January 4, 1995, 25 years ago: Rich Kotite, in spite of having cost the Philadelphia Eagles a Playoff spot by losing the last 7 games of the previous season, is hired as head coach of the New York Jets.
Kotite was a local guy, from Staten Island, and was a decent tight end for the New York Giants in the early 1970s. But he was already known as a bafflingly dumb coach.
Jets owner Leon Hess had his reason for hiring him: "I'm 80 years old. I want results now!" The assembled media laughed.
Hess got results, all right: 3-13 in 1995, 1-15 in 1996.
To put it another way: From November 13, 1994 to December 22, 1996, as an NFL head coach, Rich Kotite was 4-35, for a "winning" percentage of .114. That is:
* Slightly better than the worst 39-game stretch any NFL team has ever had: The 2007-09 Detroit Lions were 3-36, .077.
* Slightly better than the worst season in NBA history: The 1972-73 Philadelphia 76ers were 9-73, or .110.
* Worse than the worst season in NHL history: The 1974-75 Washington Capitals were 8-67-5, or .131. And...
* Worse than the worst season in MLB history: The 1899 Cleveland Spiders were 20-134, or .149.
Two days before the 1996 regular-season finale, with Jet fans from Morristown to Montauk, from Bear Mountain to Cape May, wanting him fired or worse, Kotite resigned. The long metropolitan nightmare was over. For now. Kotite has never been employed, in any capacity, by another NFL team.
Hess begged Bill Parcells to come back to the Meadowlands, and the rebuild began. Parcells, head coach of the New York Giants from 1981 to 1990, and of the New England Patriots from 1993 to 1996, went 9-7 in 1997.
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In 1998, he went 12-4, setting a new team record for wins in a season, and achieving the Jets' 1st division title since the 1970 NFL merger. (They had won the AFL East in 1968 and '69.) They beat the Jacksonville Jaguars in the Divisional Playoff, and led the Denver Broncos at halftime of the AFC Championship Game, in Denver no less, before losing.
Then Hess died, close to the results he wanted. But Jet fans had hope. In the opening game of the 1999 season. quarterback Vinny Testaverde tore his Achilles tendon, and was out for the season. Somehow, Parcells squeezed an 8-8 season out of what was left. But he was 58 and tired, and resigned as head coach, vowing never to hold that job again (he later made a liar of himself), and stayed on as general manager.
Bill Belichick had worked with Parcells, as an assistant coach on the Giants from 1979 to 1982; an assistant to him on the Giants from 1983 to 1990, building the defense that won Super Bowls XXI and XXV; an assistant to him on the Patriots in 1996, winning the AFC Championship but losing Super Bowl XXXI; and an assistant to him on the Jets from 1997 to 1999. Parcells arranged for the team to select Belichick as his successor.
*
January 4, 2000, 20 years ago: One day after the arrangement is made, the press conference that was supposed to announce it ends with a napkin to owner Woody Johnson, on which Belichick had written, "I RESIGN AS HC OF THE NYJ." Not so abbreviated: He speaks for half an hour, justifying his decision.
Just 16 days later, he is hired as head coach of the Patriots, the Jets' arch-rivals. (No, the Miami Dolphins are not the Jets' arch-rivals. Nor are the Raiders, regardless of what city they're in at any moment.) The Jets, to whom he was still under contract, demanded compensation. The NFL awarded the Jets the Pats' 1st round pick in the next NFL Draft, which they ended up trading, anyway.
Linebackers coach Al Groh was hired in Belichick's place. He went 9-7, just missing the Playoffs. Considering all that had happened to the Jets recently, this wasn't bad at all. Then he left as well, taking the head coaching job at his alma mater, the University of Virginia.
In the last 20 seasons, 2000 to 2019 (not counting the result of this season's postseason):
* Regular-season games won: Patriots 237, Jets 148.
* Record against each other, including Playoffs: Patriots 31, Jets 11.
* Playoff seasons: Patriots 17, Jets 6.
* AFC East Championships: Patriots 17, Jets 1 (2002).
* Postseason games won: Patriots 31, Jets 6.
* AFC Championship Game appearances: Patriots 13, Jets 2.
* AFC Championships: Patriots 9, Jets 0.
* Super Bowls won: Patriots 6, Jets 0.
