Jump to content

Bobby April Fired as Special Teams Coach


JetsFanatic

Recommended Posts

I am interested to know what "vision" this team has on specials.  I think that they intentionally got experienced old guys for offense and specials so the young coach could concentrate on what he knows.  Now that he sees what didn't work we will see what direction he goes.  Two of the guys they let go had been with the team for some time - Heller and the Assistant ST guy.  They were both assistants to the assistant so no big deal, but April came in with Bowles.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 112
  • Created
  • Last Reply

I am interested to know what "vision" this team has on specials.  I think that they intentionally got experienced old guys for offense and specials so the young coach could concentrate on what he knows.  Now that he sees what didn't work we will see what direction he goes.  Two of the guys they let go had been with the team for some time - Heller and the Assistant ST guy.  They were both assistants to the assistant so no big deal, but April came in with Bowles.

That shows that Bowles has the ability to admit a bad hire and correct it quickly

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You guys crack me up. Cromartie did really well on returns.  Kerley too.  Can you guess who had the 2nd most yards on punt returns in 2015?  Jeremy Kerley, only 35 yards behind Sproles who wouldn't have had so many if the Jets didn't give up the 90 yarder.  Kerley was mid-pack in average at 14th among qualified players ahead of Patrick Peterson, Tavon Austin, De'Anthony Thomas, and young return specialists we'd like to have like Jamison Crowder,  I know, I know he is the fair catch king, only that was years ago.  This year he had 8 more returns than anybody in the NFL and his 19 fair catches were 5th.  Behind, Lockett, Ginn, and Sanders and only one more than Sproles who had 10 less attempts.  Kerley is not good enough to keep around solely to return punts, but he is far from a disaster the way you all portray him

Agree with all of this, and people have also definitely gotten way too spoiled by the good hands he has on punts, which many other teams have had problems with for their returners.  In the end, the one big drawback is that he's really not much of a big play threat, but he's certainly not anywhere close to the worst returner that many try to paint him as either.  Of course, given Gailey's complete lack of interest in using Kerley on offense, it would still likely make sense to replace him, but in truth, he was actually the least of the Jets' problems on special teams this year.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My point is that the ST backup sucked worse than the ST coach. Yeah, you fire DC/OC in middle of season, but at that point, unless you are thrilled with the back up it is a hail mary attempt to save the season. Hoping for better ST coach and better talent next year.

No doubt. Typically when they fire the OC/DC they promote a positional coach. In this case they fired both the ST coach and the asst ST coach. I'm just saying it would have been justified to dump him during the season. Hard to say without the benefit of hindsight whether that would have made things better, but the way they left it we're on the outside looking in anyway and STs weren't an insignificant reason for it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No doubt. Typically when they fire the OC/DC they promote a positional coach. In this case they fired both the ST coach and the asst ST coach. I'm just saying it would have been justified to dump him during the season. Hard to say without the benefit of hindsight whether that would have made things better, but the way they left it we're on the outside looking in anyway and STs weren't an insignificant reason for it.

The assistant special teams coach was a TE coach here with Rex.  If I had to guess, he was an innocuous guy that didn't have anything lined up and asked to stay on.  Heller was around before these guys as well.  Bowles was with April in Philly and supposedly "had his eye" on Gailey  He may have liked the idea of having experienced guys around, but April didn't work out.  The interesting thing is that Bowles said on Monday he hoped to keep the staff as is, but fired these guys after the exit interviews.  I hope the April thing came from him or Maccagnan and wasn't some knee jerk owner driven reaction, billboard style. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

http://www.ganggreennation.com/2016/1/7/10732228/new-york-jets-special-teams-falcons-stc-keith-armstrongs-deal-about

 

 Falcons STC Keith Armstrong's Deal About to Expire

Coach Keith Armstrong's contract should be over soon. As a long time friend of New York Jets HC Todd Bowles, he may soon fill Gang Green's vacancy.

 

Despite the fact that the New York Jets special teams unit played poorly this season, the firing of STC Bobby April still came as a surprise to me. With around 25 years of experience, he has long been regarded as one of the best in the NFL, winning STC Coach of the Year twice, in 2004 and then in 2008. With some of the shuffling of the players on the unit at the end of the season, it seemed to indicate that personnel was to blame and not the coordinator.

I don't believe that HC Todd Bowles would act so hastily without a plan, and it does seem as though he clearly had a candidate in mind. It is one whom he has pursued in the past, one with whom he has longstanding ties, and as the Atlanta Journal-Constitutionreports, one who will soon most likely be available:

 

Falcons special teams coordinator Keith Armstrong was blocked by the team from interviewing with the New York Jets last season.

The Jets, who are coached by Armstrong's former college teammate Todd Bowles, fired their special teams coordinator on Wednesday.

Falcons assistants are evaluating their players this week. Armstrong is believed to be in the last year of his contract with the team.

 

 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.


×
×
  • Create New...