The Aaron Glenn Era and the Power of “If”

Aaron Glenn is the latest man tasked with the seemingly impossible job of trying to drag the New York Jets out of the depths of hell. It seems the general consensus among members of media and the fanbase that this was a “home run” pick that is “certain” to change the culture of arguably the most putrid franchise in all of professional sports. For all of those calls for an offensive mind, for all of those calls for a veteran coach,  the Jets largely ignored that and interviewed a long list candidates who weren’t on any other team’s radar.

Of the 16 candidates interviewed, eight of them were retread options. Of those eight, only two of them (Mike Vrabel and Matt Nagy) have winning records as a Head Coach. Looking at it from a offense/defense perspective, 10 of the candidates had a non-offensive background (Darren Rizzi was a Special Teams Coordinator) and then six offensive coaches were interviewed.

Given this pool of candidates, it became clear that gifted offensive minds like Kliff Kingsbury or Todd Monken weren’t going to be coming in to 1 Jets Drive for an interview. Longtime veteran coaches with Super Bowl success like Pete Carroll and Mike McCarthy were overlooked for some reason.  Be it lack of interest from the Jets themselves, or lack of interest in the Jets on the part of the canidates.

Instead, for the fifth time in six hires this century, the Jets have taken a defensive coach from another team and made him a first-time Head Coach. We are hearing the exact same phrases we’ve heard each cycle, such as “Leader of Men” and “culture changer”.  Somehow this passionate fanbase has turned a blind eye to the blisteringly obvious fact that this hire is another example of the Woody Johnson Jets doing the same thing and expecting a different result. While that’s not exactly the definition of insanity, a wise man once used it to explain the word.

ESPN called Saleh a leader of men. Sports Illustrated praised Todd Bowles as a former NFL player who was highly respected amongst the league. Rex Ryan was obviously (and still is) considered one of the greatest talkers of his time who can inspire anyone to do anything with his passionate speeches.

Perhaps, instead of hearing about these guys’ “incredible leadership” or “respect from peers”, Woody, the media, and the fans should really concern themselves with the actual job of being Head Coach. Please take a few seconds to listen to the most successful DC-turned Head Coach of all time talk about his own experience making the switch: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DEaHFOAJGTP/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Bill Belichick is widely regarded as the greatest NFL coach in history but when he was a DC-turned first time Head Coach, he went 36-44 and only had 1 winning season in 5 tries in Cleveland. Belichick was horrible. The issues he outlined in the clip above have nothing to do with leadership or respect, it’s about having much more responsibility and having to make many more decisions that affect far more than X’s and O’s. Then, when they finally get to the game strategies, all of our defensive predecessors had some of the league’s worst offenses year after year.

It’s hard to ignore the reality that each of Glenn’s predecessors (Saleh, Bowles, Ryan etc.) struggled with the offensive side of the ball as Jets.  Bowles actually improved on for his second stint just as Belichick did. Given all this, I would’ve loved to give Brian Flores his second stint to show us how much he’s learned from his first one. But with Aaron Glenn, and us having no choice but to root for our guy to succeed, I have to rely on the power of “if” to maintain faith in this seemingly hopeless football team and its downtrodden fanbase.

• IF Woody Johnson can allow his employees to do the jobs they were hired to do without impediment
• IF Aaron Glenn is able to improve the penalties/discipline issues that plagued the last regime from start to finish
• IF Aaron Glenn is able to bring in an OC that can give the Jets a competent offense
• IF Aaron Glenn is able to hone up to his own words and develop talent in all phases of the roster, not just defense

It’s certainly not impossible, but none of his defensive first time Head Coach for the Jets predecessors have been able to do these things so it doesn’t seem probable. But IF, if Aaron Glenn can somehow find a way to make it happen – using his experience as a player here, his experience as a scout here, if somehow has some advantage that can be leveraged to avoid certain doom – then maybe the Jets have finally found their leader.

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