Kevin Greene brings his passion for hunting QBs to the Jets’ linebackers

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Kevin Greene brings his passion for hunting QBs to the Jets’ linebackers

BY DANIEL POPPER

 

This spring, the Jets’ new outside linebackers coach has shown highlights to his young group that showcase the relentless effort of the game’s elite pass rushers both present and past.

Naturally, he included himself in the video reel. After all, his name is Kevin Greene, and he’s one of the greatest quarterback hunters in the history of the NFL.

Greene joined the Jets in late January after Todd Bowles turned over a good portion of his coaching staff in the wake of last year’s disappointing campaign. And in his short time with the team, Greene is already making a massive impact on a position that severely underperformed for Gang Green in 2016.

Greene is third all-time in sacks with 160 over his 15 NFL seasons. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2016 and earned a reputation as a madman of sorts because of his maniacal and brutally physical style of play. Greene wants to impart that mentality onto the Jets’ outside linebackers, and he’s doing so by showing them film of his prolific career.

The youngsters are taking notice.

“He destroyed people,” second-year OLB Jordan Jenkins told the Daily News.

Search Google for Kevin Greene highlights, and you can begin to understand what Jenkins is referring to. One six-minute video opens with Greene delivering a series of crushing hits to some unlucky quarterbacks. Later, it cuts to Greene on the bench yelling wide-eyed to one of his teammates.

Hall of Famer Kevin Greene dumps Colts QB Jim Harbaugh in this 1996 game.

(RUSTY KENNEDY)

“There ain’t nothing like feeling a quarterback’s body crumble, man, when you hit him in the throat,” Greene says in the clip.

If you can’t already tell, Greene has an unwavering passion for football, and it translates to his coaching style. He’s loud on the practice field and urges his players to express themselves.

“I try to encourage my kids to let the love flow, let it flow,” Greene said last week. “If you make a good play, nothing wrong with letting a little passion flow and have some passion for your teammates when they make a big-time play. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

For Jenkins and the rest of the Jets’ young outside linebackers, that emotion is palpable. And Greene’s impressive resume only makes it easier to listen and learn.

Greene says pass rushers need to have a “hunter’s heart,” which isn’t a totally unique saying among football coaches, according to Jenkins. But it means something different coming from a Hall of Famer.

“Everyone says it, but he really embodies it,” Jenkins said. “He wants guys to be relentless.”

Kevin Greene encourages his Jets to 'let the love flow.'

(ERIC MILLER/REUTERS)

“He’s a nut,” Jenkins continued. “He really gets excited when guys make plays and when guys are hitting people. He loves all that. He wishes he could do it now. He loves intensity and energy is just oozing out of him.”

The Jets were one of the worst pass-rushing teams in the league last year, finishing with just 27 sacks on the season. Outside linebackers combined for just 5.5 sacks all year. By comparison, the Cardinals — the NFL’s best pass-rushing team in 2016 — got 23.5 sacks from their two starting outside linebackers.

Jenkins knows his unit needs to be better this season if the Jets are going to avoid a completely embarrassing campaign. And Greene is doing his part to facilitate that development.

For one, outside linebacker Lorenzo Mauldin has already changed his outlook based on coaching tips from Greene.

“I was a finesse player,” Mauldin said of his first two NFL seasons. “I think I’m going to throw that into the trash bin this year. I think I’m going to go with more power this season.”

Bowles, a former NFL player himself, has already witnessed the influence of Greene’s presence.

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“Those guys gravitate towards him and he’s a sponge towards them,” Bowles said. “I think he loves it sometimes more than they love it. If he could get out there right now, he would. But his knowledge in teaching those guys right now is invaluable.”

Greene last coached with the Packers from 2009-2013, helping groom Clay Matthews, who was one of the players whose film Greene played for the Jets’ outside linebackers this spring.

Greene won a title with Green Bay in 2011, but he left after 2013 to coach his son Gavin, who now plays linebacker for Southern Mississippi.

With Gavin off to college, Greene was bored. “I was just sitting around not doing much, twiddling my thumbs,” he said. “Still watching football on TV and just kind of still had that fire.”

Ask Jets players, and it’s clear that fire is still raging.

Now it’s a question of whether Jenkins, Mauldin and the rest of the Gang Green outside linebacker can harness the flames themselves and unleash them on opposing quarterbacks — the way Greene did for 15 unrelenting years.

“The sky’s the limit for all my kids,” Greene said. "I’m teaching my kids technique and fundamentals not based on athletic ability and skill. It’s based on physicality. It’s based on drive and desire and want-to and being a student of the game. ... All my kids can really be as good they want to be.”