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New York Jets Hit Nail on Head With Offseason Hires

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By @GregSulik

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The New York Jets have finally announced their next general manager and head coach, going with Houston Texans director of college scouting Mike Maccagnan and Arizona Cardinals defensive coordinator Todd Bowles. There has been a lot of criticism of the Jets and the circus perception around their organization in recent years, but they made two great hires this offseason.

The 47 year old Maccagnan has spent the last three years as the director of college scouting with the Texans, and he was a scout for his entire career before that. He is said to be an unassuming personality who loves to scout, which is exactly what the Jets need. Hiring a capologist in John Idzik made sense last time, but the Jets focused entirely on landing an talent evaluator this time around.

The Texans’ draft record over the last few seasons isn’t dazzling, but it’s impossible to know how much input Maccagnan had on the final say. Either way, he should be a draft focused GM and he has plenty of experience in talent evaluation, which is exactly what the Jets need.

The 51 year old Bowles is a New Jersey native and a former Jets assistant, and the fact that he is a Bill Parcells disciple certainly helped his cause. Bowles played safety in the NFL in the late 1980s and early 1990s before working his way up through the ranks as a defensive coach. He has been the defensive coordinator for two teams, and he has a few games of head coaching experience as the Miami Dolphins‘ interim coach in 2011.

Schematically, Bowles will look a lot like Rex Ryan. He runs a blitz heavy 3-4 scheme, a good fit for the Jets’ current personnel. Antonio Cromartie, who has played for each coach over the last two seasons, tweeted that little would change for the Jets’ defense as far as schemes go. Despite several injuries to key players and down year from Patrick Peterson, Bowles led the NFL’s fifth ranked scoring defense.

One area in which Bowles will bring a welcome change is in the personality and culture of the team. Bowles is much more even-keeled than Ryan, and the press conference shenanigans and sound bites that were so common over the last six years should be gone. Ryan’s words were mostly empty promises, and expect Bowles to go about his business in a quiet, professional manner.

All in all, credit must be given to Woody Johnson for how he handled this offseason. He deferred to the opinions of Charley Casserly and Ron Wolf, two respected former general managers, and ended up hiring two people who have worked closely with Casserly in the past. The inexperience of both is a concern, but certainly not enough of one to dissuade the hiring of two individuals who are a good fit for the organization.

These hirings mark the beginning of a huge change for the Jets, and this should be an organization that conducts itself very differently going forward. Furthermore, the decision to hire two like-minded men who want to work together is vital, and that should prevent the disconnect that plagued the Ryan-Idzik partnership.

It will take time to rebuild the Jets’ roster, but Jets fans should be very pleased with these decisions. Bowles and Maccagnan were the right men for the job, and the Jets got this offseason off to a very good start.

Greg Sulik is a New York Jets writer for Rant Sports. Follow him on Twitter @GregSulik or add him to your network on Google

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