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East Hanover – With all the craziness in Green Bay yesterday on the Jets’ sideline, all the confusion, the unfortunate time-out, too many men on the field, too many men off the field, burning timeouts and so forth, it’s clear Rex could use an extra assistant to help him with some of these matters.
Losing Bob Sutton and Mike Westhoff two years ago, and then Brian VanGorder after last season hurt him a little. These are three veteran sage coaches who Rex leaned on a lot.
Back in the day with the Football Giants, Bill Parcells had an assistant named Ray Handley, who was really good at the things like clock management. He was a math genius. While Handley wasn’t a very good head coach when he took over for Parcells, he was very helpful to Bill on the two Giant Super Bowl teams led by “The Big Tuna.”
Remember Herman Edwards had Dick Curl, who earned the nicknames “Grandfather Clock,” and “Father Time,” because he was an older coach, with grandchildren, whose job was to help Edwards with the clock and other matters on the sideline.
I love Jeff Weeks. He’s an awesome person, and a good teacher on the defensive side of the ball, but he’s not that guy. He’s standing next to Ryan on the sideline now (along with Dennis Thurman).
Rex needs somebody to lean on, on the sideline, to help him with game management. He has too much
on his plate right now, trying to run the defense, and manage the game . . .
Another situation that might not have been managed properly was related to Dee Milliner’s reps. He was in on 40 plays, and finally pulled himself out of the game because his injured ankle had nothing left.
40 reps was crazy. 20-25 was more like it. He clearly wasn’t 100 percent yet, and had hardly practiced.
Overextending Milliner in his first game back came back to bite the Jets, when Jordy Nelson beat him for the game-winning touchdown. Milliner was beat soundly by Nelson with a nice move, and then the receiver ran for about 50 yards after the catch. The YAC was where you could really see how much Milliner was hurt. Milliner has good speed, and Nelson has average speed, and Jordy pulled away from the Jets’ corner like Secretariat.
To me, the handling of Milliner in this game was far from ideal . . .
A Silver-lining to Mo Wilkerson getting tossed from the game in the third quarter for fighting. He was playing with a bad back, so getting him out of there early, and having eight days to get ready for the Jets-Bears game, should help him get back to normal . . .
John Abraham took a leave of absence from the Arizona Cardinals last week after suffering a concussion. He said he had some memory loss.
He’s back now, perhaps motivated by the $2.5 million he is making this year, in what might be his last year.
This reminded me of the only time in all my years covering the Jets that I saw a player’s paycheck. When we went over to interview Abraham, it was sitting in his locker in a place you could see it (I wasn’t snooping).
It was for $630,000.
My eyes popped out. I’d never seen a check that large in my life . . .
Marty Mornhinweg addressed the media today for five minutes about the time-out debacle. Mornhinweg usually doesn’t talk until Thursday, but it was smart of the Jets to get this out of the way, so this topic is put to rest, and no revisited later in the week, when their focus should be totally on the Bears . . .
Three veteran New York writers, who were in Green Bay, played the “Same Old Jets” card, and attached what happened in Lambeau, to the Jets’ history. They need to retire this worn-out angle. It’s irrelevant. The Jets’ past disappointments have no connection to what happened in Green Bay. Leave the Ghostbusting to Bill Murray.
September 15, 2014
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