u2019s one on the market that will definitely draw their interest\u2014former Green Bay Packers\u2019 head coach Mike McCarthy. He could be a tough get since several teams have their eye on McCarthy. He\u2019s been linked with the vacant Cleveland head coaching job and with the Browns showing progress this year finishing 7-8-1 behind a future superstar quarterback in Baker Mayfield this option might be more intriguing for McCarthy. Not having to deal with the notoriously brutal New York media<\/a> would also be a plus for any head coach. After McCarthy, there\u2019s not any viable \u2018A list\u2019 coaches with an offensive pedigree. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The New York Jets are back to the drawing board in the search for a head coach that can turn…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":4955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[129],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4954"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4956,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4954\/revisions\/4956"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\n“I would like to thank Coach Bowles for his dedication to the New York Jets for the last four years. After carefully evaluating the situation, I have concluded that this is the right direction for the organization to take. I would like to wish Todd, Taneka and their family only the best.”<\/em><\/p>\n