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You have to earn it, Herm


RSJ

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http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/jets/story/379133p-322021c.html

You have to earn it, Herm

Jets head coach Herm Edwards has to earn a contract extension by returning Jets to playoffs next season.

Suddenly, rather amazingly, there is speculation about Herm Edwards coaching the Chiefs next season. This happens at a time when Edwards and his general manager, Terry Bradway, should be put on notice about the jobs they already have.

I like Herm Edwards a lot and have from the first day he became coach of the Jets. He is a good man and has mostly been a good coach here. In very tough circumstances this year, when it seemed as if at least one frontline Jet went down with an injury every weekend, Edwards conducted himself about as well as you can, and held his team together. All of this has been well-noted. Edwards has not just been praised for his work with the '05 Jets, he has been wildly overpraised occasionally. The last time I checked, his team was still 3-12.

Apparently that isn't supposed to matter. With two years remaining on the contract he has, there is even the idea in some quarters that Edwards actually merits some sort of extension. It is only as ridiculous as Dick Vermeil (Edwards' old friend) suggesting that "maybe" Edwards should be Coach of the Year for his work with a 3-12 team.

Here is how Edwards can get a contract extension:

If the Jets are back in the playoffs again next season. If they aren't, then both he and Bradway are gone.

By the end of the 2006 season, Bradway and Edwards will have had six years here to at least get the Jets back to an AFC Championship Game. They came close last year. A lot of people come close. Bill Parcells came here and inherited a 1-15 team and had the Jets within one half of going to the Super Bowl two years later. Parcells is the one who always said you are what your record says you are. Bradway and Edwards are currently 38-41.

The AFC East wasn't too much for most of this season. But the Patriots aren't going away. Nick Saban's Dolphins will only get better. So if Edwards doesn't leave for Kansas City, he will be back in the same division with Bill Belichick, the best coach in the game, and with Saban, who already has the Dolphins looking like a real team again, even with quarterback issues of his own down there.

The question around here shouldn't be one about Edwards going to the Chiefs, but this question:

Can this Jets general manager and this Jets coach ever win big here?

We saw, and heard, that Edwards knew how to lose this season, week after week, with no passing game and no running game that scared anybody even before Curtis Martin got hurt. But can he win?

If Bradway ever does get him the players, can Edwards coach them to the big game?

They have had five years together. It is a lifetime in any sport. The Jets had the Steelers beaten last year and were on their way to Foxboro for the AFC Championship Game. Then they couldn't kick a field goal and Edwards' game management came into question again. Now Chad Pennington gets hurt and his backup gets hurt and the Jets are where they are. You are what your record says you are. If Bradway and Edwards were wrong about Pennington, and that means a healthy Pennington, they have set this thing back years.

You bet Jet fans ought to wonder if last season was the best run Bradway's players were going to make for this coach. Have the Jets made the playoffs three times under Edwards? You bet. And have won two playoff games. In six years in Tampa Bay, Tony Dungy's Bucs won two playoff games, even if they did make a championship game once against the Rams. Dungy was 54-42 when he got fired. The people running the Bucs - right or wrong - thought they had gone as far with Dungy as they were going to go.

Jim Fassel took the Giants to a Super Bowl once. Then came a playoff calamity against the 49ers, and a 4-12 record after that, and Fassel was gone. It is why the conversation around here shouldn't be about Herm Edwards going for his next job. It should be about keeping the one he has.

A real owner would tell Edwards that right now. The Jets don't have one. Woody Johnson seems more interested in football stadiums than his football team.

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