Todd Bowles' poise, no-nonsense approach is exactly what New York Jets need

[Gas2No99]

Todd Bowles' poise, no-nonsense approach is exactly what New York Jets need

 

• 
  Iam O'CornyDISNEY PRO SPORTS Senior Writer/Historic Jets Hater & Critic

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- His young children in tow, Todd Bowles was heading from his news conference to his locker room, the winners' locker room, when he stopped for a moment to talk about a vanquished opponent -- Bill Belichick -- who is not in the habit of losing the kind of mind games he'd just lost to the New York Jets.

Asked during the week about his relationship with the man who has owned the Jets every bit as much as Woody Johnson has, Bowles said, "I don't have one." But after the rookie head coach benefited from the rare Belichickian audible gone terribly wrong -- the decision to kick to the Jets after winning the overtime coin toss -- Bowles sounded like a man interested in establishing a future relationship based on achievement, and not on the empty bluster that defined his predecessor, Rex Ryan.

"He's unbelievably great," Bowles told ESPN.com about Belichick, not Ryan. "I don't know if beating him means too much to my team because it was such a crucial situation for us, but I have the utmost respect for him as a person and as a coach. They are a great team, man. They've clinched [a playoff spot] already, and we're trying to get where they are."

Told his no-nonsense, robo-tone approach resembles Belichick's, minus the confrontational edge (for now), Bowles laughed out loud and said, "I hope it's not looks." He said Belichick shook his hand after the Jets' 26-20 victory, told him it was a good game and immediately moved on to the New England Patriots' next and final chance to lock down the No. 1 seed on the AFC side of the postseason bracket.

"I'm sure they're not going to lose too much sleep over it," Bowles said. "We needed it more than they did. We're just trying to play the game the right way and not get too high over a win or too low over a loss, because that affects you the next week. ... But you can't sit back and exhale until the season's over. I can exhale for two hours and then it's like, 'Oh s---, it's Buffalo on Monday.' That's the life of a coach."

It has been a distinguished life for the 52-year-old Bowles, a tough guy from a tough town, Elizabeth, New Jersey, about 18 miles from the MetLife Stadium scene of his best day as a football coach. A day when Bowles strongly suggested he is the perfect antidote to Ryan's buffoonery and, more important, that he is capable of building a program Belichick respects and even admires.

The Jets had squandered a 17-3 third-quarter lead to a franchise that has forever tormented them, and all the signs pointed toward the death of the home team's four-game winning streak and the clinching of New England's home-field advantage through the playoffs. It didn't matter that injuries forced Belichick to pull offensive linemen and skill-position guys out of the cheap seats, or that Tom Brady was taking a fierce pounding for most of the game. On fourth-and-9 in the closing minutes, the great quarterback found his equally great tight end, Rob Gronkowski, for a 26-yard catch made next-to-impossible by the fact the Jets' big-hitting safety, Calvin Pryor, tried to saw Gronk in half.

Brady threw a touchdown pass to a wide-open James White on the next play, and nobody in the stands wearing a faded Keyshawn Johnson or Wayne Chrebet jersey thought he or she was heading for a happy ending. Even when Belichick ordered one of his captains, Matthew Slater, to defer in the event the Patriots won the overtime toss, those fatalistic Jets fans had to be thinking Belichick was assuming his usual role of Lucy, about to pull the ball away from an always unsuspecting Charlie Brown.

Remember, the Jets haven't appeared in the Super Bowl since the year man stepped on the moon, while Belichick is no less a Super Bowl fixture than that ungodly media day. The last time Belichick made an apparently bizarre endgame choice, he was refusing to call timeout in February while staring across the field at his Super Bowl counterpart, Seattle's Pete Carroll, who was melting down at the worst possible time.

Bowles didn't have his team near the goal line, ready to two-peat at the Patriots' expense. This wasn't a title game Sunday, even if it felt that way for the Jets. They knew they had to win to protect their playoff hopes. Just as Bowles suggested, they needed to prevail more than the Patriots did.

So Ryan Fitzpatrick took the gift-wrapped ball and advanced it 80 yards in five plays. He hit Quincy Enunwa for a big play, Brandon Marshall for a big play and Eric Decker for the biggest play -- a six-yard touchdown pass at the expense of Malcolm Butler, Super Bowl hero -- before the Jets started celebrating New Year's Eve a bit early.

"I was a little disappointed," Marshall said. "Before the game, I broke the team down and I said, 'When we win, don't act like you won the Super Bowl.' And we won, then everyone stormed the field. Freaking fireworks goes off. I guess they enjoyed the moment."

