Al Groh, the Jets rookie head coach who's as good a candidate for NFL Coach
of the Year as anyone through the first month of the season, is not a man who
readily accepts a lot of accolades.
But just because Groh is reticent about accepting credit for the Jets'
startling 4-0 start doesn't mean he doesn't deserve it.
|  | | Al Groh and Vinny Testaverde have the Jets off to a 4-0 start. |
Perhaps the best compliment that can be given to Groh is this: His Jets look
a lot like they did under Hall of Fame-bound Bill Parcells.
Though it hasn't been perfect, the Al Groh Jets have looked disciplined,
organized, mentally-tough, motivated and ready to play on Sundays. They seem
to recognize the things that cause you to lose and stay away from those
things more often than their opponents.
For a stark and ironic difference, take a look at the Patriots and their 0-4
start under former Jets (and Groh's) defensive boss Bill Belichick. And to
think, Groh is working under a mere four-year, $3.2 million contract, while
Belichick is making $10 million over five years.
So far, Groh, who waited his 32-year coaching career to become an NFL head coach, looks
like the better head coach than Belichick. He's even done more in the first
month of the season than Parcells ever did with the Jets.
Though it is early, you wouldn't be out of line to think that in the long
run that'll remain the case.
"His attitude, which is good for us, is that he's a team guy," Jets running back Curtis Martin said. "Al's a team guy who's not looking for publicity. Al wants to win, and he's going to do whatever it takes to win.
That attitude has spread to every player in this locker room. He's a great
motivator. It's almost as if the attitude is still the same (as with
Parcells)."
Martin said the transition from Parcells to Groh has been almost seamless.
"Al has made the transition very easy," Martin said. "It hasn't been like
going from hot to cold. On a scale of hot to cold, we went from an 11 to a nine instead of going from an 11 to a two, which I think would have hurt us."
Asked what would have been an 11 to a two, Martin said, "For instance, the
transition we made from Bill (Parcells) to (Pete) Carroll (in New England). I
think that was something that team wasn't mature enough to handle."
Groh is not Parcells, but one of the secrets to his success is the fact that
he hasn't run away from the things that he learned from Parcells that made
teams successful. Instead, without being a copycat, he embraces those same ideas and
employs many of them in his system.
Ray Handley ran as fast as he could from the Parcells way of doing things,
even though that system won two Super Bowls for the Giants. He failed in such
a dramatic way that it's left him so far out of sight he might as well be a part
of the witness protection program.
Carroll followed Parcells in New England and tried to be the players'
comrade instead of their boss. He's now out of football for the moment, and
Belichick is trying -- unsuccessfully so far -- to clean up the mess.
Groh's mantra is this: "Just coach the team."
So far, so good.
Something else that must be remembered in this scintillating start of the
Jets: This isn't a fluke. This is a pretty good team, essentially the same
core group of players who came so close to winning the 1998 AFC Championship
in Denver.
Take away the post-Testaverde-Achilles'-shock-syndrome period at the
beginning of last season -- or, if you will, the Rick Mirer era -- and the Jets
have, by a longshot, the best record in the NFL since the beginning of the
'98 season.
When Testaverde went down in the opener last year, it began a miserable,
dream-ending 1-6 start to the season -- mostly with Mirer starting at
quarterback while the rest of the team felt sorry for itself. Take that 1-6 stretch away and the Jets have a 23-6 regular-season record
from the start of '98 to now. They were 12-4 in '98, finished the '99 season
at 7-2 and they're 4-0 entering this week's bye. Add to that the job Groh is doing and Jets fans should feel even more
at ease.
|
“ |
Al
wants to win, and he's going to do whatever it
takes to win. That attitude has spread to every
player in this locker room. He's a great motivator.
It's almost as if the attitude is still the same (as
with Parcells). ” |
|
|
— Curtis Martin, Jets running back |
The even-keel, without-a-discernable-ego Groh already has his players on
alert for a bumpy ride to come. "We have a target on our backs now," Wayne Chrebet said.
That means, when the Jets play their next game, against the currently 0-3
Steelers on Oct. 8 and then the game after that against the currently 0-4
Patriots, it won't be as easy as it might appear on paper. The Jets should be thinking 6-0 in their minds based on the
current 0-7 combined record of their next two opponents.
This team doesn't think that way, though. Whether it's Groh's influence or a
collective maturity or both, the Jets have gone through this season with
blinders on, ignoring the many distractions that have lurked with each of
their four games so far.
"It's a very simple thing; we don't feed into the hype," Martin said. "We don't get involved in that. Winning at Lambeau Field, that soap
opera that goes on between New England and New York, Tampa Bay with all the hoopla
that was going on there, we didn't feed into it. We go out with one goal, one
focus.
"I believe one thing we've learned is to stay humble," Martin added. "We
are becoming a team. We're not a group of guys that are individual
playmakers. We're a team that makes plays together. That's the key to our
success. Take that away and, any of these games that we have won, we could very
well have lost. I think this (chemistry) is in its infant stages right now."
