Though I've always believed Kraft fixed the coin toss. MLS seems to work on the principle that teams get what they demand behind the scenes. Jones marked the one time Bob was insistent.
So the Revolution probably did just enough to persuade Burns that Soehn is his guy. Think of that. Burns running the FO, Soehn running the club. This is the smart money on Kraft's money. Caldwell and Rowe need to move to a team that actually won't completely waste their potential.
Bob's insistence at the time was a reaction to his having been recently taken to the proverbial woodshed in the pages of Boston Magazine. http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/article/2014/03/25/bob-kraft-worst-owner-new-england-revolution/ Bob Kraft's ego was bruised and he felt that he had to do something to save face... to prove that he and Jonathan weren't "... the Worst Owners in the League". So, as many of us are prone to believe, he was "insistent" enough behind the scenes to secure the services of Mr. Jones. Unfortunately, Jermaine Jones' arrival in Foxboro was not the harbinger of a sustained change in the way the Krafts handle their investment in and operation of the New England Revolution. Once the run to the MLS Cup Championship took place, Kraft pere et fils felt that a significant enough portion of the Revs fan base had been placated to allow them to revert back to standard operating procedure with their professional soccer property. Which all begs the question, when can we expect another mainstream Boston media outlet to call Bob and Jonathan out over their indifferent stewardship of the New England Revolution? Because, that's the only thing that seems capable of goading the Krafts into treating the Revs with anything beyond benign neglect.
The Jones era was like a person who has always been obese going on a crash diet and losing a ton of weight so they look great at their wedding or class reunion. Everything looks good in the short term, but unless the person has a permanent change in their eating habits (or a team has a permanent change in how they run the team), the rubber band is just going to snap right back to the same place it always has been. A year or two down the road, you never would have known the change even happened.
looking to have process complete within next 30 days so new coach can have input on player decisions that need to be made by end of Nov— Brian Bilello (@RevsPrez) October 24, 2017
Knowing what we know now, do you really think that was the wrong decision? I think history has vindicated them on Jones. Sure, it would have been great to have the same JJ that we had that first year, but he was on the downslope of his career, had always been pretty injury-prone AND showed where his loyalties were when he played injured for the USNT (in friendlies) while not leaving enough time to rehab before the next MLS season.
Report: New England Revolution's coaching search includes Savarese, Friedel October 23, 2017, 1:06PM EDT Charles Boehm
I don't want to go back to the huge war of words concerning JJ but I just can't let this pass without at least saying I disagree: I think it was the wrong decision (assuming he could have been kept for even $200K more than his COL salary).
You're right on Jones (although it certainly didn't seem so at the time). The biggest issue with that era of the Front Office, though, is that it felt like the original Jones signing was a harbinger of loosened purse strings (and talent evaluation), and that never came to pass. Letting Jones go was not a bad idea, but not signing someone who could fill 70 or 80 percent of his shoes was a huge mistake.
Here's a question: Was signing JJ in 2014 a mistake? You could argue that bringing Jones in set back the franchise by papering over the gaping wound that is the FO's myopia, with real benefit in return. Yes, we got the MLS Cup run, though I'm not sure further cementing our status as the Buffalo Bills of MLS is a positive. Did we get anything else out of it? Perhaps a half season of ecstasy followed by two and a half of torment? I can't say I look back on JJ as fondly as true Revs icons like TnT, JMM, or even Zenga or RDA. With admittedly 20/20 hindsight, I have my doubts it was worth it.
Looking back, it was the right decision not to pay him. However, they had no idea at the time that this was going to be the case so like the coin flip, they got lucky. SInce then, they've not really done enough to make this team viable. We have too many hacks on this team and we need to clean house and build from the core
RDA seriously? He played here for one miserable season and scored meaningless goals in meaningless games. I have much fonder memories of JJ.
He was insisting on a long-term contract. Had we resigned him, he'd still be on the roster, making huge money. I felt like people were getting that impression at the time, but I thought that it was just consistent with what they've always said: that they'd pay a big DP contract for a player who was a difference-maker on the field, a leader AND a gate-attraction. I think Kouassi was a good answer for his field value, but that addition was a victim of some really bad luck (he was young/fit and had never before been injury prone). But, you are right in that Jones' field leadership is still unreplaced, even now. They didn't get lucky, they made a cool, calculated business decision - one I supported at the time. He wanted big money and 3-4 years - it was just not practical for a player at his age, with his injury history. They made the same decision with Noonan, years earlier, which also met with a lot of criticism. But, they were right that time also - to let him go - he was never a premier player again.
Agree -- and this thread is on the verge of getting sidetracked into what you were worried about in regards to a 'huge war of words' concerning JJ. You can say what you want about his declining field contributions, but he is the type of leader we need and there were others around him that had great years when he was here. To me, not signing him was a signal, as others have said, that the Revs were just going back to same old, same old and that they did. Not signing JJ, IMHO is a testament to all the aspersions we cast on Burns - looking at the financial side more than the soccer side. It's almost like that decision was an effort to be like the Patriots -- we can cut someone and still win. Unfortunately, we don't have the talent or the coaching for that decision to have yielded that result and where we have been since JJ left is a validation of the wrongness in letting him go.
I thought Kouassi was a good signing at the time, but during the stints where he's been healthy, I haven't seen the ability to move from defense to offense that I thought we were getting. Whereas Jones seemed to be able to often make the right through pass, or switch of field on his first or second touch after winning the ball (or getting it from a teammate who just had), Kouassi seems to play the simple ball. This may just be unfamiliarity with his teammates or Jay's strategy, but I expected a lot more in this area from a seasoned professional. I see this as much more of an issue that his red-proneness, which I think was largely erratic refereeing. So the question is: Did Burns just miss this in scouting him, or was he better at it with his previous club? The answer determines whether to blame Burns or Heaps for his lack of success. I think that both are probably somewhat to blame.
Regarding Jones, even in his decline after leaving us, look what the results were with the Rapids when he joined them and when he left. Sure, he didn't play that much for them, but his off-field influence on those players was likely similar to the impact he had here--no one gets off the hook, he makes every player around him better. I suggested that they make him a player-coach when he was here, so even if he declined as a player, he could still have a positive influence. Someone suggested that it would have been a slap in the face to Heaps. Well, there yuh go...
We shouldn't read too much into these numbers but...projected over a 34 game season that works out to 3x wins vs losses and ties, or something like 20-6-8. That would put us at approx. 2017 TFC level (68pts) in 2018. The 8GF/10GA looks worse because of the 6-1 aberration. If the FO can bring in a couple reinforcements (BIG if), the revs maintain their strong home form (12-2-3) and turn some road L's into D's and W's, (8-4-5) they might actually be ok next year.
I thought it was invaluable, because it supported the point that many on this board had made for years: Having one world class player as a focal point can make a collection of average players into a winning team, and a team capable of winning big, important games. It begged the question, how might things have gone if we had invested in two top players?
From the Kraft's point of view, it was absolutely worth it. Attendance increased enough to pay for his short-term contract, and now that he is gone, attendance has not decreased back to the pre-JJ levels. In 2014, they made is as far as they possibly could without getting sucked into the CCL. That's a Kraft win-win.
Could we return this thread to the OP's purpose: Who's going to be the next coach of the Revs. Unless someone wants to suggest Jermaine Jones for the managerial position I think his brief employment with KSG has been hashed to death a long time ago. The boys, KB&B, are going to pick another incompetent no matter what we think, but that doesn't mean we can't make some constructive suggestions just to keep ourselves amused. Unlike any of them, we actually give a shit about the team.