For good reason, too. This was only the fifth time the Jets have won at least 10 games in a season since Brady became New England's starter early in 2001; Brady and Belichick have reached double figures 14 times over the same period.

The stadium-wide talk afterward centered on Belichick's coin-toss call; Slater, curious about the first-possession-touchdown-ends-the-game rule, kept asking his coach if he was sure he wanted to go through with it. "I think he was looking at me like, 'Are you concussed?' " said Slater, who could've chosen his words more carefully given the current climate around the league and in movie theaters near you.

Oh well. The Jets later committed an unforced error of their own, retweeting Belichick's quote on the gambit ("We thought that was the best thing to do.") and adding the word, "Agreed." The Jets have no business tweaking a coach who has dominated them and repeatedly has validated his decision to run away from them after Bill Parcells quit way back when.

They had every right to pump up their own coach for leading them in a poised and dignified way. Bowles hired the right offensive coordinator, Chan Gailey, to get the most out of Fitzpatrick, who arrived in New Jersey with a career record of 33-55-1. Under Bowles, Marshall became the first Jet to catch 100 passes in a season, and Bowles' defense has played at the same high level reached by his Arizona defense. The Jets also have shown a resilience not seen in Ryan's final four years, a resilience embodied Sunday by Enunwa (who overcame a critical drop) and by Fitzpatrick (who overcame his strip-sack fumble that gave New England a touchdown).

Marshall said Bowles inspired this culture change after the loss in Houston dropped the Jets to 5-5, when he ripped into his team for blowing opportunity after opportunity. The coach cut an underperforming player, Quinton Coples, a former first-round pick who had played loud music on the flight home, and then lit into his team again.

 

Calvin Pace, 13-year NFL veteran, said those post-Houston speeches were the angriest he has seen Bowles in the regular season. "He's not a vocal guy," Pace said, "but when he speaks, his message comes across and speaks volumes. We knew that he meant business, and it changed us."

Pace called Bowles' hot-and-heavy training camp "hell," which would be a fairly accurate description for what the Jets will experience if they lose a playoff berth next weekend at Ryan's place. But win, lose or draw in Buffalo, Bowles accomplished something Sunday that can't be destroyed in three hours of Week 17 football.

He has set a tone of consistency and professionalism that was supposed to be the trademark of their losing friends next door, the Giants, the same consistency and professionalism he showed as a championship player in Washington.

"We haven't arrived yet," Bowles warned.

But he has, the tough guy from Elizabeth. The rookie coach just beat a Hall of Famer at his own game, and when it was over, Bill Belichick said a lot while saying little. He called the Jets "well-coached." He said Todd Bowles' players "did their job."

[Gas2No99]

A look back at Jets' turning point: 'The ship was going to sink'

• 
  Dick Semen-i
  DISNEY SPORTS Staff Writer

The S.S. Bowles was on the verge of capsizing after last month's horrible loss to the Houston Texans, which dropped the New York Jets to 5-5. So says linebacker Calvin Pace, who painted it as a turning point in the season.

"It was a point in time where we had to come together or the ship was going to sink, I think," Pace said Monday.

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Since then, the Jets have won five straight, taking control of their playoff destiny. If they beat the Buffalo Bills in the season finale, they're in the playoffs for the first time since 2010.

The Jets were in a bad way after losing to the Texans and third-string quarterback T.J. Yates -- a 1-4 funk after a 4-1 start. You could sense the frustration in the locker room after that game, but Todd Bowles said the situation wasn't as dire as Pace described it.

"I don't think the ship was going to sink," the coach said. "I'm sure he didn't mean it that way. If we were going to do anything from a playoffs standpoint or a season standpoint, that was the time to come together. We were still growing and building then. It wasn't a problem, worrying about the ship sinking; it was a matter of playing more consistently."

It's semantics, of course. Most coaches don't like the "sinking ship" analogy because it often means the coach is losing the locker room. I don't think Pace meant it that way. I just think he just felt the season was going under -- and it was. Another loss probably would've doomed their postseason chances. They've been operating with no safety net the last five weeks, clearly embracing the pressure.

