It didn't take long for Jets tight end Jace Amaro to notice the shift in tone around Florham Park.
New coach Todd Bowles opened the team's voluntary workouts this week preaching accountability, something Amaro described as lacking in a Jets team that had "an issue" with tardiness under Rex Ryan in 2014.
"(Bowles) came in telling us that he expects to win," Amaro told Sirius XM NFL Radio on Monday, per Newsday. "He's not really playing around with everybody being late. We had an issue with that last year. I think guys just weren't accountable last year as much they could be. And I think that's the biggest thing."
Amaro said Bowles is "making sure that everyone's going to be 100 percent in or you're not going to be on the team, so that's really going to filter out toward the guys."
Ryan was a celebrated players' coach in New York, but railed against the idea that he was easy on veterans, telling Newsday in December that "sometimes people throw that term around like you're soft or something. It's the exact opposite. A players' coach, to me, is somebody that cares about his players, someone that tries to give our guys an opportunity to be successful."
With only one season in the NFL, Amaro doesn't exactly bring a long perspective to Rex's tenure in Gotham. Ryan had his foibles, sure, but few coaches were put in a worse position to win last season after general manager John Idzik failed to field a roster with the requisite talent.
Bowles is an opposite to Rex on the personality spectrum, but he arrives as one of the more well-regarded and respected coaches in the NFL. His strong first impression on Amaro is noted, but the test of any coach comes when the losses, injuries and chaos mount. This story has just begun.
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