Neither Aaron Glenn nor Justin Fields were going to solve the decades long problems the New York Jets have faced. They haven’t reached the NFL postseason in nearly 15 years and essentially every coach they’ve brought in during their 14-year drought has been tasked to do what is now impossible. That wasn’t going to change in year one with a first-year head coach.
The Jets are off to an 0-6 start under Glenn and while it’s easy to point the fingers at him, the litany of the problems the Jets are facing isn’t entirely on him. After all, this team is probably a quarterback away, yet they chose the wrong quarterback to be their savior. Aaron Rodgers wasn’t going to save this team either.
You could say Glenn’s biggest mistake is going all in and committing to Fields as that’s now been a disaster. Aside from that, if there’s one first year coach that’s good enough to turn the Jets around, it probably is Glenn. After all, he was in Detroit when Dan Campbell turned a team that was an afterthought in the NFL into an NFC contender. That type of patience is key if the Jets truly want to end their playoff woes.
Aaron Glenn should get time to turn the New York Jets around
Patience is the only antidote to cure the New York Jets at this point. Glenn was around during Detroit’s dreaded 2021 season where they opened the year 0-8 before getting their first non-losing result – a 16-16 tie to the Pittsburgh Steelers. It was nearly a month later before they got their first win of the season; one of their three total on the year.
In 2022, they went from three wins to knocking on the playoff door with nine wins and the last two seasons, well, they combined for 27 regular season wins and an NFC championship game appearance in 2023. Imagine if Campbell would have fired Glenn after that miserable first year, or Detroit bailed out on Campbell; the Lions might never have seen a playoff win.
Because Glenn has been through the trenches, albeit as an assistant, he might be the only person equipped to turn things around in New York. But it was never supposed to happen this year. The Jets like to put pressure on coaches to win now when they aren’t built for that. While they have a solid roster, they have a first year coach that has to learn to manage more than one side of the ball and a quarterback that’s a bridge option at best.
Where do the Jets actually go from here? I’m not sure. But they have a great foundation, which most bad teams don’t. They just need to take their time in making sure they get it right this time around. Glenn deserves some criticism as he’s dealing with a lot of the same struggles most first-year coaches deal with which is game management. That will come with experience. Firing him now doesn’t get the Jets any closer to getting to the playoffs, which is why they can’t rush his or this team’s success.
Why the New York Jets are in a much better position than most of the other bad teams around them
The Jets are in a much better situation than most of the other bad teams around them. They’re not winning right now because they have a rookie head coach and an incompetent quarterback. That said, I’d much rather be in the Jets’ situation than the Miami Dolphins, New Orleans Saints; even the Cleveland Browns.
All those teams have no idea what’s gone wrong with their respective teams, none worse than the Dolphins. Sure the Jets lost to them earlier this year, but they are headed in a much better direction than them. Miami was a team that was a playoff contender for two seasons and have rapidly spiraled the last couple of years. Good teams don’t do that and now they’re on the verge of tearing the whole thing up.
New York has a competitive team, they just need to figure out the quarterback situation and manage the game better. Those are simple fixes and for a team that needs to turn things around, they have a lot of reason to be optimistic about the direction of this team under Glenn. He’s been here and done this before, he knows what it takes to win and he knows what it takes to get this team on track. New York fans just have to be patient.