[Gas2No99]

Same 'New' Jets: From despair to championship dreams in one year

 

• 
  Lil' Dicky Semen-i
  DISNEY Sports Staff Writer

One of the lasting images of the 2014 season, at least from this perspective, was Sheldon Richardson -- near tears -- addressing reporters after a 38-3 road loss to the Buffalo Bills. It dropped the New York Jets to 2-9, pushing them further into the darkness. Many years ago, I saw a talented cornerback named James Hasty crying in his locker, because he couldn't take the losing anymore. Losing can crush the spirit of the strongest men, and I thought about Hasty that night as Richardson spilled his guts.

"I've never lost nine games," Richardson said. "That's not me at all. I didn't get drafted to lose games, period. If it don't hurt nobody like it hurts me, they shouldn't be on the team."

"I don't want this organization broke up in no type of way," Richardson continued, "but that's what happens when you have seasons like this. They clean house. I don't want it. I play for a lot more. All I am is a number with a name on the back of my jersey. I play with my heart. I don't take L's like this, especially to the Buffalo Bills. My god, man."

Ryan Fitzpatrick and Brandon Marshall are two of eight new starters who helped the Jets become playoff contenders. Al Bello/Getty Images

Freeze that picture in your mind; now we go to another locker room scene, with Richardson talking with reporters after Sunday's overtime win against the New England Patriots. The victory pushed the Jets to the brink of the postseason, and there was the big defensive lineman -- life in his eyes -- talking excitedly about the Week 17 showdown against the Bills, fittingly.

"I want it, I want it bad," he said of his first playoff appearance.

"This team in the playoffs is going to be tough to deal with."

What a remarkable split-screen shot.

Old: The look of despair in a promising young player.

New: Fire and swagger.

Anything is possible in the NFL. With the right leadership, the right plan and a little luck, a franchise can go from laughingstock to blue-chip stock in only a year. The Jets, one year removed from a 4-12 disaster, are 10-5. A season-ending win over the Bills would clinch their first playoff spot since 2010 and mark their greatest one-year turnaround since 1997, when Bill Parcells went 9-7 after inheriting a 1-15 mess.

Now, like then, it took a massive overhaul to restore credibility: new management, new coaches and a handful of new players. The Jets filled the biggest holes by trading for Brandon Marshall and Ryan Fitzpatrick and buying a new secondary. It looked good on paper, but you never know. Anybody who follows the Jets realizes they have won multiple offseason "championships" only to stink it up in the fall. Chemistry is so important.

How do you know the team won't splinter when its presumptive starting quarterback, Geno Smith, gets punched out by a teammate in the locker room?

How can you be sure eight new starters, many of them well-traveled players with sizable egos, will blend together?

You don't, but you throw everything into a pot and hope the chef -- head coach Todd Bowles -- knows how to make a bouillabaisse. Apparently, he does.

"We've got plenty of guys that have been in big-time games and the playoffs," Fitzpatrick said. "We've got some guys who have been to and won the Super Bowl."

"Then there are the old, curmudgeonly guys that haven't been to the playoffs at all," he added in a joking reference to himself and Marshall.

"We have a mixture of guys with a ton of experience," Fitzpatrick continued. "Everybody has that drive and that passion to get [to the playoffs]. We come at it from all different angles. We have guys who have experience in this league and know it doesn't happen every year. We think we've got a special team."

Left tackle D'Brickashaw Ferguson, one of the two longest-tenured players on the Jets, said he knew from the beginning of this season it was a special team. It didn't look that way during a 1-4 slump at midseason, but the adversity made the Jets stronger, not weaker. Now they get a chance for redemption against a team they used to dominate. The Bills have won the past four meetings, including the blowout in November 2014 in Detroit, which hosted the game because of a snowstorm in western New York.

This time, there's no snow in the forecast. Everything is warmer, especially the Jets.

[Gas2No99]

BUMP

 

the Last article REALLY HITS on why it's "just not that easy to unload" Sheldon. Man plays with PASSION & HEART!

[Ex-Rex]

No Same Old Jets themes this year, no matter how much Cimini and Serby want to serve it up. I don't think the Jets are going to falter in Buffalo. They may not win - heaven forbid - but they won't have the same excuses Rex used to trot out there. One reason I don't see the Jets losing is that I think the Bills are as sick of Rex after one season as the Jets fans were after six. He reduced the efficiency of their defense, which is supposed to be his specialty, and has alienated one of the best players on the team - Mario Williams, who Rex has decided is a LB, much to Williams dismay. All he needs to do is call Quentin Coples and ask him what it was like being squeezed into a slot he was ill prepared for.

[Joe W. Namath]

After a rocky start, Bowles has settled down and has been improving as a coach.  I hope he keeps getting better and better.