* Head Coaches: Patriots 1 (Bill Belichick), Jets 6 (Al Groh, Herman Edwards, Eric Mangini, Rex Ryan, Todd Bowles and Adam Gase).
To put this in perspective: The Patriots have been in 68 percent of the AFC Championship Games played since 9/11. Since the formation of the AFC, the Patriots have won it -- how many times, Ed Rooney? -- 9 times, the Pittsburgh Steelers 8, the Denver Broncos 8, the Miami Dolphins 5, the Raiders 5, and everybody else 14. The Patriots have won as many Super Bowls as any other team, tying the Steelers with 6, and you have to go back to 1961 to find a team that's won more NFL Championships, and, even then, the Green Bay Packers have won those 7 in 59 years, compared to the Patriots winning their 6 in 18 and the Steelers their 6 in 45.
The Jets keeping Belichick would almost certainly have meant no dynasty for the Patriots. So, Belichick did the right thing, right?
Not by Jet fans, he didn't. It would have been bad enough had he left them for anyone else, but the Patriots? New England?
Before 20 years ago, Yankee Fans hated the Boston Red Sox, while Met fans mocked them over the 1986 World Series; Knick fans hated the Boston Celtics, and so did Net fans, to a lesser degree; Ranger fans hated the Boston Bruins, and so did Islander and Devils fans, to a lesser degree.
But Jet fans' hatred for the Patriots was minor, compared to what they felt for the Dolphins and Raiders. As Massachusetts native chef Emeril Lagasse would say, this abandonment kicked it up a notch! And that was before the Pats started winning -- dubiously, as we would later find out.
But can we really blame Belichick for this?
Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame Bill Belichick for Leaving the New York Jets
5. Past Failures. Parcells looked like he was working miracles with the Jets, but he didn't get the team to the Super Bowl in his 3 years with them. And that was a good tenure by Jet standards.
The season after Super Bowl III, 1969, Weeb Ewbank got the Jets to the AFL East title again. After that, though, he never had another winning season. Lou Holtz, already a success at North Carolina State, was hired for the 1976 season, and he went 3-10 before being fired before the season's last game. To know what Holtz did later at Arkansas, Minnesota, Notre Dame and South Carolina, you might be shocked to know how badly he did with the Jets.
Charley Winner, Walt Michaels, Joe Walton and Bruce Coslet had all been good NFL assistant coaches, but failed as Jet boss. (Maybe that's a little unfair for Michaels: He took a really good Jet defense and a good-but-not great offense to the 1982 AFC Championship Game.)
The aforementioned Rich Kotite had gotten the Philadelphia Eagles into the Playoffs, and was 36-21 over his 1st 3 1/2 seasons at Veterans Stadium. But I've already told you the rest: He seemed like a good hire at the start of 1995, but by the end of 1996, he had cemented himself as perhaps the worst NFL coach ever. So seemingly good hires turned sour for the Jets, and, having been around the team, and being a keen student of football history, Belichick surely knew the story.
And that doesn't even count Pete Carroll, who won National Championships at USC and a Super Bowl with the Seattle Seahawks after leaving the Jets, but who had never had a head coaching job before that.
4. Bill Parcells. Without Parcells, Belichick's only head coaching job until 2000 had been with the Cleveland Browns from 1991 to 1995, and he got them into the Playoffs just once. After that, in just 1 year, he went from 11-5 to 5-11. Maybe he needed Parcells. (Or maybe he needed to cheat.)
There's an old saying: You don't want to be the guy who follows the legend; you want to be the guy who follows that guy. Both Parcells and Belichick first worked for the Giants as assistants to Ray Perkins, who had played for Paul "Bear" Bryant at the University of Alabama. When Bryant retired after the 1982 season, Perkins was hired to replace him. It didn't work out, because everyone expected him to be Bear II. And he never would be.
(Perkins had been a receiver on Alabama's National Champions of 1964 and '65V over the Dallas Cowboys. After 'Bama, he was head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for 4 years and Arkansas State for 1; served as Parcells' offensive coordinator on the Pats; and then served on the Oakland and Cleveland staffs. Now 78, he has coached at a high school in Mississippi since 2014.)
