Joe Girardi sympathizes with Bowles in wake of Geno fiasco
By Jason Rowan
Putting out fires, repairing rifts between players and mediating beefs while attempting to maintain some semblance of order in a clubhouse or locker room are just a few of the many responsibilities tasked to a manager or head coach. This is why New York Yankees skipper Joe Girardi feels for New York Jets head coach Todd Bowles and the nightmarish scenario he will be forced to navigate in the wake of Tuesday’s locker room fiasco.
The brouhaha that ensued in the Jets locker room on Tuesday of course involved what purportedly was a beef over money between Geno Smith and IK Enemkpali, an incident that resulted in the Jets starting quarterback being out for 6-10 weeks after suffering a broken jaw and Enemkpali quickly being released by the team.
Despite all the ugliness and potential fallout, Giardi said all Bowles can do at this point is press forward.
“One player gets released and one player who is competing for a starting job is not competing for six to 10 weeks,” he said, via the New York Post’s George A. King III. “The big thing is you have to learn from it and move on. That’s what you have to do.’’
But more than anything, Girardi feels terrible for a fellow member of New York’s professional coaching community.
“It’s got to be difficult, how you handle it and moving forward,” he said. “It’s one thing to get hurt on the field. It’s tough and it has to be tough for the players.”
The Yankees manager, while noting that this is second fighting incident to involve a quarterback this week — the other being Cam Newton’s training camp brawl on Monday — referred to what transpire as “kind of shocking.”
“It goes to show you when you practice against your own guys it becomes dangerous,” Girardi added. “They want to hit and take their aggression out.”
Girardi obviously sympathizes with Bowles, but perhaps even more so, understands all too well the difficulties inherent with dealing with a controversy of this magnitude under the white-hot glare of the aggressive New York media. It certainly doesn’t make things any easier.
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