Jets Face Important Coaching Hire With Need To Sell PSLs

Johnson Facing Important Coaching Decision With Upcoming Move Into New Stadium

The Jets, in the search to replace former coach Eric Mangini, who was fired Monday, have to be "sensitive to the mood of fans as they seek hundreds of millions of dollars" in PSLs, suites and game tickets for the team's new Meadowlands stadium set to open in 2010, according to Neil Best of NEWSDAY. The Jets are in the "same boat" as the Cowboys, a "franchise that suffered an even more spectacular flameout" Sunday, as the Cowboys are set to move into their new stadium in Arlington next season. The "hangdog face of Cowboys coach Wade Phillips is no way to sell big-ticket PSLs and bigger-ticket naming rights, especially in the current economic environment." Best wonders under the circumstances, how could Jets ownership "not fret over the spectacle of a half-empty Giants Stadium late in a Week 17 game that the Jets trailed by only seven, on a day of record-breaking warmth?" It was "not pretty," but hiring former Steelers coach and current CBS NFL studio analyst Bill Cowher or Giants defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo would "go far in erasing that image and altering the conversation" (NEWSDAY, 12/30). In N.Y., Gary Myers writes Jets Owner Woody Johnson "has to go and get" Cowher, who offers "great selling points for Johnson as he peddles his PSLs in a down market and tries to win back his team's disgusted fans." CBS studio analyst Boomer Esiason said of Cowher, "I'm telling you, he wants to get back into coaching. I just don't know when it will be." Myers writes if Johnson offers a five-year deal worth $50M, "could Cowher possibly say no?" (N.Y. DAILY NEWS, 12/30). But ESPN's John Clayton cites sources as saying that Cowher "is not going to interview" for the club's head coaching position. A source said that while Cowher "is interested in the Jets job, he told the team he would not be a candidate because he would like to bring in his own personnel director." Johnson plans to keep GM Mike Tannenbaum with the team (ESPN.com, 12/30).

Jets Officials Indicating That They Want Favre To Return For One More Season

INCOMPLETE PASS: In N.Y., William Rhoden cites sources who report Tannenbaum Sunday morning said that Mangini "would return next season." Then "what happened between the end of Sunday's game" and 3:00am ET Monday morning, when reporters "received an e-mail advisory" of a Jets news conference that did not include Mangini? The Jets are "drifting with no apparent direction." They needed a "glamour player to help create a buzz," and they traded for QB Brett Favre prior to this season. Now the team needs a "glamour coach, a seasoned coach" (N.Y. TIMES, 12/30). Johnson and Tannenbaum Monday both indicated that they want Favre to return to the team next season, and in N.Y., Steve Serby writes the two have "fallen so head over heels for Favre, have been so blinded by his star, that it was easy for them to make Mangini the fall guy, who didn't motivate, inspire or win enough with a Win Now team and certainly wasn't going to sell any PSLs for the owner" (N.Y. POST, 12/30). In Newark, Steve Politi writes Johnson Monday in supporting Favre "sounded like a fan from Section 321," and made it "abundantly clear that the franchise will beg and grovel to get Favre back on the field in 2009." But Politi writes, "If you think Johnson has mapped out some kind of direction here for his favorite toy, you missed the first eight years of his administration" (Newark STAR-LEDGER, 12/30).