If Belichick had stayed with the Jets, he would have been Parcells' man, but he would also have been expected to work miracles like Parcells had, both in East Rutherford and in Foxborough. And the pressure on him would have been tremendous, especially after his 1st season: In 2000, the Giants got back to the Super Bowl, although they lost it to the Baltimore Ravens.
Which leads to...
3. The New York Media. Belichick is a grouch. Parcells can be pretty grouchy, too, but he also knew how to get the New York media on his side. The Boston media can be every bit as nasty, but Belichick toys with them because the winning came first.
If the winning didn't come in New York, how long would it have taken Steve Serby, Mike & the Mad Dog, etc. to turn on him? Not long. Why would he have wanted to put with that? For the money that Woody Johnson would have given him? Bob Kraft was willing to give him more money and more control: Not having Parcells look over his shoulder may have helped.
2. Same Old Jets. The franchise is cursed. Joe Namath has always sworn that there was no deal with the Devil, that he didn't trade half a century or more of Jet glory for that 1 win in Super Bowl III in 1969. And "The Curse of Sonny Werblin" doesn't wash, because Sonny was forced out before that season. "The Curse of Broadway Joe"? Certainly, Joe himself would never have placed a curse on the Jets.
So what's the curse? Maybe it doesn't matter. Things happen to this team. Bad officiating. Bad weather. Untimely injuries. Coaches leaving for whatever reason. Coaches turning out to be flops (Eric Mangini proving he was no "Mangenius," Rex Ryan proving he couldn't run an offense any better than his father Buddy could).
The expression is "Same Old Jets." Think of it this way: If the Jets had played that Playoff game against the Raiders in a snowy, windy Giants Stadium, and the same play had happened, you know which one, would "The Tuck Rule" have saved them, or would the play have been ruled in Duh Raiduhs' favor? What do you think?
But even if things had gone the Jets' way with Belichick in charge, they would have stopped. Because he would have been caught...
1. Cheating. Spygate. Deflategate. Six players tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs. Now, Spygate II. And that's just what we know. Every single game the Patriots have won under Belichick, all 268 of them going into tomorrow's Playoff game against the Tennessee Titans, are now suspect. Guilty until proven innocent.
Would Belichick still have done all this stuff -- or allowed others working for him to do some of this stuff -- if he'd stayed with the Jets? Would Parcells have put up with it (presuming he was still there the 1st time Belichick got caught, instead of going off to Dallas to coach the Cowboys)?
I don't think so. Belichick wants to win in the worst way; Parcells wants to win in the best way. To use a Star Wars analogy: It's like Parcells is Obi-Wan Kenobi, while Belichick is Anakin Skywalker, turned to Darth Vader, with no redemption arc. (Does that make Pats owner Robert Kraft Palpatine? Who is Luke Skywalker in this scenario? Or do we have to wait another 30 years for a Rey?)
Maybe he wouldn't have done well with the Jets if he'd cheated. Certainly, not if he hadn't. Maybe we saw the real Belichick in Cleveland, a 36-44 coach. After all, his quarterback in East Rutherford would have been Chad Pennington. He was good, but not as good as a cheating-aided Tom Brady.
You've seen the case for the prosecution: Belichick screwed the Jets over, went to the Patriots, and has spent 20 years screwing the entire League over.
You've seen the case for the defense: Staying would likely have done neither the man nor the team much good.
It's time to decide.
VERDICT: Guilty. Let's face it, what good was taking the job for 24 hours, and then leaving it in a public way? He should have listened to the offer, said, "Give me 24 hours to think about it," and then made his decision, "No." If he had done that, it wouldn't have made a difference in either team's record over the last 20 years, but at least his knife wouldn't have any back blood on it.
Instead, Belichick came into the Jets' house, ate their food, drank their liquor, watched their TV, slept in their guest room, and made a mess... and then walked out as soon as he got a better offer.
And he's never said he's sorry. But we wouldn't want him to lie to us, would we? Any apology he would give now would be as fraudulent as his 6 titles.
UPDATE: Right after I posted this, I found out that the Patriots had lost, at home, to the Titans, their season over.
Good. Take that, you smug, self-satisfied, cheating son of a bitch!
