Sad Ending, New Beginning

Despite the wonders of NFL ticket, I really was only interested in a few games yesterday. All the games paled in interest when compared to the Jets game. I had looked forward to Chad’s kicking the Jets butts since around Week 10.

So it was mostly a good day for me.

I used to be a Jets fan. That was before the Jets played hardball with one of their best offensive linemen last year. That was before Mangini started testing players on their assignments during the week. That was before Tannenbaum finally acquired some really good free agents - guys who would finally make it possible for the loyal Pennington to lead the Jets into the playoffs.

Then in the Jets’ infinite wisdom, they acquired Favre. They held Pennington in such low regard that they just gave him his release. Parcells got him.

At that moment I became a Dolphins fan. Not a diehard Fish enthusiast certainly, but someone who kept an eye on what the men in those crazy teal and orange and white uniforms were doing each week.

And they did mostly good things, smart things. They got Joey Porter and Ricky Williams, and they took a chance on a hard-working coach from Connecticut. They beat the tar out of the Patriots by pulling out their Wildcat, and I watched with glee as the Pats were swiping mostly at air all afternoon.

So it was great watching Favre be himself yesterday and throw INT after INT --and Pennington be himself by throwing two TD’s and no interceptions. What can you say? They needed to win but the Jets lost again. I totally expected it. I anticipated the interceptions and reveled in Chad Pennington’s performance. I enjoyed watching the Fish run their Wildcat again and again against a Jets defense that looked slow and confused. And leaderless.

And now Mangini has been fired. So now the Jets can move forward again. They can start over with a new head coach, and hopefully new coaches. They certainly need a different scheme on defense. It doesn’t seem to work. There’s never any real pressure on the opposing qb’s, something that so many other good teams do successfully. The team just looked totally lifeless. Maybe it was Favre’s ridiculously low-key televised “pep talk” to the team.

It’s probably the best thing for Mangini at this stage of his career. Maybe he went too far too fast. The speed of the firing makes me think Mangini knew he had to win that last game in order to be retained. His physical reactions at his last press conference would seem to confirm that, or at least a suspicion of that.

I wonder now if pulling the plug so quickly on Mangini will save Tannenbaum his job. Somebody should pay for dumping Pennington so unceremoniously, and worse, from a business standpoint, giving him away.

But Tannenbaum has made some good moves too, though. Sure - he had Woody’s budget, but at least he recognized where his team needed help. Most of his moves were more positive than negative. The offensive line moves and the linebacker move he made worked out, by all accounts, so he must be doing some things right. And Jenkins helped them until mid-season. QB is a big place to make a mistake though. Geez.

Maybe I can even become a fan again, but it’ll be tough if Favre’s still the quarterback. They at least have to start developing somebody else long-term, somebody in addition to Kellen Clemens and Brett Ratliff, somebody who has a reasonable expectation of succeeding.

With or without Favre, the Jets have problems. The Dolphins certainly had their problems last year. But the good leaders found answers for them all. They got people with character. Sparano, Pennington, Porter, and even a kid from Jersey named Fasano.

But a team has no chance without good leadership…..any team. That was obvious in Philadelphia yesterday as the Cowboys got mutilated by the Eagles. It was “Fly, Eagles, Fly” time in Cheesesteak-land. Dallas seems to need some leadership skills too, somewhere. Could Tony Romo alone be the cause of such ineptitude?

Romo looked bad yesterday, bad enough to really warrant a re-inspection of their quarterback position. His fling down the sideline was so poorly thrown and so ill-advised that it made the whole team sick, I think. They lost heart….and then continued to lose heart. What a beating!

Wade Phillips will be kept, according to Jerry Jones’s first remarks after the loss. He sounds as if he’s tired of blaming coaches. I think he should reexamine his position. Wade seems to be another non-starter as a leader, maybe Romo too, but I think there’s still a lot of hope for him.

In a way, Romo’s biggest problem is his elusiveness. He holds the ball too long. He always needs a checkdown guy, but there weren’t any in sight yesterday.

Jones needs to get some guys without character issues too. T.O. wouldn’t be my team’s spokesman. I know he loves it but get a grip, Jerry. Stop picking up big names; they don’t always have big games.

It’s almost unbelievable what the Dolphins have accomplished. Now that situation just reeks of leadership. Sound operations from the top brought a good, maybe great, head coach. His guys played motivated in every game. They were good defensively and good enough on offense. Everything was balanced. Everything seemed well-organized, even when they ran a wildly-imaginative offense nobody had used for a long long time, maybe never.

So leadership seems to mean a lot. A new head coach in New York, even with total uncertainty at the most important football position, quarterback, will be a good start.

They need somebody who’s coached before, somebody who can handle people and be pretty good as a bench coach too, somebody with honest-to-God football instincts who can inspire a good performance or at least an honest one. It’s a tough game and you need tough people at the top.

Let’s go Jets.