Brian Schottenheimer is a good young coach. Rex Ryan is a very good coach and a people person. After the 2005 season which was Herm Edwards final as our head man (Thank you Jesus) the Jets had their sights set on one target: Eric Mangini the defensive coordinator of the New England Patriots. Well, we know how that played out. Our biggest problem heading into the 2006 season was our new head coach trying to assemble a coaching staff. We ended up with Bob Sutton as our defensive coordinator (by default) and we lucked out by landing a young QB coach from San Diego with quite a nice pedigree to take over our offense.
I realize now that Eric's total lack of a personality did our team a disservice in more than one way. Top assistant coaches from around the league avoided this block head and the only way we could score any quality free agents was by paying them ridiculous amounts of cash. Our new coach has a magnetic personality and it is already paying dividends.
Not only did we score Bart Scott, Jim Leonard, Mike Pettine, and Denis Thurman from the Ravens, he also retained Schottenheimer who was disgruntled after being passed over for the head coaching spot. Brian had one foot out the door and made calls to over a dozen colleagues who had worked with Rex trying to get one bad word or any negative feedback. After that failed he went for a meeting, again intending it only as a formality. After 10 minutes with Rex he was on board 100% and our coaching staff was complete.
Rex is giving Brian the freedom and respect that he was given last year in Baltimore. He focused the meeting on what the two men had in common and made him realize that he was going to be working for a winner. As I watch player after player demanding new contracts in Cleveland and trying to abandon the ship like rats I breathe a sigh of relief.
Rex has a long way to go to prove he can be as good a head coach as he was a coordinator, but one thing we know for sure.... we are better off now than we were last season.
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