Lange's Take

[Bugg]

http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkxMTkmZmdiZWw3Zjd2cWVlRUV5eTY4NTUwMjEmeXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk2

Herm's season wasn't up to par

Sunday, January 8, 2006

By RANDY LANGE

STAFF WRITER

In Kansas City, Chiefs fans are enthralled with their new football ruler in the House of Vermeil.

In this neck of the woods, Jets supporters are of several minds: some wanted to see Herm Edwards gone, some think Herm got hosed by the Jets and some think general manager Terry Bradway got taken in the compensation talks that returned only a fourth-round pick.

Around the country, a general feeling might be: What's going on here? Wasn't Edwards a three-time playoff coach? Wasn't he the face of the Jets? "You Play. To Win. The Game. Hello?" Is he a good coach or is he a bad coach.

The answer, not surprisingly, is both.

There is no denying Edwards' strengths as a leader of men, a motivator, a players' coach. As the rumors began to build Monday, the Jets still stood by their boss.

"Herm's brought a certain spirit, integrity and mentality to this locker room that any team needs," Curtis Martin said.

"I want him to be here," Shaun Ellis shrugged, "But if you're a good coach, people are going to want you to coach their team."

The Chiefs wanted Edwards because he is a fiery extension of that old crybaby, Dick Vermeil, and they were the only team this season to get 10 wins and miss the playoffs.

And Edwards has shown he can win with teams that are close - he did it twice with many holdovers from Bill Parcells teams, then did his best Jets coaching job in 2004, with a rebuilt defense and a veteran offense that steered through narrow wins and Chad Pennington's first rotator cuff tear to get within a foot of the AFC title game.

But Edwards did not do his best coaching this season, and it had nothing to do with all the injuries.

Or maybe it did. The Jets' conditioning was not what it should have been. One team source pointed to some players taking shortcuts in off-season strength and conditioning sessions, and another said during the season that 20-plus players were playing over their assigned weights.

Edwards didn't enforce the weight requirements and looked the other way when some players such as Ty Law missed meetings.

"Herm just was a non-confrontational guy in these situations," said a person familiar with the Jets' operations. "Guys got away with a lot."

Edwards undeniably kept these Jets together and kept finger-pointing out of the equation as the injuries mounted (they finished with as many players on injured reserve, 12, as losses). But he also hammered away at the injury theme.

"I've never seen anything like this before," he said in November. "When something like this happens to your team, it's very, very difficult to combat it. I'm not making excuses. I'm not an excuse-maker. I'm just telling you the facts."

But that wasn't his only statement on the matter. It became a weekly mantra, to the point where he said three days before the Buffalo finale, "I hate to say it, but a lot of this is not of my doing." To many, that sounded like excuse-making.

All might have been forgiven, except that Edwards was consumed with his salary. He got a bump after his first season as the Jets' head coach when they went 10-6 and made the playoffs, then a raise and restructuring after going 6-10 in 2003.

That still pegged him at less than $2 million a year, in the bottom third of the NFL's head coaches. One signing that was said to have bothered him was Cleveland bringing aboard Romeo Crennel, a three-time Super Bowl defensive coordinator, in February for five years and $11 million.

Soon rumors of the Chiefs' interest floated out, similar to rumors linking Edwards to Atlanta late in 2003 and San Francisco last year.

A source said Edwards told his coaches last week, "No one asked me if I wanted to be coach of the Jets."

Yet a team source said on the flip side, neither Edwards nor agent Gary O'Hagan ever approached owner Woody Johnson about another extension before the Jets began compensation talks with Kansas City, which Edwards reportedly approved. The complaining over time has "ticked off" the owner, an NFL source said.

But all that is done now that Edwards has signed a deal reported to be for five years and $20 million to get the Chiefs 10 or more wins a season and have them in the hunt for the playoffs and Super Bowl every year, goals he set before the Jets and their fans when he was hired Jan. 18, 2001.

The bottom line: Edwards is very good at some things, needs work in other areas, and occasionally requires new surroundings. He and the Jets got exactly that last week.

E-mail: lange@northjersey.com

[NIGHT STALKER]

I think the bottom line is this...if the Jets wanted him, he'd still be the HC...simple as that. There's a lot we don't know about and perhaps never will.

That is why we only got a 4th rounder...we didn't want Hermy anymore, KC knew that and maybe we're lucky to even get that in compensation.