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It’s time for another edition of “Behind the Jets,” with notes on Mike Devlin, Tim McDonald, “Guge” and more . . .
I will have more on some the Jets new coaches in the coming days, but one of the moves I know for sure is a good one involves Mike Devlin.
The last four years he was the Jets’ tight ends coach.
Now he will handle the offensive line.
The offensive line job fits him better.
Devlin is a former NFL offensive lineman. He was a fifth round pick of the Buffalo Bills in the 1993 draft, and spent his seven-year career mainly as a backup guard and center.
He joined the Jets after two years as the offensive line coach at the University of Toledo, where he developed former Patriots guard/tackle Nick Kaczur into an NFL starter.
The guy is an offensive line aficionado.
Quite honestly, I never entirely understood him coaching tight ends.
There is no question he helped them with the blocking part of the job. We saw Jeff Cumberland take a quantum leap as a blocker under Devlin’s guidance last year.
But what about the receiving part? Honestly, that isn’t an area Devlin could help them a great deal.
So to move him over to the line, and hire long-time tight end mentor Steve Hagen to handle that position, makes a lot of sense . . .
Another coaching move, that was actually made three weeks ago, that makes a lot of sense, is the addition of Tim McDonald as secondary coach.
We are talking about one of the best safeties of the modern era, a six-time Pro Bowler with the Arizona Cardinals and San Francisco 49ers. He knows from whence he speaks.
He is going to be an amazing mentor for second-year safeties Josh Bush and Antonio Allen . . .
Today the Jets announced they have fired offensive line coach Dave DeGuglielmo.
Two weeks ago, Manish Mehta reported DeGuglelmo was out, but the Jets denied it.
Mehta was ticked off today at the Jets, and expressed his outrage on Twitter.
“Two weeks ago, when I reported Jets would part ways with Dave DeGuglielmo and replace him with tight end coach Mike Devlin, and the New York Jets denied it when they knew it was true,” tweeted Mehta.
Did they deny it when they knew is it was true?
Perhaps, in a way.
At the time, DeGuglielmo was still on the staff, but he was on his way out.
They wanted to get a new offensive coordinator in place before made any final decisions on the offensive staff. New offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg retained WR coach Sanjay Lal, RB coach Anthony Lynn and Devlin.
“Guge” is now out.
But honestly, after the bad PR he caused with his terrible relationship with the media, he was never coming back.
So the truth kind of lies in the middle – the Jets had a strong inkling “Guge” wasn’t being retained, but wanted to wait a few weeks, and let the staff reconstruction take it’s course.
February 5, 2013
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