Jets' Mike Maccagnan explains why he fired pro personnel director Brendan Prophett, 5 scouts
Jets general manager Mike Maccagnan went on WFAN on Thursday afternoon to chat with Mike Francesa.
During the almost 40-minute interview, there wasn't a whole lot of new ground covered, though Francesa did ask Maccagnan if he saw the movie "Draft Day." (He did see it.)
The one new topic that Maccagnan did cover involved the GM firing his pro personnel director, Brendan Prophett, and five college scouts after the NFL Draft — which is exactly the time when GMs make these sort of staff changes.
"That's the one aspect of the business, and it happens a lot when general managers come in," Maccagnan said. "There's a transition. The guys we parted ways with were good guys, and actually did a very good job in terms of helping me with my first draft. But unfortunately, in our line of work, generally coaches seem to change after the season is over, [and] scouting departments tend to make their changes after the draft is over, in terms of the cycles.
"Going forward, there are some guys [for scouting] that obviously I had in mind, that I was going to try to acquire. Not to take anything away from the guys I parted ways with. Like I said, they're good guys and they did a good job. But when you're doing this, you're trying to put together your own team and your own staff of guys you want to go to war with. That's what we're in the process of doing right now. Unfortunately, it's kind of the nature of our business a little bit. The timing of it, unfortunately, always comes right after the draft."
The reason Maccagnan (and most incoming GMs) wait until after the draft to fire scouts is so those scouts can't join other organizations before the draft and share the Jets' analysis of prospects and draft plans.
Maccagnan said he is "talking to, obviously, a number of people from other teams" as he tries to fill the scouting positions.
According to Fox Sports, there is a "good chance" that Maccagnan will hire Marty Barrett for a scouting position. Barrett was just fired by the Bears as their college scouting director.
Maccagnan already has one former Bears employee on his college scouting staff: Rex Hogan, whom Maccagnan hired as his senior director of college scouting. Hogan had served as a national scout for the Bears.
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Among the five scouts Maccagnan fired, four were hired by his predecessor, John Idzik, and one was hired by Mike Tannenbaum, who came before Idzik as Jets GM.
It is unclear if Maccagnan will hire someone to specifically replace Prophett, a New Jersey native who grew up in Hamilton, near Trenton, and graduated from Notre Dame High School in Lawrenceville.
Earlier this offseason, Maccagnan had hired Rams scout Brian Heimerdinger, and named him director of player personnel.
http://www.nj.com/jets/index.ssf/2015/05/jets_mike_maccagnan_explains_why_he_fired_pro_pers.html
