The Business Of Football

How many of our readers have run a business?

Can your business flourish if poor decisions and poor management are the rule?

You know the answer, of course.

Well, it’s no different for a team in the National Football League.

It all starts at the top.

Yes, winning teams need a first-rate front office to build that team, a head coach who can manage what they do on the field, offensive and defensive coordinators who can run their units effectively, and, naturally, a quarterback who  engineers how the team executes against an opponent.

But the success of NFL franchises are reflected in their ownership.

Few teams contend for championships or win all the time.

Some have done it more than others.

If you follow the NFL you know who they are.

Recently, the New York Jets fired their head coach, Robert Saleh, five games into the season. Saleh did not get the job done in his two-plus years leading the team. You can argue whether it pays to change coaches during a season, especially this early, since history shows it rarely if ever makes a difference.

The real reason the Jets have struggled, not only this year, but if seems forever, is their owner.

Woody Johnson comes from the incredibly successful Johnson & Johnson empire. But running a company that specializes in pharmaceuticals and countless consumer brands is not the same as running a professional football franchise.

When vastly successful owners from one field enter another, it is imperative that they hire the right people to run their new business.

If they go to others for advice, which they invariably do, they have to go to the right people for that advice.

But it is the owner who has to make the right decisions.

I don’t know who Woody Johnson listens to, but in attempting to make the Jets relevant, he has made some bad decisions. I don’t know if he has the right General Manager in Joe Douglas who had success as a scout with the Baltimore Ravens, and an executive with the Philadelphia Eagles.

In trying to rebuild his franchise, Johnson either allowed, or encouraged the acquisition of future Hall of Fame quarterback Aaron Rodgers. The Jets picked up a Super Bowl champion and winner of several Most Valuable Player awards in a trade with the Green Bay Packers.

So what was wrong with that?

The problem is Aaron Rodgers was headed for his 39th birthday, hardly a quarterback to build with and a deal with very little upside for the Jets, a team not yet close to championship calibre.

The sports media, who in my view lack savvy more and more as the years roll by, hailed the move as a master stroke by the Jets. Rodgers would add a buzz, unseen for the franchise in decades, and a chance to contend for the Super Bowl. That never was going to happen.

Yes, the buzz was there, but how does that help you win a championship?

The best the Jets might do with an aging Rodgers, who had failed to get the Packers close to the Super Bowl in his latter years, was gain a playoff berth. What would that accomplish, if Rodgers would still be getting older and more injury prone.

That factor came to fruition on the fourth play of his first game in a Jet uniform in 2023, when Rodgers tore his Achilles tendon and was lost for the year.

He courageously worked hard in rehab to return this season, but he was now 40 years old.

Some members of the media even foolishly predicted the Jets would wind up in the Super Bowl.

Instead, the Jets, who have managed to win two of their first five entering last Monday night’s game against the Bills, showed little signs of taking a big step. Protection problems by the offensive line, a five-interception game by Rodgers himself, and the onset of yet another injury, this time to his ankle, cast gloom and doom on the Jets camp.

So, Robert Saleh, the head coach took the fall.

There have been many, many reasons given for the firing.

The popular one was that Aaron Rodgers called for his ouster.

As weak an owner, as Woody Johnson is, I don’t believe he asked his quarterback what he thought of his head coach.

I will add that I don’t know whether Robert Saleh can be a winning head man. I only know that the odds were stacked against him for the most part.

Saleh, had demoted his offensive coordinator from calling the plays.

Rodgers had been close to Nathanial Hackett who came over to be his offensive coach. But Rodgers agreed with the move.

Aaron Rodgers is a strange duck. He is constantly talking to the media, often about things that have nothing to do with football, and his opinions and actions in life have been unusual, bordering on the strange.

But in the final analysis, I truly believe Rodgers simply wants to win football games and hold his teammates, and everyone else, including himself, accountable.

That this includes Woody Johnson, the owner of the Jets.

But Johnson is the owner. He’s not going anywhere.

What he could have done prior to the 2023 season, was try and trade up to draft one of the highly-touted quarterbacks available.

The real good first and second rounders are winning early. They come into the league more mature, and ready for success.

Two of them are C.J. Stroud of the Texans and Caleb Williams of the Bears.

Those teams have promise and a major upside because of those two.

Thus, one head coach has been fired to this point.

You can fire the coach, but you can’t fire the owner.

I could be writing a similar story regarding the Dallas Cowboys.

This once-proud franchise just can’t get it right after so much rebuilding, finally putting together a possible-championship-producing roster.

Something is terribly wrong again with the Cowboys. It’s like a broken record. Already this season they have been blown out three times before the home fans.

It is not too late for them. They are 3-3 in a division that is not too strong.

But there is no indication they will make a move.

Jerry Jones, their owner and General Manager is always under fire for the Cowboys shortcomings as well he should be.

He says he will not fire his head coach, Mike McCarthy.

But who do you blame if a team underperforms as badly as the Cowboys have on three occasions so far this year?

If you don’t hold the head coach accountable, then it’s Jerry Jones.

We’ve heard this tune before.

How Dallas fixes their problems, if they do, will be fascinating to watch.