Here's a must-read for anybody wanting to know more about the New York Jets -- and fans of football general. Nicholas Dawidoff is granted the rare opportunity to observe an NFL team for a full year.
BOOK REVIEW
Collision Low Crossers, by Nicholas Dawidoff
“Insider”. It’s a word that gets thrown around too much. These guys are NFL insiders, these guys have the inside story, this is the inside information – obtained from inside sources.
But rarely is there anything inside about it.
But here’s a true inside work. Dawidoff was given the opportunity to sit in with the Jets for a full year. He was in their war room at the draft, he was in the film rooms all year with the coaches, and he was at all of their team meetings. We’re left with a gem – probably the best football book of this type ever written.
It’s rare for a team to open itself up in this way. Most teams are notoriously secret about this kind of stuff. But the Jets, for some reason, decided to give Dawidoff pretty much full access for a full season, even though there’s a lot of stuff in there that will piss off management, players and coaches.
Dawidoff sits in at film sessions, where coaches talk shit about Antonio Cromartie’s unwillingness to get in on tackles. And he’s in the discussion when they’re talking about how to hide Bart Scott’s declining speed.
Published two months ago, this book is built around the 2011 season, but most of the guys here are still in the league in different capacities. Ryan is still the coach of the Jets, and much of his staff is still in place. Mike Pettine, their defensive coordinator, is now the head coach in Cleveland. You learn a lot about Pettine’s background, and how he works with Ryan – how those guys are similar, and what their differences are. They had worked together in Baltimore. You’re there with Pettine when he’s calling the late-game blitz that allows Tim Tebow to run for the winning touchdown in that Thursday night game at Mile High. Pettine seems to be a more techie and Xs-and-Os guy, while Ryan has some leadership skills and ability to work with people. And we get to see Brian Schottenheimer struggle as their offensive coordinator; they let him go, and he’s running the Rams offense now.
Dawidoff is in the team’s war room during the draft, and those few pages are worth reading slowly. Picking 30th, the Jets had their eye on Muhammad Wilkerson all along. They were hoping to pick him, with cornerback Jimmy Smith the other guy they were hoping might be there. The coaches trade high fives when Tennessee selects Jake Locker early – picks like that are just making it more likely they’ll get Wilkerson. The Jets rejoice when Houston takes J.J. Watt (they feared New England might trade up and get him). John Schneider in Seattle has gotten a lot of credit recently for his ability to pick up gems late (Richard Sherman, Kam Chancelor, etc.) but he makes a mess out of the first round. Sitting at 25th, Schneider tries to trade down to 30th and pick up a third-round pick. The Jets offer a fifth, but Scheider passes. Schneider calls back later looking for a fourth, but the Jets continue to hold tight for a fifth, which is what the value chart says is fair. Then, head-scratcher, Seattle selects James Carpenter, whom everyone thought was a second-rounder anyway – Seahawks could have and should have picked up a fifth-round pick in that draft. The Jets very seriously considered going after Titus Young in the second round, but they’re trying to balance his well-document history of smoking a lot of pot, and there are a few later-round receivers that also interest them – Jeremy Kerley and Denarius Moore. Joey Clinkscales loves Moore, but the others accuse him of being a homer (Clinkscales was also a wide receiver at Tennessee). It’s interesting stuff.
Dawidoff is at all the practices, and he’s working without a filter. He’s allowed to outline how the team’s defense is frustrated and angry all year with the offense – not only the players, but the coaches too. He’s able to illustrate how a lot of the coaches don’t like linebackers coach Jeff Weeks – a friend of Ryan’s, but a coach who isn’t bringing much to the table. Assistants and scouts are miffed when Ryan selects wide receiver Scotty McKnight as a favor to Mark Sanchzes, even though nobody else in the organization thinks McKnight should have even been drafted. It doesn’t seem like a big deal – just a seventh-round pick – but special teams coach Mike Westhoff wanted Malcolm Smith, and he goes 15 spots later to Seattle. Smith, of course, was the Super Bowl MVP a few weeks ago. Dawidoff paints Sanchez as an immature and over-eager youngster who’s simply not ready to be a big-time quarterback. He shows how Cromartie is immensely talented but too sensitive, moody and inconsistent. He’s there when the Jets make the decision to sign Plaxico Burress, and how that causes them to lose Jerricho Cotchery (which some coaches don’t like). Ryan’s biggest flaw, it seems, is an unwillingness to take on some problem players, like Santonio Holmes. Other coaches are livid when Ryan declines to take on Cromartie for shying away from even attempting to tackle Tim Tebow in that loss in Denver.
Mostly the book shows that if you’re going to be an NFL coach, you pretty much have to ignore your family for half the year – with the hours these guys are working, they’re often sleeping at the facility.
Dawidoff is a quality writer; he’s written four other books, including one that was a Pulitzer Prize finalist, as well as for the The New Yorker, Rolling Stone and New York Times Magazine. Everything’s very professional and put together nicely. He has a much larger vocabulary than I do, to the point where I needed to have a dictionary nearby for help. About every other page, I’d see a word that I either never use or have never even heard. I started jotting them down at one point. Riposted, redounded, vortical, beatific, sui generis, Rashomon, lagniappe, presentiment, ephemeral, ligature, scatological – stuff like that.
Only one error that I saw. There was a “Blitzberg” reference; that’s Blitzburgh (the team is based in Pittsburgh, not Pittsberg). And I thought it was odd that there was very little mention of LaDainian Tomlinson. He was a declining player in 2011, but he’s a first-ballot Hall of Famer. I would have thought he could have tapped into that a little – how Tomlinson feels about getting demoted behind Shonn Greene. And I thought there should have been more written about the Week 17 incident, where Santonio Holmes gets thrown out of the huddle in the game at Miami.
But this is an outstanding book. Definitely a must-read for any fan of the New York Jets, and a good one for anybody who really wants to get an inside look behind the curtain of the NFL.