"In the last handful of years we've started off pretty bad and
had to dig ourselves out of a hole," Chrebet said. "We control our own destiny right now. If
we keep winning we'll go to the playoffs. This 4-0 start gives us a great
amount of confidence that we can do something special with this season."
There is, indeed, a universal feeling around this team, partly because of
dramatic ways in which it keeps winning these games.
"There is something special going on," Vinny Testaverde
said. "We've won games where offensively we haven't played the way we'd like
to be playing or the way we feel like we can play. All I can say is, 'Thank
God for our defense.' It's kept us in games close enough to where in the fourth
quarter we can get it done."
Indeed, three of the Jets' four wins have come via fourth-quarter comebacks. The Jets are also used to the winning feeling. Since losing to the Giants last Dec. 5, the Jets have won eight
games in a row. Since the 1-6 start to last season, the Jets are 11-2.
There is no overconfidence in their building, though, and that comes from
the grounded Groh.
"As quickly as we got to 4-0, we can just as easily be 4-4," Testaverde
said.
"We beat a couple of good teams, but we still have a long
way to go," Jets cornerback Aaron Glenn said. "We have 12 games to go and
still have a lot of AFC games. To think about the Super Bowl, that's dumb
right now."
However, the odds the Jets have left themselves of getting into the postseason are terrific. Since 1990, of the 25 NFL teams that have started off
4-0, 22 have made the playoffs. Eight of those teams went to the Super Bowl.
Coslet's best coaching move: resign
You don't root for anyone to lose his job, because you always know it can
happen to you. It is amazing that Bruce Coslet hung onto his job for as long
as he had before voluntarily relinquishing it this week.
Coslet's sudden resignation shortly after his Bengals were completely
embarrassed by the Ravens 37-0 last Sunday marks the merciful end to a
pathetic era in Cincinnati.
When he was first elevated in 1996 as an interim coach and went 7-2 to
finish the season, it looked like Coslet was great for the Bengals. But, much
like his tenure as the Jets' coach, the inconsistent Coslet, who always got
too high after victories and too low after losses, could take his team only
so far.
When he took over for Joe Walton in New York, Coslet initially brought some
energy to the franchise, much the way he did in Cincinnati. Shortly
thereafter, though, the team stagnated.
Since Coslet won a modest 14 of his first 25 games in 1996 and '97, he was
7-28 until he ended it for himself this week. Team insiders said the players simply stopped listening to him, which is
always the first -- and final -- sign that a coach must step down.
Coslet told friends, "I just don't have the (ears) of the team anymore.
There's nothing left to say. No other way to approach it. No other way to
turn them around."
So, in perhaps the best coaching move he's made in awhile, Coslet sacked
himself, giving way to defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau. Changing coaches in mid-season has historically not produced great results,
but in this case it was unavoidable. Of the 49 in-season NFL coaching changes since 1970, only eight produced
winning records the remainder of the season.
In a bitter twist of irony, Coslet's .778 winning percentage for his 7-2
record after taking over in 1996 was the best of those who coached at least
half a season.
Best of luck Dick LeBeau.
New England natives getting restless
There are several teams in big-time need of a win this weekend, but the 0-4
Patriots might be the most desperate.
They've lost 21-16 to 3-1 Tampa Bay, 20-19 to the 4-0 Jets, 21-13 to the 3-0
Vikings and 10-3 to the 3-1 Dolphins, meaning the combined record of their
four opponents is 13-2. Still, despite the fact that the Patriots have been competitive and had a
chance to win late in each of those games, the New England natives are
becoming very restless on the Bill Belichick-Drew Bledsoe Patriots.
| |  | |
| Bledsoe |
Sunday's task -- against the Broncos at Mile High Stadium -- is a difficult
one because the Patriots win in Denver as often as the Red Sox win World
Series titles.
"Obviously, we need to win in the worst way around here," Drew Bledsoe said.
As usual, Bledsoe is the lightning rod for criticism, as he was in the
Patriots' late-season swoon in '99 when he threw 17 interceptions and only
four touchdown passes after throwing 13 touchdowns and four interceptions in
a 6-2 start.
Forgotten in this start is the fact that Bledsoe has been sacked 17 times in
four games and that the Patriots have still not found a dependable running
back since Curtis Martin fled for the Jets. To Bledsoe's credit, he has refused to point fingers at teammates who aren't
getting the job done even though he's the one receiving the brunt of the
criticism.
"When I can some out of a game and have played perfectly, then I'll be able
to name somebody (who hasn't played well)," Bledsoe said.
Mark Cannizzaro of the New York Post writes an AFC notebook every Thursday for ESPN.com.
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VIDEO
  Coach Al Groh talks about his team's performance heading into the bye week. RealVideo: 28.8 Bill Parcells on ESPN's Up Close. RealVideo: 28.8 |
