Long Island's Mike Greenberg was ready for Jets general manager job 'years ago'
Tampa Bay Buccaneers Director of Football Operations Mike Greenberg, from Bellmore, speaks on the phone before a game against the New Orleans Saints on Dec. 31, 2017 at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa. Credit: Icon Sportswire via Getty Images/Cliff Welch
In order to truly fix the Jets, their next general manager needs to understand them as deeply and innately as possible.
This person will need to have intimately felt the pains that have befallen the organization for five and a half decades, suffered the heartaches of the near misses and the chagrins of the never-made-its. They’ll need to grasp the strange combination of stubborn pride and cringy regret, the unique tug-of-war between optimism and negativity, that defines rooting for this team.
They need to be aware of exactly what they are going up against.
Know thy enemy . . . which in this case may be the Jets themselves.
All of the many candidates who the Jets have so far expressed interest in interviewing for this job — and the ones who have already met with owner Woody Johnson about it — will be able to recite the facts and data of that misery. They’ll have charts showing where the Jets went wrong, which deals they should and shouldn’t have made, which areas need the most improvement. They’ll probably be able to recount the many pitfalls that have led to 14 straight seasons without a playoff appearance and chat about mistakes in the years before that which defined the organization.
There is only one prospective general manager who has lived it, though. Only one who fully grasps what it is like to grow up in this area pulling for a team that hardly ever gives a good enough reason for such loyalty. Only one who can comprehend the depths from which this franchise must rise and what it would mean to the fan base to overcome all of it.
Mike Greenberg, the current assistant general manager of the Buccaneers who grew up as a Jets fan in Bellmore on Long Island and began his NFL career as an intern for the Jets when they were still at Hofstra, is that guy.
Gang Greenberg. Has a nice ring to it, no?
He’s expected to interview with Woody Johnson and the rest of the Jets’ hiring committee in Florida later this week. He’ll almost certainly arrive having been fully touted by former Jets general manager Mike Tannenbaum whose company, The 33rd Team, the Jets hired to organize this search.
Greenberg was an intern under Tannenbaum with the Jets in 2008 and 2009. Oh, that second year they went to the AFC Championship Game under first-year coach Rex Ryan . . . the same Rex Ryan who interviewed for the Jets’ open head coaching job on Tuesday.
"The NFL is beyond foolish that this guy is not a GM," Tannenbaum told Newsday in a feature on Greenberg when the Bucs were playing in Super Bowl LV in 2021. "They go through these searches and people think they are being thorough, but they’re not because there are untold stories like Mike Greenberg’s. The day he walks into a franchise he is going to make everyone in that building better, happier, smarter. It’s an absolute no-brainer that he will be a wildly successful general manager."
Greenberg’s resume goes far beyond his early Jets fandom and being a Tannenbaum protégé. In his time with the Bucs, he played a key role in figuring out how to bring Tom Brady in from the Patriots. Since then Tampa Bay has been to the playoffs in each season — the longest active streak in the NFC — and Greenberg has helped them navigate through the process of first finding then keeping quarterback Baker Mayfield and retaining Mike Evans to maintain that success.
His strength is numbers and the salary cap, which the Jets will need to clean up the mess left from the wild spending of the past two years. But he’s also developed a keen eye for scouting talent.
Is Greenberg ready for the kind of responsibility that comes with being a GM?
“He was ready five years ago,” Tannenbaum said.
And it’s been four years since he said that.
There are plenty of others whose resumes say they are qualified for this job. Eagles assistant general manager Alec Halaby, a Harvard-educated analytics wiz, is one of the hottest names in this job cycle. Kansas City assistant general manager Mike Borgonzi has a drawer full of Super Bowl rings to flash as he comes in through the door. Brian Gaine, the Bills’ assistant general manager, grew up in New Jersey and was even a practice squad player for the Jets in the 1990s so he’s a local kid just like Greenberg. Well, not quite. Gaine was a Giants fan.
That’s not a disqualifier. But it’s certainly not the same thing as what Greenberg would bring to this job.
For him, this would become a personal mission to direct the Jets to the top for the first time in his life. He would be doing it not just for the team, but for his family and friends on Long Island who have spent their existences rooting in vain. Much the way Theo Epstein grew up in Massachusetts and was able to break the “Curse of the Bambino” for his beloved Red Sox, Greenberg could become one of the Jets’ eternal legends he grew up watching and cheering for.
What a narrative.
And what a way to keep the Jets front and center in the national media, which is clearly something Johnson appreciates based on his postseason remarks about the number of prime time games the Jets had this season. Simply floating his name caught the eye of one of the biggest stars of TV sports.
“The Jets have requested an interview with Mike Greenberg, who grew up a huge fan of the team, for their vacant general manager job,” ESPN’s Mike Greenberg posted on X/Twitter this week. “Those are quite literally the words I have waited my entire life to hear.”
He’s certainly not the only Mike Greenberg who can say that.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
