Eric Mangini's Buddy Rips Jets, Brett Favre; Mike Shanahan Not Interested

The current saga that is New York Jets football continues to take bizarre twists and turns, as Teddy Atlas, a friend of recently fired head coach Eric Mangini and a personal assistant for the team (in the field of boxing?!), has become the latest person to jump on the pile of chaos in the Big Apple.

As Atlas tells it, Mangini wanted to enter the season with an open quarterback competition between Chad Pennington and Kellen Clemens, while the team would play a "protect the ball, intelligent approach." Things changed, naturally, when Brett Favre came to town and played his throw the ball all over the place while having a good time approach. It worked for a while, then all went terribly wrong in the second half of the season, resulting in finger-pointing, name-calling, and general insanity. Here's what Atlas had to say, courtesy of Brian Costello of the New York Post:

"Mangini went into the season ready for a whole different approach, whether it was going to be Chad Pennington or Kellen Clemens (at quarterback), whoever won that battle," Atlas told The Post. "It was going to be a secure, protect the ball, intelligent approach. It was something he was comfortable with, something he believed in. The whole plan, the whole blueprint got thrown out the window when Favre came. He's the antithesis of that. He throws the ball all over the place."

Atlas also claims that Jets owner Woody Johnson "forced" the trade on Mangini, and called Favre "basically a selfish guy." Well, Teddy, you're going to have to get in line behind Thomas Jones, Kerry Rhodes and Bruce Ciskie.

I suppose it's easy to jump on the pile now that Pennington is getting ready to take snaps in the playoffs, after clinching the AFC East title in the Meadowlands, while Favre threw three interceptions in the same game, ticking off his teammates.

Meanwhile, in terms of the Jets' coaching search as they attempt to replace Mangini, there's new speculation as to why former Steelers head coach Bill Cowher rejected the team. So far, we've heard that Cowher turned down the Jets because he didn't want to have general manager Mike Tannenbaum calling the shots. Then, just a day later, another report surfaced claiming that he, like Mangini, didn't want to deal with the drama that is Favre as his quarterback. As if that wasn't enough, yet another theory is thrown into the fray as Gary Myers and Rich Cimini of the Daily News offer up this nugget:

"Bill Cowher easily could've been enticed to coach if Woody Johnson would've taken a sit-down meeting with him," the person said. "Cowher's camp was told that Woody was out of the country and couldn't have a sit-down with him."

So, in a matter of one week we've had three different theories as to why Cowher withdrew himself from consideration. My opinion? He probably just doesn't want to coach right now. Crazy. I know.

Speaking of high-profile coaches removing their names from the coaching search, in the same Daily News article it's reported that recently fired Broncos head coach Mike Shanahan has also turned down the opportunity to coach the team.

Where does this all leave the Jets? Let me see if I understand: (1) Brett Favre doesn't know if he's going to be back next season. I think we've seen this movie before. (2) The two highest-profile coaches on the market don't want to coach the team for a variety of reasons. (3) Chad Pennington, the guy they just tossed aside this past offseason, is getting ready to start a playoff game. (4) Nobody likes Brett Favre anymore.