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Phoenix – Jets head coach Todd Bowles addressed the media for about an hour today at a media breakfast at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix, Arizona.
I came away from impressed.
First of all, as you know, I don’t care about people “winning the press conference.”
It’s about winning on game day.
What I was impressed with that his straight-forward communication style and the football philosophies he was espousing.
I think the football politics that we experienced the last six years, through a pair of GM’s, and one head coach, are gone.
Instead of tap-dancing and spinning – he just tells you how it’s going to be. This is important. He doesn’t leave big grey areas.
When asked about deciding on a quarterback, he said, “You know when a guy is throwing interceptions, a guy is throwing picks, who is playing better, who isn’t playing better. It’s not just who is throwing better, it is who has a better command of the offense. Who is the team responding to? (Who is) understanding everything they need to do and you kind of go from there.”
That is the way it should be. It doesn’t matter where a guy was picked, or how he was acquired, just judge them by what they are doing on the field.
He also was pretty blunt about training camp reps – Geno is doing to get more, but that doesn’t mean a darn thing.
“You can’t have even first team reps with a quarterback,” Bowles said. “Geno will start out taking them, but that doesn’t mean Ryan (Fitzpatrick) can’t take his spot. But to give a quarterback even reps, I would be sitting here lying if I said they would get equal reps. Geno is going to take reps with the first team. Ryan will take reps with the second team and we will let it play out.”
I just respect that kind of language. Nobody need to guess what is going on. In both of these answers, it’s pretty clear what’s up.
I loved what he said about Quinton Coples. He made a great analogy.
“You see potential,” Bowles said. “He’s a lot like Geno, so to speak. You see him make plays, and then you see him do other things at times.”
And then he pointed out something very fair about how Coples was handled his first three years, and how that makes it hard to discern, right now, where to line him up.
“I really have to see what he can do,” Bowles said. “Right now he can play some outside, he can play some D-Line. I have to see what he’s better at. He was moved around a lot. I have to get him out on the field and see what his strengths are. He will do a little bit of both until I can see what he is.”
He was asked by a reporter how he would compare Patrick Peterson, who he coached in Arizona, to Darrelle Revis.
“I know Patrick is faster,” Bowles said.
He wasn’t ripping Revis, just being honest.
Like I said, I don’t like to talk about “winning a press conference,” but hearing him philosophize about football, you have to respect his frank nature and his mindset. And the fact that he’s clearly learned a lot from all the great teachers he worked under like Bill Parcells, Andy Reid and Bruce Arians.
March 24, 2015
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