Jets Looking To Replace General Manager With Specific, Narrowly-Focused Manager

By Miles-Erik Bell

NEW YORK—The Jets fired General Manager Joe Douglas this past week, citing concerns that the position was “too vague” to be conducive to running a successful football organization.

Team owner Woody Johnson said that the word “General” implies a lack of specificity in the role, so to avoid confusion, they will create a new position called “Specific Manager.”

“When we created the role of General Manager, we thought, ‘I guess there’s just a bunch of things we need him to do.’” Johnson said when reached for comment. “Looking back, we should’ve been more clear that the role of General Manager is to win games.”

Johnson alluded to some confusion during the hiring process when discussing Douglas’ time with the Jets.

“There was also some confusion in the hiring process of whether we needed to hire an actual general, or whether we might settle for a lieutenant, or perhaps even a sergeant,”

Johnson said. “It’s important that the next person to manage this team has a narrow subset of interests, primarily the desire to manage the team’s success specifically.”

The Jets contacted other teams to inquire about their corporate structure and discovered that some, like the Philadelphia Eagles, had Regional Managers and Assistants to the Regional Managers.

Johnson has retained a consulting service to help identify other weak areas within the organization.

A source tells EOTB that the service has recommended several sweeping changes, including changing all manager positions to a less hierarchical term, such as “shepherds,” and even suggested changing the team name from the New York Jets to the New York Lamb Chops.

Johnson was also asked about quarterback Aaron Rodgers's status and future role and whether that role could lead to a future front-office gig. 

“Aaron is our Field Manager and our Game Manager. He is upper middle management for our squad,” Johnson said. “Our concern is that if we promote Aaron to Specific Manager, we will have to bring up a lower-level employee to fill his role, and frankly, we don’t have anyone with more experience than managing a Dollar General.”

End of the Bench will have more on this story after we talk to our manager.

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