But rhetoric aside, the Jets had to fire Mangini, who neither showed passion on the sidelines during games nor communicated any to his team. Along with him have to go the coordinators who crafted a predictable offense and a defense that rose to mighty heights with those wins over the Titans and the Patriots, then failed to meet challenges the rest of the way.

You can’t blame Tannenbaum and Johnson for Mangini’s failures. There are no guarantees in hiring coaches. Some highly touted candidates turn into Tony Sparano, the guy who engineered the 10-game turnaround in Miami, and Mike Smith, the genius who installed Matt Ryan as the quarterback in Atlanta and woke up four months later in the playoffs. Others turn into Romeo Crennel and Mangini.

If there was a way to know in advance which ones were going to be Sparanos and which Manginis, every team would be great. But it doesn’t work that way. All you can do is hire someone you believe in and, if he doesn’t work out, get rid of him and try again. It’s a lot like drafting quarterbacks: You keep running through them until you find the one that’s a keeper.

It’s 40 years and counting since the Jets stunned the NFL with the Super Bowl win that had been guaranteed by Joe Namath. They haven’t had a quarterback with anything like Broadway Joe’s charisma since. They’ve gotten to the AFC Championship game a couple of times, but they’ve never gotten back to the Super Bowl.

They are the Phillies, the Red Sox, the Cubs of the NFL — a team that spends the money and often has big stars and never wins. There’s hope in that analogy: If the Phillies and Red Sox can win, anybody can. But there’s also despair: It’s 100 years since last the Cubs celebrated a championship.

Jets fans are painfully aware of that. They’re also painfully aware that their team always finds a way to mess things up. They started this season with hope, got to the end of November with wild expectations, and landed with a spirit-shattering thud three days after Christmas.

So now it’s another coaching search, another quarterback controversy, another descent into chaos. In other words, it’s just like old times.

MORE FROM NFL

NFL Section Front

Thanksgiving games are just turkeys   Live: Follow Texans vs. Titans on Monday Night Football   ‘Rogue tweeter’ hacks account of Jets’ Clowney PFT: Batch out — Steelers start to make calls PFT: Roethlisberger ‘appears well enough’ to play Rosenthal: Steelers’ playoff future slipping away PFT: Belichick says Saints are best team in football PFT: Lions coach takes issue with Mangini’s comments   PFT: Bills contact Cowher, who says no ... for now PFT: Rams’ Bulger out 3-6 weeks with fractured knee NFL Section Front   Add NFL headlines to your news reader: