Earlier today, we posted the top three names believed to be on the New York Jets' radar as potential head coaching candidates. Now, just for fun, we're going to add one more.
The New York Jets should go after Alabama's Nick Saban. The simple fact is that team owner Woody Johnson wants to make a splash to reinvigorate a tired fan base. Now that Jim Harbaugh is officially heading to Michigan, no name would be splashier than Saban's.
"So the onus is on Johnson, then, to make this a job Saban can't turn down," Mike Vaccaro of the New York Post wrote. "It would involve reaching into his deep pockets, of course; Saban already makes $6.9 million a year at Alabama, so the $8 million Harbaugh is reportedly set to collect at Michigan is just a starting point (sure to grow once 'Bama tried to keep him). And since Johnson hinted that it was Idzik's idea to scrimp and save, not his, this shouldn't be an impediment, right?"
Saban spent two largely disappointing seasons as the head coach for the Miami Dolphins from 2005-2006. He went 15-17 before accepting the job at Alabama. Overall, Saban is 177-58-1 as a head coach in college with two National Championships to his name.
"Saban is undoubtedly going to want the kind of power that [Bill] Belichick enjoys in New England," Vaccaro wrote. "If that clinches the deal? You give it to him, even if it makes Johnson's old-school advisers, Charley Casserly and Ron Wolf, turn blue. This is exactly the deal Pete Carroll was given in Seattle; he had the power to approve the GM, John Schneider, and that's worked out as well as a thing can work out."
Carroll is another coach whose first stint in the NFL didn't exactly go over so well. But with a little seasoning at USC, Carroll returned to the NFL and now has a Lombardi Trophy to show for it. Could Saban follow a similar path? It's certainly possible. Look at the incredible rebuilding jobs he's done at Michigan State and Alabama. The man knows how to put a team together.
The Jets rarely do anything by the book. They like to make big, headline-grabbing moves. Recently, those moves haven't worked out so well. But a Saban hiring could reverse the trend.
