Jets reportedly set to hire ex-Cards GM Graves
The Jets are expected to hire former Cardinals general manager Rod Graves to join their front office staff, according to multiple reports.
The Jets have yet to confirm the hiring of Graves -- the former Cardinals GM who was fired earlier this offseason with head coach Ken Whisenhunt -- but Graves is expected to take the assistant GM job now vacated by Scott Cohen.
The friendship between Idzik and Graves dates back nearly four decades.
The two were ball boys for the Eagles when their fathers – Jackie Graves and John Idzik -- worked for the organization. After losing touch over the years, the pair reconnected when while Rod was on a scouting assignment at Duke, where Idzik was a graduate assistant football coach for the Blue Devils in 1991-92. And in 2004, Graves hired Idzik as the Cardinals senior director of football operations. The two two spent three seasons together before Idzik was hired by the Seahawks in 2007.
The Cardinals went to the Super Bowl after the 2008 season.
“He did a lot for our organization,” Graves said of Idzik during an interview with Newsday last month.
"...John and I spent a lot of late nights together talking football, talking philosophy, talking about what matters most. He's been around football all his life, and he understands the importance of what it takes to build a team.''