Jets interview Chiefs' Nagy and Borgonzi and Eagles' Halaby for vacancies

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Jets interview Chiefs' Nagy and Borgonzi and Eagles' Halaby for vacancies

2025-01-09 08:57 Last Updated At：09:01

The New York Jets interviewed Kansas City offensive coordinator Matt Nagy on Wednesday for their head coach vacancy.

The team also announced it spoke to a pair of assistant general managers for its GM opening: the Chiefs' Mike Borgonzi and the Philadelphia Eagles' Alec Halaby.

Nagy, who has overseen the Chiefs' offense led by quarterback Patrick Mahomes the past two seasons, met with the Jets during a video call.

Coaches on teams with a bye this week during the playoffs — such as Nagy with the Chiefs — can conduct virtual interviews with interested teams between Wednesday and the end of wild-card weekend and are limited to three hours in length.

The 46-year-old Nagy has previous head coaching experience, having gone 34-31 in four seasons with Chicago and making the playoffs twice. He was the AP NFL Coach of the Year in 2018, his first year with the Bears when they went 12-4, won the NFC North title and lost to Philadelphia in the wild-card round.

In his first stint with Kansas City, Nagy was Kansas City's quarterbacks coach under Andy Reid from 2013 to 2015 and was promoted to offensive coordinator in 2016 before being hired as Chicago's head coach. After he was fired by the Bears following the 2021 season, Nagy returned to the Chiefs as a senior assistant and the quarterbacks coach before becoming the offensive coordinator in 2023.

Nagy, who also spent five years as an assistant with Reid in Philadelphia, is the fourth known candidate to interview for the Jets' head coach vacancy. New York has also interviewed Mike Vrabel, Ron Rivera and Rex Ryan. Minnesota defensive coordinator Brian Flores and Jets interim head coach Jeff Ulbrich are also expected to be among those to meet with the team.

With the interviews of Borgonzi and Halaby, New York has spoken to six known GM candidates. That includes Senior Bowl executive director Jim Nagy, former Atlanta Falcons GM Thomas Dimitroff, former Tennessee Titans GM Jon Robinson and ESPN analyst Louis Riddick.

Borgonzi has been the Chiefs' assistant GM under Brett Veach since 2021, supervising and directing the team's college and professional scouting operations while also helping build the roster.

Borgonzi, a former college fullback at Brown, has served in several roles since joining the Chiefs in 2009. He most recently served as Kansas City's director of football operations for three years before being promoted to his current role.

Halaby has been the assistant general manager under Howie Roseman since 2022 and served in several roles with the organization since being hired as an intern in the football operations department in 2007. The Harvard alum spent six years as the Eagles' vice president of football operations and strategy before becoming assistant GM.

Jets owner Woody Johnson hired The 33rd Team, a football media, analytics and consulting group founded by former Jets GM Mike Tannenbaum, in November to assist them in their two searches. Tannenbaum and former Dolphins and Vikings GM Rick Spielman are helping identify and vet GM and coach candidates and coordinate interviews.

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL

Greeks pay tribute to former Prime Minister Costas Simitis at his state funeral

2025-01-09 21:48 Last Updated At：21:52

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Mourners lined the street outside Athens' central cathedral Thursday for the state funeral for former Prime Minister Costas Simitis, the architect of Greece’s membership of the European Union’s common currency, who died on Sunday at the age of 88.

Politicians paid tribute to the late premier known for his low-key style, singling out his role in securing Greece's entry into the eurozone and helping Cyprus join the European Union in 2004. Greece’s accession to the euro came under criticism from some who considered the country’s finances not sufficiently prepared for the challenge.

“He set the bar high and boldly for a strong, equal Greece in Europe,” Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou said in her eulogy. “The accession to the eurozone and the accession of Cyprus to the European Union were brilliant achievements.”

Current Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis paid tribute to “a fighter against the dictatorship and a worthy servant of democracy, but also a noble adversary with whom our parties managed to agree on two crucial choices: Greece's accession to the euro and ... Cyprus' entry into the European Union.”

Mitsotakis' conservative New Democracy party was the long-time main rival to the socialist PASOK party Simitis co-founded in 1974.

Simitis' funeral, which came after a four-day official period of mourning, was held with the honors of a sitting prime minister as a sign of respect. After the service in the Metropolitan Cathedral, mourners on foot followed the hearse carrying the former prime minister to Athens’ First Cemetery, the resting place of numerous notable Greeks, including politicians, musicians and artists.

In accordance with the wishes of his family, Simitis' body did not lie in state, but hundreds of members of the public who wanted to pay their respects gathered outside the cathedral. Streets in the center of the Greek capital were shut to traffic for the funeral and procession to the cemetery.

“He was a prime minister (who was) a modernizer, he reformed Greece,” said Apostolos Xilogiannis, who joined the crowd outside the cathedral. “He brought a different air, he said few words and produced results. He meant what he said.”

A committed pro-European, Simitis served two consecutive four-year terms as prime minister from January 1996 to March 2004 — a record for longevity for a Greek administration. He emerged as the leader of a modernizing wing of PASOK who often clashed with the party leader at the time, Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou, before eventually succeeding him in 1996.

Simitis considered Greece’s entry into the eurozone in January 2001 as the signature achievement of his premiership, but he also helped secure the 2004 Olympic Games for Athens and presided over a vast program of infrastructure building, including a new airport and two subway lines to help host the games.

Another of his main achievements was helping Cyprus, an island nation divided between an internationally recognized Greek Cypriot south and a breakaway Turkish Cypriot north, join the European Union in 2004, overcoming wariness by some Europeans concerned over allowing a divided country into the bloc.

Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides was among the mourners at Thursday’s funeral. On Sunday, he praised the late prime minister as an “outstanding leader” who has earned a special place in the history of not only Greece, but also of Cyprus.

Simitis, a low-key pragmatist, often clashed with the charismatic, fiery populist Papandreou. When the profligate first four years of PASOK party government from 1981 to 1985 resulted in a rapidly deteriorating economy, Papandreou elevated Simitis to finance minister to oversee a tight austerity program.

Finances improved and inflation was partly tamed, but Simitis was pushed to resign in 1987 when Papandreou, eyeing an upcoming election, announced a generous wages policy, undermining the goals of the austerity program.

The socialists returned to power with Papandreou still at the helm in 1993, but he was ailing and finally resigned the premiership in January 1996. A tight two rounds of voting among the socialist lawmakers unexpectedly elevated Simitis to the post of prime minister, a post he held until 2004.

Born on June 23, 1936, Simitis was the younger son of two politically active parents. His lawyer father Georgios was a member of the left-leaning resistance “government” during the German occupation from 1941 to 1944 and his mother, Fani, was an active feminist.

Simitis studied law at the University of Marburg, in Germany, in the 1950s, and economics and politics at the London School of Economics in the early 1960s. He later taught law at the University of Athens. His elder brother Spiros, who died in 2023, was a noted legal scholar in Germany.

Lefteris Pitarakis and Demetris Nellas in Athens contributed