The Jets made three coaching moves yesterday, the most significant of which was replacing Mike Westhoff as their special teams coordinator.
Westhoff, regarded by most knowledgeable people in the NFL as the best special teams coach in the business, stepped down from his post after the 2007 season because of health reasons.
Yesterday, after a quiet search to replace one of the most crucial positions on the coaching staff, Eric Mangini named Kevin O’Dea as Westhoff’s replacement.
O’Dea has spent the last two seasons as an assistant special teams coach for the Bears in Chicago, where in both seasons, the Bears were amongst the NFL leaders in overall special teams rankings.
In the last two seasons, under O’Dea’s guidance, Bears kicker Robbie Gould led the NFL with 63 field goals and 269 points. O’Dea helped Gould become the ninth kicker in NFL history with back-to-back seasons of 30 field goals made, including 32-of-36 in 2006 when he was selected to the Pro Bowl.
Bears punter Brad Maynard landed 51-of-165 punts inside-the-20 over the last two seasons under O’Dea’s watch, and the Bears punt coverage unit ranked third in the NFL this season, allowing 5.9 yards per return.
Before joining the Bears, O’Dea was the special teams coach for the Arizona Cardinals in 2004-05.
In two other moves on the coaching staff yesterday, Mangini promoted Mike Devlin to tight ends/assistant offensive line coach and Jerome Henderson to defensive backs coach.
Devlin, in his third season with the Jets, assisted coaching the offensive line with Tony Wise last season.
Now he will assist Wise’s replacement, newly-hired Bill Callahan, with the offensive line, with a particular emphasis on the Jets’ struggling running game.
Henderson, who had been the Jets assistant defensive backs coach in 2007 and spent the last two years as their director of player development, replaces Mike MacIntyre. MacIntyre left the Jets after one season to become the Duke defensive coordinator.