Linebackers coach Al Groh was hired in Belichick's place. He went 9-7, just missing the Playoffs. Considering all that had happened to the Jets recently, this wasn't bad at all. Then he left as well, taking the head coaching job at his alma mater, the University of Virginia.
In the last 20 seasons, 2000 to 2019 (not counting the result of this season's postseason):
* Regular-season games won: Patriots 237, Jets 148.
* Record against each other, including Playoffs: Patriots 31, Jets 11.
* Playoff seasons: Patriots 17, Jets 6.
* AFC East Championships: Patriots 17, Jets 1 (2002).
* Postseason games won: Patriots 31, Jets 6.
* AFC Championship Game appearances: Patriots 13, Jets 2.
* AFC Championships: Patriots 9, Jets 0.
* Super Bowls won: Patriots 6, Jets 0.
* Head Coaches: Patriots 1 (Bill Belichick), Jets 6 (Al Groh, Herman Edwards, Eric Mangini, Rex Ryan, Todd Bowles and Adam Gase).
To put this in perspective: The Patriots have been in 68 percent of the AFC Championship Games played since 9/11. Since the formation of the AFC, the Patriots have won it -- how many times, Ed Rooney? -- 9 times, the Pittsburgh Steelers 8, the Denver Broncos 8, the Miami Dolphins 5, the Raiders 5, and everybody else 14. The Patriots have won as many Super Bowls as any other team, tying the Steelers with 6, and you have to go back to 1961 to find a team that's won more NFL Championships, and, even then, the Green Bay Packers have won those 7 in 59 years, compared to the Patriots winning their 6 in 18 and the Steelers their 6 in 45.
Pictured: One smug, self-satisfied son of a bitch.
The Jets keeping Belichick would almost certainly have meant no dynasty for the Patriots. So, Belichick did the right thing, right?
Not by Jet fans, he didn't. It would have been bad enough had he left them for anyone else, but the Patriots? New England?
Before 20 years ago, Yankee Fans hated the Boston Red Sox, while Met fans mocked them over the 1986 World Series; Knick fans hated the Boston Celtics, and so did Net fans, to a lesser degree; Ranger fans hated the Boston Bruins, and so did Islander and Devils fans, to a lesser degree.
But Jet fans' hatred for the Patriots was minor, compared to what they felt for the Dolphins and Raiders. As Massachusetts native chef Emeril Lagasse would say, this abandonment kicked it up a notch! And that was before the Pats started winning -- dubiously, as we would later find out.
But can we really blame Belichick for this?
Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame Bill Belichick for Leaving the New York Jets
5. Past Failures. Parcells looked like he was working miracles with the Jets, but he didn't get the team to the Super Bowl in his 3 years with them. And that was a good tenure by Jet standards.
The season after Super Bowl III, 1969, Weeb Ewbank got the Jets to the AFL East title again. After that, though, he never had another winning season. Lou Holtz, already a success at North Carolina State, was hired for the 1976 season, and he went 3-10 before being fired before the season's last game. To know what Holtz did later at Arkansas, Minnesota, Notre Dame and South Carolina, you might be shocked to know how badly he did with the Jets.
Charley Winner, Walt Michaels, Joe Walton and Bruce Coslet had all been good NFL assistant coaches, but failed as Jet boss. (Maybe that's a little unfair for Michaels: He took a really good Jet defense and a good-but-not great offense to the 1982 AFC Championship Game.)
The aforementioned Rich Kotite had gotten the Philadelphia Eagles into the Playoffs, and was 36-21 over his 1st 3 1/2 seasons at Veterans Stadium. But I've already told you the rest: He seemed like a good hire at the start of 1995, but by the end of 1996, he had cemented himself as perhaps the worst NFL coach ever. So seemingly good hires turned sour for the Jets, and, having been around the team, and being a keen student of football history, Belichick surely knew the story.
And that doesn't even count Pete Carroll, who won National Championships at USC and a Super Bowl with the Seattle Seahawks after leaving the Jets, but who had never had a head coaching job before that.
4. Bill Parcells. Without Parcells, Belichick's only head coaching job until 2000 had been with the Cleveland Browns from 1991 to 1995, and he got them into the Playoffs just once. After that, in just 1 year, he went from 11-5 to 5-11. Maybe he needed Parcells. (Or maybe he needed to cheat.)
