Hess by Tina Davis & Jessica Resnick–Ault

Author:Tina Davis & Jessica Resnick–Ault
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781118923450
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2015-10-20T00:00:00+00:00

Of course, as with all professional sports teams, the Jets also made some colossal errors. Perhaps the most glaring was picking an unknown Division 2 quarterback from the University of California at Davis, in the first round of the draft when they could’ve gotten Dan Marino, a future Hall of Famer. As an owner, Leon suffered a lot of disappointments alongside Jets fans.

(The team also got involved in some ill-advised marketing ventures, including the Jets’ Christmas album, although in fairness, they weren’t the only team to do this in 1969. What fan household doesn’t need a recording of NFL players singing “All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth” on an album that has cover art featuring a shoulder-pad-wearing Santa gouging out the eyes of an opponent on the field?)

Among other decisions that can only be seen as puzzling in hindsight, Leon would fire Coach Pete Carroll after one losing season (his first as a head coach), perplexing most observers by putting in charge a man who had himself been terminated by the Philadelphia Eagles. Carroll would go on to coach the Seattle Seahawks to several Super Bowl appearances, including his first championship win on the Jets’ home field in New Jersey.

Leon hired Rich Kotite to replace Carroll because “I’m 80 years old,” he said at a rare press conference appearance for the team. “I want results now.” The news came on the heels of a defeat in which it appeared as if players had given up on a game. Leon couldn’t abide the quitting mentality. The press reported that Leon liked Kotite’s regular-guy approach—he was a “dese” and “dose” New Yorker who lived on Staten Island and, like Leon, had working-class roots. But the result Kotite was supposed to bring, another championship for the team, would elude the owner (when Kotite left after two years of losing, a fan held up a sign calling it “The End of an Error”).8 Leon would die without seeing the Jets win the whole thing again, and it was one of his biggest disappointments. The year he passed away, the team came within one game of the Super Bowl, falling short in the final 30 minutes of the playoffs. As of 2015, they have yet to appear in a second Super Bowl.

To be sure, even if it didn’t have them for long, the organization did recruit some of the best coaches, including Bill Parcells, who took the team to the division championship. Leon fought hard for Parcells, who had just been to the Super Bowl with the New England Patriots—even proposing an arrangement that would have his assistant, Bill Belichick, run the team for a year with Parcells as a “consultant” in an attempt to avoid contract issues. Eventually, Leon entered one-on-one discussions with Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who wasn’t willing to surrender his coach without recompense (although he was already eyeing former Jets coach Pete Carroll). Leon refused to break for lunch as the talks dragged on for five hours. When the two owners reached an impasse, NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue made the final decision.

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