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"Sweats on the plane!"


JOJOTOWNSELL

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http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/jets/jets-win-means-sweats-plane-gang-green-article-1.2369737

 

                   Todd Bowles let the Jets wear sweatpants on the flight home after beating Colts, and they were psyched about it 

 

The secret to Todd Bowles’ motivational tactics is out: sweatpants.

The rookie Gang Green coach rewarded his squad with the news that they could wear sweatpants on the team flight home after Monday night’s 20-7 win over the Colts.

“Sweats on the plane,” Bowles said in the locker room after the win, an announcement that was greeted with cheers from his players.

Most teams have their players dress in business attire for road trips, and the Jets arrived in Indianapolis wearing suits.

Quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick took advantage of the change in dress code, leaving Lucas Oil Stadium for the team bus in shorts and a t-shirt with his suit folded in his bag. Darrelle Revis and Brandon Marshall, however, both stuck with the suit-and-tie.

“Guys, that’s a great job. On the road, believe me, that was a very good football team we just beat,” he told the 2-0 Jets. “Physical from beginning to end. Outstanding job.”

So Rex Ryan had “let’s go eat a goddamn snack” as a rallying cry and Bowles has “sweats on a plane.”

Hey, whatever works.

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  • 2 weeks later...

So this is like a thing now

http://nypost.com/2015/10/04/todd-bowles-best-qualities-are-making-these-jets-special/

 

LONDON — The Jets and Dolphins both played like their coaches Sunday.

The Jets came out aggressive and were unfazed by adversity, just like first-year head coach Todd Bowles. The Dolphins looked like a pushover, meek and unsure of the answers, just like head coach Joe Philbin.

n the end, that is what could get Philbin fired this week and it is what should give Jets fans hope that owner Woody Johnson found the right coach after a 27-14 Jets win at Wembley Stadium.

These Jets have taken on Bowles’ personality. The 51-year-old longtime assistant coach is equally unfazed by success and adversity, an often-preached but rarely practiced trait among head coaches. Two straight wins? Stay the course. A loss to the Eagles? Stay the course. A flight across the Atlantic to play a division opponent? Stay the course.

“The thing about Todd is he’s pretty even-keeled, never too up, never too down,” said veteran linebacker Calvin Pace, who played for Eric Mangini and Rex Ryan before Bowles. “I think we embody that. He preaches poise a lot because you have to have that. Would we love to go out and get three-and-out every single series? Yeah, but that’s not realistic. Those guys get paid to play, too. We’re just about staying the course.”

Bowles does not have the colorful quotes of Ryan or the Boy Wonder feeling Mangini had in his first year. He won’t be appearing in any TV shows or making any movies.

For Bowles, it’s all about football.

This week was the latest challenge in his first season with Gang Green. The trip to London presented plenty of obstacles from logistics to keeping players focused on a football game while in a foreign (literally) environment. He reminded the players why they were coming to England and did not let up until the postgame when he told the victorious team that sweat pants were the required uniform for the long trip home.

“It was a business trip from the beginning,” nose tackle Damon Harrison said. “We came into the stadium wearing our suits because we knew it was going to be a business trip. We get to leave a little more comfortable. We came here and handled business, plain and simple.”

Bowles’ plan for the Dolphins was to be aggressive from the opening kickoff until the final whistle. Bowles likes to talk about football being like a boxing match. The Jets came out like a young Mike Tyson in this one, with quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick connecting on a 58-yard pass to Brandon Marshall on the Jets’ first play. Bowles then battered the Dolphins defense with a barrage of Chris Ivory body blows.

If the offense was Tyson, the defense was Muhammad Ali, pounding away at Ryan Tannehill and Co. with equal parts speed and power. Just when it looked like they were on the ropes in the fourth quarter, they hit the Dolphins in the mouth with a red-zone stop. Bowles does not know the meaning of a prevent defense.

The Jets blitzed Tannehill on 35 of 48 dropbacks (73 percent), according to ESPN, the highest blitz percentage any quarterback has faced this season. Tannehill is going to see Jets cornerback Buster Skrine in his sleep.

“At the end of the game there, if you go back and watch the amount of times they came after the quarterback,” Fitzpatrick said about the Jets defense. “That fires us up on the sideline. He just has supreme confidence not only in the scheme but in the players out there. It’s a lot of fun to watch and be a part of.”

Jets fans have been down this road before with head coaches. Herm Edwards, Mangini and Ryan all made the playoffs in their first seasons with the team. The romance with the coach always started quick but fizzled out before too long. Is Bowles the long-term answer? No one knows. He does not have a franchise quarterback to partner with, and that remains a big hole for the Jets’ long-term success. If he is the next Bill Belichick, the Jets better find his Tom Brady.

But the long-term questions are for another day. Right now, the Jets are 3-1 just 10 months after finishing 4-12. Bowles has brought a new attitude to the Jets and it is working.

Gone are the brash days of Ryan. Bowles is about pragmatism, not posturing.

When asked what he thinks of his team at the quarter pole of the season, Bowles paused.

“Through four games, I’m happy,” he said. “Through 16 games, we’ll see.”

Stay the course.

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