The New York Jets began their 2019 off season by interviewing a handful of coaches this week and more to come next week. So far they have interviewed Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy on Wednesday, then they interviewed former Dolphins head coach Adam Gase, then finally concluding the week by interviewing former Packers head coach Mike McCarthy. Out of the three coaches they interviewed this week, McCarthy is the by far the best candidate out of them and maybe the best out of all the candidates the Jets have interest in. But the problem is that it's 50/50 between Jets fans in a scenario that half want him and the other don't, mostly it's because of what transpired at Green Bay between him and Aaron Rodgers the passed two years.
In 2017 the Packers missed the playoffs for one of the few times in his tenure as a coach, and with expectations high going into the 2018 season after signing Rodgers to an extension and signing Jimmy Graham, they completely collapsed forcing McCarthy to be fired mid season. It may seem that the former head coach held their future hall of famer back with his mediocre offensive schematics, then there was a report that McCarthy didn't allow Rodgers to meet up with him one on one after film/practice sessions which caused a ton of tension between the two parties. These are the type of things that doesn't sound well especially for a guy that could be coaching/developing your young quarterback in Sam Darnold, however there are more good than bad in this situation.
Back in 2006 when McCarthy was hired to be the Packers head coach, he had two future hall of fame quarterbacks in Brett Favre and a young Aaron Rodgers in addition to leading this team to the NFC championship game in 2007. Since then, the Packers had won one super bowl, 6 division titles in 13 years, and had an overall record of 125-77-2, not to mention he developed Rodgers into the elite future hall of fame quarterback that he is. That's the type of guy you want to develop Sam Darnold into an elite quarterback as well, and part of the reason why the Packers did so poorly in 2018 was because of the amount of injuries they had including half of their offensive line and most of their wide receiver core. They couldn't even spend a ton of money because of the contract situation with Aaron Rodgers.
One thing is for that the relationship between McCarthy and Darnold can work if he can do one thing: He has to be open minded about changing his offensive schematics and adapt to the new NFL. McCarthy has to be a leader and not be what Todd Bowles was from the passed four years.