This was after Walter Payton and Jim McMahon
made wearing headbands on a sideline cool,
but before Belichick discovered hoodies.
There's an old saying: You don't want to be the guy who follows the legend; you want to be the guy who follows that guy. Both Parcells and Belichick first worked for the Giants as assistants to Ray Perkins, who had played for Paul "Bear" Bryant at the University of Alabama. When Bryant retired after the 1982 season, Perkins was hired to replace him. It didn't work out, because everyone expected him to be Bear II. And he never would be.
(Perkins had been a receiver on Alabama's National Champions of 1964 and '65V over the Dallas Cowboys. After 'Bama, he was head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for 4 years and Arkansas State for 1; served as Parcells' offensive coordinator on the Pats; and then served on the Oakland and Cleveland staffs. Now 78, he has coached at a high school in Mississippi since 2014.)
If Belichick had stayed with the Jets, he would have been Parcells' man, but he would also have been expected to work miracles like Parcells had, both in East Rutherford and in Foxborough. And the pressure on him would have been tremendous, especially after his 1st season: In 2000, the Giants got back to the Super Bowl, although they lost it to the Baltimore Ravens.
Which leads to...
3. The New York Media. Belichick is a grouch. Parcells can be pretty grouchy, too, but he also knew how to get the New York media on his side. The Boston media can be every bit as nasty, but Belichick toys with them because the winning came first.
If the winning didn't come in New York, how long would it have taken Steve Serby, Mike & the Mad Dog, etc. to turn on him? Not long. Why would he have wanted to put with that? For the money that Woody Johnson would have given him? Bob Kraft was willing to give him more money and more control: Not having Parcells look over his shoulder may have helped.
"So, Dog, what did you think of the Jets yesterday?"
"Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!"2. Same Old Jets. The franchise is cursed. Joe Namath has always sworn that there was no deal with the Devil, that he didn't trade half a century or more of Jet glory for that 1 win in Super Bowl III in 1969. And "The Curse of Sonny Werblin" doesn't wash, because Sonny was forced out before that season. "The Curse of Broadway Joe"? Certainly, Joe himself would never have placed a curse on the Jets.
But even if things had gone the Jets' way with Belichick in charge, they would have stopped. Because he would have been caught...
1. Cheating. Spygate. Deflategate. Six players tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs. Now, Spygate II. And that's just what we know. Every single game the Patriots have won under Belichick, all 268 of them going into tomorrow's Playoff game against the Tennessee Titans, are now suspect. Guilty until proven innocent.
I don't think so. Belichick wants to win in the worst way; Parcells wants to win in the best way. To use a Star Wars analogy: It's like Parcells is Obi-Wan Kenobi, while Belichick is Anakin Skywalker, turned to Darth Vader, with no redemption arc. (Does that make Pats owner Robert Kraft Palpatine? Who is Luke Skywalker in this scenario? Or do we have to wait another 30 years for a Rey?)
Maybe he wouldn't have done well with the Jets if he'd cheated. Certainly, not if he hadn't. Maybe we saw the real Belichick in Cleveland, a 36-44 coach. After all, his quarterback in East Rutherford would have been Chad Pennington. He was good, but not as good as a cheating-aided Tom Brady.
You've seen the case for the prosecution: Belichick screwed the Jets over, went to the Patriots, and has spent 20 years screwing the entire League over.
You've seen the case for the defense: Staying would likely have done neither the man nor the team much good.
It's time to decide.
VERDICT: Guilty. Let's face it, what good was taking the job for 24 hours, and then leaving it in a public way? He should have listened to the offer, said, "Give me 24 hours to think about it," and then made his decision, "No." If he had done that, it wouldn't have made a difference in either team's record over the last 20 years, but at least his knife wouldn't have any back blood on it.
Instead, Belichick came into the Jets' house, ate their food, drank their liquor, watched their TV, slept in their guest room, and made a mess... and then walked out as soon as he got a better offer.
And he's never said he's sorry. But we wouldn't want him to lie to us, would we? Any apology he would give now would be as fraudulent as his 6 titles.
UPDATE: Right after I posted this, I found out that the Patriots had lost, at home, to the Titans, their season over.
Good. Take that, you smug, self-satisfied, cheating son of a bitch!
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