From wanting to bench future Hall of Fame quarterback Aaron Rodgers to firing head coach Robert Salah early in the season after a 2-3 start without even consulting with his general manager Joe Douglas, to firing Douglas six weeks later, New York Jets owner Woody Johnson is putting on an absolute masterclass on how to run a sports franchise into the ground.
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At this point, Johnson’s list of questionable actions over his tenure with the Jets might actually be longer than a CVS receipt.
Listen, an owner of a sports franchise has the right to do what they want, but when they don’t have a background in that sport, the intelligent thing to do is hire people who do and allow them to make the personnel decisions that they feel are best for the organization’s success.
While Douglas deserves his fair share of ridicule, drafting Zach Wilson second overall in 2021 off one good throw at the NFL combine is certainly toward the top, it seems that his Johnson did everything he could to undermine Douglas’s decisions.
That’s not a way to have success, which is why the Jets haven’t made the playoffs since 2010, with what will be 14 years serving as the longest current playoff drought in the NFL.
The New York Islanders were in the same boat when the late Charles Wang was running the franchise (2001-2016).
Over Wang’s tenure, the Islanders struggled to compete, missing the playoffs eight times, losing in the first round six times with one run to the Eastern Conference Semi-Finals in 2016.
Wang, who didn’t have a hockey background, felt that he had to be heavily involved in decisions. That led to turnover in upper management, the best example being Neith Smith.
After being hired during the 2006 Stanley Cup Finals, Smith was fired 40 days later because he was unwilling to go along with Wang’s managing style, where a group of people had a say in the decision-making rather than the acting general manager.
There’s also a story that former general manager Mike Milbury shared about Wang wanting to turn a Sumo Wrestler into an NHL goalie…and that’s not a joke.
Wang does deserve a tremendous amount of credit for keeping the Islanders on Long Island. He tried his best to get the Lighthouse Project built to help give the team a brand new home in Uniondale before having no choice but to make a move to Barclays Center to ensure the Islanders didn’t relocate out of the state.
So, for that reason, Wang is a hero to the Islanders community, but maybe having a different…