It took more than two weeks, but Jets owner Woody Johnson has finally responded to the article from TheAthletic.com that characterized him as someone who allows his teenage sons to influence personnel moves, based in part on Madden ratings.
“I think the article is a typical smear piece — unsubstantiated,” Johnson told Brian Costello of the New York Post. “Nobody really stood up and put their name on anything. It’s absolutely untrue. Everything was out of context. When you’re losing games, it gives people the artistic license to kind of do what they want.”
Calling the claims in the item “absolutely untrue,” Johnson specifically pushed back on the notion that his son, Brick, is helping make decisions.
“He has no role in the organization,” Johnson said.
Having a role and having a voice are two different things. And Johnson admitted that he has introduced his sons to the family business.
“In my family, my great grandfather took my grandfather to meetings when he was a teenager,” Johnson said. “He’d dress up in a suit and go to meetings. That’s the way you teach the next generation. That’s what you do. It’s an apprenticeship. Does he have any decision making? Absolutely not. No decision making, despite what you might read.”
Again, decision making is different from influence. What better way to teach the next generation how to drive the yacht than to let the future skipper try to take the wheel once in a while? Beyond preparing his sons to take over, they have to want to. Giving them ownership in certain decisions now could make them more inclined to take ownership of everything, when it’s time.
When there’s more than enough money in the family, the motivation to roll up the sleeves and do the work has to come from somewhere else.
The problem isn’t that Johnson might be letting his kids from time to time try to steer the ship. The problem is that there are enough disgruntled employees in a dysfunctional organization to blab about it to outsiders.
Unfortunately for the next generation, Woody doesn’t seem to be equipped to show them how to run the show in a way that makes others in the building want to help, not hinder, the broader objectives of the organization.
