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New York Giants KNOW Coaching Truly Matters, Do The Jets?
Great coaching is transformative and the New York Giants took their biggest step yet towards greatness. Do the Jets realize what they’re likely missing?
Prepare for the intense sports debate that only sibling rivalry can conjure. Seesaw Sports, where Dan Salem and Todd Salem throw down on the NFL, MLB, NBA and more. Only on BuzzChomp. Two brothers from New York yell, scream and debate sports.
As the league’s four finalists advanced to the conference championship round, defense continued to be an overwhelming factor. So did coaching. Is there any argument that Sean McVay, Mike Vrabel, Sean Payton, and likely Coach of the Year winner Mike Macdonald are four of the best in the sport? When team talent is so close at this stage, coaching (and injuries and luck) often makes the difference.
For the New York Giants, they took their largest step possible this past week to joining that group in seasons to come. For some surprising reason, considering this franchise’s recent history, they were able to actually sign the best coach on the market in John Harbaugh. The Jets sat on their hands.
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Okay, so the reasons the Giants landed Harbaugh aren’t a total secret. We were just being self-deprecating. Obviously, a good head coach would want to coach Jaxson Dart and some of the other blue-chip players on this roster. They also may be able to come in and gain leverage over the GM since Joe Schoen barely kept his job this current season. The Jets still sit on their hands. Both New York teams are better off than most who missed the playoffs, but is it working? Is this the plan?
New York Giants and Jets: Coaching Matters
Todd Salem: Giants did the ONLY thing they could to get better.
With the leverage Harbaugh now has over the GM, who has top say in the roster construction moving forward? Was that the only way to bag Harbaugh? If he’s now over top of Schoen or even with him in the owners’ eyes, what does that mean for the working relationship of the front office? It could get messy. Not that the Giants have been clean to this point. Everything’s been a mess for a decade-plus. Harbaugh immediately brings stability, acumen, demeanor, gravitas, and everything else a team would want out of its head coach.
The only thing Harbaugh isn’t is a top offensive mind. His coordinator hire will be paramount to Dart’s future and the likelihood that the Giants can actually hope to make a conference title game in the near future.
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On the same side of town, the Jets sat with Aaron Glenn, watching the biggest coaching names in the sport come available. It opened up a slew of wonders in my mind.
1) Should the Jets have dumped Glenn in hopes of landing one of the big fish?
2) Is that a poor way of doing business?
3) Is it only bad business if you fail to land your target?
(Necessary caveat here: with Buffalo’s firing of Sean McDermott, this conversation is still very much in the present tense, even though it’s worded as a past tense discussion.)
It’s a tricky situation. It certainly seems that the Miami Dolphins did exactly this with Mike McDaniel, who has had much greater success than Glenn. If Harbaugh was, indeed, their target, Miami did not land their target, and everyone is shitting on the Dolphins’ ownership as being fickle, feckless, and without a plan.
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The Jets have a leg-up there; they are already feckless and without a plan! But it’s an interesting thought experiment regardless. The timing makes things tricky, but I actually do think you jettison Glenn if you know you can sign a big-name coach who fits your franchise. We have seen too many instances in recent years of teams dumping coaches who were pretty solid (much better than what Glenn has shown to this point) to definitively upgrade and take that next step. Whether Harbaugh or Stefanski (or Tomlin or McDermott) is that guy is hard to know. Only Woody Johnson can really make the call.
The potential blowback is obvious, though. Staff will know that loyalty is fleeting in this organization and won’t reciprocate. Maybe that is already a whimsical, childish thing to say about the NFL. But the other side of the coin is, if you miss on your guy, you seem both disloyal AND stupid.
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Awkward hires can work out occasionally. We remember how awkward Liam Coen’s hiring with Jacksonville was just last season, and that turned into immediate success. It looked from the outside that Miami was trying to piece together its own awkward hire this month and came up short. At least the Jets have a coach, even if it is the unproven Glenn.
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Dan Salem: Jets are better off than many.
The Jets would have fired Glenn in an instant if they actually believed anyone better wanted to come coach their team. Dumping your head coach after one season is bad all around, with one very specific exception. Remember, exceptions don’t make the rule, so just because Vrabel elevated New England after they dumped Mayo after one season, does not prove that it’s a good idea. Nine times out of ten you screw things up trying to do that. Vrabel wanted to coach his former team who also happened to have a young, promising QB. That’s the exception.
With only one season of head coaching experience and a team full of some other coach’s dysfunctional mess, it’s truly impossible to know if Glenn is going to be good at this. The results point toward nothing in particular. The Jets had another Jets season. They made no positive strides, yet also had no quarterback.
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Unlike the Giants, the Jets still have no quarterback, so why would a coach want to join them? The exception would be a coach who wants to have the top college QB as his rookie passer next season, because the Jets pick second overall. But Harbaugh took the more proven path, taking the Giants job with a young, promising QB already in place. Both Buffalo and Baltimore are extremely attractive coaching vacancies as well. The Giants were lucky to secure Harbaugh quickly and the Jets are lucky they don’t need a coach, because they’d get the leftovers (again).
Would I prefer a head coach with lots of positive experience? Yes, of course. But Mike Tomlin appears to be sitting out the upcoming season and McDermott and McDaniels (now the Chargers OC) are not so tempting as to blow everything up and fire Glenn. The Giants and Falcons (hired Stefanski) seized the day and appear to have their new head coaches, barring a wild turn of events which is not without precedent. The Jets must let Glenn rebuild, because stability is the best option on the table.
Meet our Sports Writers:
Dan Salem is Lead Editor and Co-owner of BuzzChomp. He’s an award winning Actor, Director and Producer. Visit M Square Productions for his film work, or get lost in his old-school comedy on Pillow Talk TV. You can follow him on X, TikTok and Instagram. His latest film ‘Alone’ is now on Amazon.
Todd Salem is a Staff Writer and Contributing Editor at BuzzChomp. He’s also a champion of fantasy football and fantasy baseball, dominating leagues for over two decades. Comment below on his unfiltered opinions.
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