Regional Sports

Firing Bowles has to happen now

The Green Bay Packers had the audacity to fire their longtime head coach Mike McCarthy hours after they lost 20-17 to the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday afternoon at Lambeau Field. It was a desperate attempt to salvage what has been a lost season. They feel firing a coach can jumpstart them that is still in the hunt for a wild-card spot.

This should serve as an inspiration for the Jets to do the same thing after a 26-22 loss to the Tennessee Titans on Sunday afternoon at Nissan Stadium. Why wait to fire Jets head coach Todd Bowles until Black Monday when he can be fired now just to get it over with?

We all know Bowles will be fired after this season. His 23-37 overall record in his four years as Jets head coach makes it a certainty that he’s gone. There’s no way the Jets can keep him heading to next season when fans have grown tired of him being inept every week during the football season.

Still, there’s no point keeping him on as head coach when his teams continue to stink each game. This recent loss is on Bowles because he coached conservatively by going for field goals rather than his quarterback Josh McCown throw for touchdowns in the red zone. With a 16-6 lead in the third quarter, there was no reason to kick the field goal when the Jets should have gone for the kill by scoring in the end zone.

This is coaching to lose. This is coaching scared. This is hoping to get by rather than put the Titans away. It’s inexcusable.

It’s getting old watching a head coach be so inept and so hopeless every Jets game. This is what Bowles has been all about these last three years. He just has no idea what to do, especially when the Jets were on the verge of blowing a 9-point lead. It’s so evident by his aw-geez look on the sidelines during every Jets game.

It does not help he has a coaching staff that is as clueless as him.

Where were the adjustments in the second half? How about not giving short throws to the wide receiver or the running back every time? The Titans defense knew what the Jets offense was doing in the second half.

The penalties continue to be an issue that has haunted the Jets all season long. 11 penalties for 96 yards in the game against the Titans can drive a Jets fan to drink. Penalties by the defense (defensive holding on Morris Claiborne, illegal use of hands on Jordan Jenkins and face mask on Trumaine Johnson) helped the Titans operate a six-play, 86-yard game-winning touchdown drive in the fourth quarter.

The players should take responsibility, but this is also on Bowles and his coaching staff for not coaching them properly each week. The great-coached teams don’t melt down like this on a weekly basis. This is what gets a head coach fired.

It gets tiring. It’s the same old thing week after week. At some point, the Jets owe it to themselves to try something different even if it does not work. When this is predictable, there’s no reason to keep this going.

Bowles should have been fired during the bye week in light of the Jets’ 41-10 loss to the Buffalo Bills at home, which featured journeyman quarterback Matt Barkley throwing two touchdowns for 231 yards for the Bills. This was a game where he lost the team, and he hasn’t gotten his players back.

He knows he will be fired at the end of the season. There’s no way he can get it back with the trajectory the Jets are in. They are wasting everyone’s time by keeping him there. They might as well get it over with now.

Sure, an interim coach won’t be better, but at least the players will show some life and try to show they are not a lost cause. At least, the Jets will be watchable in the final four games of the season. That would be progress from what we have seen from a Bowles-coached team these last few years.

Having Bowles on the Jets sideline is a bad look all around. He is coaching like he wants to be fired now by being oblivious to everything. He claims he was fuming after this loss, but his body language and his behavior do not reflect that. His lack of emotion gives that perception that he does not care, and perception is reality.

Yes, firing Bowles would give in to a bloody murder crowd. But keeping him would mean there’s no accountability and it’s okay to mail it in this year. This is not the type of culture the Jets need to foster the young players, even if there are four games left in the season.

Bowles shouldn’t have been back in the first place last season. He had no business coaching after the bye week. He should have been fired as soon as the game was over. It’s a joke he is still the head coach.

The Packers had the nerve to fire a successful head coach after the game on Sunday since they couldn’t tolerate bad football and losing anymore, even if it seemed pointless.

Shouldn’t the Jets hold themselves to that standard for once?

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