If you know football, then you know Mike Westhoff is one of the most respected special teams coaches in the entire NFL for years. He had been with the New York Jets since 2000 and just retired when their season ended a couple weeks ago. Now that he is free of restriction and can speak what is really on his mind he is not holding back at all regarding the Jets this past season. Read more after the jump.
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According to Westhoff, the season could be described in 4 words, “It was a mess”. I think we all know that already. In an interview this morning with the Joe Rose Show in Miami, Westhoff let it all out. On the Tebow disaster, he gave alot of interesting info. He was quoted as saying,
“It was a mess. It was an absolute mess. You can say whatever else you want, it was really a mess. I was very, very disappointed. There are things that Tim Tebow as an NFL quarterback, he’s very limited in some things. If you throw him in the middle of a drop-back passing offense, he will look very, very average at best. But if you incorporate him in different facets of your offense, I think he can be a factor. That’s what I thought we were going to do, but we never did it.”
When asked whatever happened to the “secret offense” the Jets were working on with Tebow he let the truth be known.
“To be honest I don’t think anyone ever answered that question, ‘Why did we do it?. I honestly don’t know. I know we didn’t practice it, we didn’t practice it in training camp. We were going to unveil it. Well, I’m still waiting for the unveiling. And it didn’t happen.”
That last quote is extremely interesting since during the summer there were countless times the Jets closed practice to the media because they were working on a secret type of offensive package to use with Tebow. Now coach Westhoff tells us they never practiced it, not even in training camp?? So what was Rex Ryan lying about then? Rex is looking real sketchy right now. Westhoff actually seemed genuinely upset with the way Tebow was treated and used. “It was a distraction, and really a shame because that’s a hard working young man. Remember Tebow was the punt protector on special teams so Westhoff worked with him daily.
Westhoff also criticized management. “So much of the money is directed at the very top. Sometimes if you don’t budget your team well you can destroy the middle and the bottom of your football team. And that’s what happened to us. It happened. It’s tough, if you’re playing a handful of guys [that are] 40 percent of your salary cap, what the hell are you going to do with the rest of them?” The last quote was in regards to GM Mike Tannenbaum, who has since been fired. We all knew the Jets were a joke this season, but to hear one of the coaches agree with it and state these things just goes to show you what was going on.
