The failson follies

There’s plenty of juicy tidbits in this reporting about the mercy killing of Joe Douglas, the nominal top assistant to New York Jets head coach and general manager Aaron Rodgers, but this is my favorite bit:

When he spoke to the media (for the last time as Jets GM) on Nov. 6, Douglas looked defeated. He was never much of a talker, but his answers were brief even for him, and devoid of emotion. Perhaps what multiple team sources, granted anonymity to discuss the inner workings of the Jets’ front office, said transpired over the last few months was weighing on him.

According to those sources, the day after the Jets’ loss to the Denver Broncos on Sept. 29, there was a contentious meeting at the team facility. It included Johnson, Douglas, vice chairman Christopher Johnson, team president Hymie Elhai, and Ira Akselrad, an adviser to Johnson. It also included a group of coaches: then-head coach Robert Saleh, offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett, then-defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich and special teams coordinator Brant Boyer among them.

The coaches had been called in to explain what happened with their units during the 10-9 home loss to the Broncos. During the meeting, Johnson suggested to the coaches that they bench Aaron Rodgers in favor of Tyrod Taylor because he felt Rodgers’ performance was holding the team back. The coaches and Douglas, stunned at the suggestion, talked him out of it and convinced Johnson to stay the course and that benching Rodgers, with his pedigree, four games into the season would not sit well with the locker room. The coaches also felt it would embarrass Rodgers. The idea of benching the future Hall of Famer sounded so absurd that one coach asked whether the owner was serious — multiple sources from that meeting believed he was.

There’s a great book to be written about the Woody Johnson era of the Jets, and it should definitely be called Wait–You Were Serious About That? Anyway, it’s sad to see two future members of the Trump administration quarrelling like this.

It’s also not surprising that Douglas was relieved of his duties well before he was fired:

ohnson was calmed that day, but the meeting set the tone for what happened a week later. On Oct. 8, Johnson made a unilateral decision to fire Saleh without consulting his general manager (or anyone else in the organization, for that matter). But really, Douglas’ free will as the GM was stripped away long before that. (Douglas did not respond to a request for comment.)

Douglas had already lost some power midway through last season when Johnson took a more active role. Example: Douglas had a contract extension offer he was getting ready to propose to defensive end Bryce Huff’s agent, but Johnson vetoed that — and any other moves involving paying new money to players on the roster. By January, Douglas seemed to have even less control. That’s when he fired assistant general manager Rex Hogan, a move that shocked many in the organization because of how close Douglas and Hogan — and their families — were. Multiple team sources theorized that Johnson forced Douglas’s hand; in the aftermath, Douglas told Jets staffers that “Woody should just fire me now.” In February, director of player personnel Chad Alexander left for an assistant GM job with the Los Angeles Chargers; Johnson didn’t allow Douglas to replace either of them. From then on, many in the Jets organization described Douglas as a shell of himself.

“They’re holding him hostage,” a team source told The Athletic.

“Joe was checked out,” said another former Jets front office member.

We discussed this on the pod, but firing Saleh in order to promote his rando DC was a catastrophic mistake even by Woody standards — it instantly transformed one of the best defenses in the league to one of the worst without solving any of the team’s other problems because why would it. Anyway, Trump cannot re-nominate Woody as Ambassador to England again — he’s way too valuable turning this franchise into the laughingstock the country needs right now (not that his brother was any improvement.) And, hey, my Jets under 9 1/2 ticket has already cashed after Week 11 so thanks to Woody for the bottle of Blanton’s I plan to sample from later tonight!