The War Room of any NFL team is something of a shrouded mystery. No one really ever knows what’s going on inside it, how it operates, and ultimately, who is in charge. Believe it or not, we even asked if we could get into the Jets War Room this year, if we waited for a while to write it up … an offer which the team very politely declined.
So who’s the boss? Who holds sway? Who’s voice is the loudest? Tim Graham tried to write some quick summaries of this for around the AFC East last week on his AFC East blog.
General manager Mike Tannenbaum and head coach Rex Ryan enter their third draft together. Top college scout Joey Clinkscales is highly respected in the business, but Ryan has considerable say on whom the team selects, especially when it comes to defensive players. Tannenbaum isn’t afraid to make moves on the fly, executing several trades to move up and select key players: quarterback Mark Sanchez, running back Shonn Greene, cornerback Darrelle Revis and linebacker David Harris.
We’ll get to the names above, but there’s a name that is conspicuously left off the list to me, the name of Terry Bradway. Since his days at the Jets GM, Bradway has retreated into the background, but he’s still an important figure in the scouting equation for the Jets. Bradway is, at his heart a talent evaluator, which I think is why he got into so much trouble as a GM, his inability to de-couple talent to value was his fatal flaw.
Tannenbaum has that filter, which is why he’s the final say. Tannenbaum might get “dinged” that he doesn’t have a scouting pedigree, but what he understands is valuations and market values, which is why he can get Santonio Holmes for a 5th rounder. So while he gets value, he’s smart enough to defer judgment to those who know more about talent, just look at his solicitation of Ryan and subsequent action in the Holmes trade.
Ryan for his part is still coming into his own as a talent evaluator. Ryan urged the team to make the trade to grab Sanchez near the top of the draft .. instead of staying put and letting Josh Freeman come to them. Ryan made it known that he had a first round grade (Tannenbaum waited ‘til the third) on Shonn Greene, and the second draft of the Ryan era Jets has yet to really yield it’s fruits. While none of those moves have proved wrong yet, it’s fair to say that they’ve proven “eager.” To his credit, Ryan wisely values cornerbacks above most everything defensively in the spread era, something which has paid off for the Jets en route to two top five defenses in the last two years.
The Jets have one of the larger scouting staffs in the league, and they’re ably run by Joey Clinkscales. Clinkscales was in the mix for the Parcells-led Dolphins GM job that eventually went to Jeff Ireland. Clinkscales seems to do a good job of marshalling his resources and guiding the team to place proper valuations on most of their picks, and in finding talent down the draft board and into the undrafteds that the Jets then find roles for, and whom could eventually become starters.
