With FOX’s Jay Glazer declaring earlier today that the Jets “can’t give . . . away” their General Manager job, it’ll be interesting to see how the team reacts.
Will they simply offer the job to someone with no further discussion? Or will they now be even more deliberate, hoping to avoid the impression that they are desperate?
Regardless, whoever takes the job will face significant local scrutiny, immediately. Already, the person who gets the job will be viewed as perhaps the fifth choice at best, given that multiple folks declined to interview (including Eric DeCosta, Tom Heckert, and possibly Bill Polian) and that at least two men the Jets were chasing ran elsewhere (Dave Caldwell to Jacksonville and Tom Telesco to San Diego).
And the vocal and robust New York media will make a loud and clear point of that.
Then there’s the inevitable scrutiny that will descend on the position and hover there for as long as the G.M. has it. Which means that the G.M. will need to have a very thick skin.
If the job goes to Jerry Angelo, who had been largely ignored for NFL jobs since being fired by the Bears but who is now regarded by ESPN’s Adam Schefter as the name to watch, things could get interesting if/when Angelo faces an on-air grilling from, say, WFAN’s Mike Francesa. Angelo has a reputation for being feisty, as evidenced by his response to criticism arising from his failure to lure Nick Saban to Chicago in 2004.
“It has nothing [to do] with control freak or he’s going to shove some player down his throat or he’s going to make him hire coaches,” Angelo said in response to the idea that Saban and Angelo would clash over personnel. “I’ve listened to so much crap in the last two weeks, I’ve [had] to look myself in the mirror. I said, ‘You know, I should have a turban on.’” (He later apologized, explaining that he was trying to make the point that he doesn’t view himself as an “ayatollah or an all-powerful ruler”.)
Angelo’s remark didn’t trigger a significant national outcry at the time. But if he says something like that in New York, he’ll be Photoshopped on the back page of the New York Post next to a mildly offensive headline in blaring all caps.
So whoever takes that job will have to deal with hearing for days about how bad he must be, and then he must continue to deal with similar questions if/when the struggles continue.
Thus, the smart move could be to keep the next G.M. away from the media completely, and to use Rex Ryan as the primary voice of the organization. Then again, few have accused the Jets in recent months of being smart.