A Peak At The Leaderboard for Jets Open GM/HC Positions

Kirby Lee-Imagn Imag

As of Sunday’s 56^th anniversary of the Jets’ sole Super Bowl appearance, the franchise remains miles away from a return trip. After a disastrous 5-12 campaign despite the over-the-top preseason hype machine, New York is in familiar territory, with no General Manager or Head Coach and lacking quarterback clarity.

This could be the week where one of the holes get filled. Whether any of the fillings prove durable, well, that’s always been a tricky proposition. The team will be on its seventh GM and ninth HC this century.

As I laid out in my prior post, the searches have cast a wide net, with upwards of 15 people already interviewed or on deck to be interviewed for each open gig. Assistant coaches on Wild Card teams, like Vikings Defensive Coordinator Brian Flores and Buffalo Offensive Coordinator Joe Brady, can take their first meetings virtually this week. In-person interviews for coaches on playoff teams can’t be conducted until next week, and only if their seasons are over.

The most coveted HC target, former Titans HC Mike Vrabel, went off the board with Sunday’s news out of New England. I’ve always felt such a pairing was inevitable, so it’s not like the Jets are under the gun to get this process done. However, if they do feel strongly about a particular candidate after the first round of interviews, it would behoove them to move quicker to beat out the league’s other open jobs that have the more alluring environments of the better QB, the better salary cap situation, and, of course, the less incompetent owner.

Since the Jets have complied with the NFL’s Rooney Rule on minority interviews, they are able to announce their GM hire sooner with the caveat they would need permission from a currently employed candidate’s club. Here’s where I think the process should stand as the Jets round the first turn this week:

In the lead GM—Thomas Dimitroff

For this job, I don’t know why the Jets would entrust it to a first-timer, no matter the winning pedigree in which the candidate advanced. The Joe Douglas lesson was painful. At the time, his hiring was hailed because of his apprenticeships with the NFL’s top programs in Baltimore and Philadelphia. What couldn’t be gleaned was how much he really contributed to those teams’ successes. It must not have been that much, because those clubs haven’t taken any steps back since his departure while the Jets are a mess on the field and on the salary cap ledger. All of it on Douglas’ watch.

Dimitroff, like any long-time GM, had his missteps in Atlanta, but he also drafted extremely well to build a team that went to a Super Bowl. In his 13 seasons on the job, the Falcons were 113-95. He’s been out of the league since getting fired in 2020, choosing to build an analytics company. Still, he looks to be the most accomplished candidate on the list of The 33^rd Team, the outsourced group leading the search.

By no means is Dimitroff a lock. This is Woody Johnson’s team, so he may become infatuated with a more recent winner.

Runner-up GM—Mike Borgonzi

If the Jets are hell-bent on a first-time GM, it’s hard to top Borgonzi, Kansas City’s Assistant GM to Brett Veach. The Chiefs are the cream of the crop, so the theory goes that Borgonzi must have learned something in his 15 years moving up the ladder in the organization. Of course, Veach and HC Andy Reid run the ship and won’t be deserting along with Borgonzi. I can absolutely see the Jets accepting that risk as they are the poster child for Edison’s definition of insanity. I will say, however, that a Borgonzi hire could prove workable in one respect—he’s familiar with who I think is atop the HC race…

In the lead HC—Matt Nagy

I know, this will make some Jets fans cringe. His exit from Chicago, his sole HC experience, wasn’t glorious.

But look at his overall record. He took over a club that had missed the postseason for seven consecutive seasons and went 12-4 his first year and to then to another playoff berth with Mitch Trubisky as his quarterback. Mitch Trubisky. Nagy’s final season, with rookie QB Justin Fields, was the only one of his four campaigns that didn’t get to eight wins. I remind fans that the Jets haven’t seen eight wins in nine years. And the Bears? They finished in last place in the NFC North all three seasons post Nagy.

Allegedly, the “double-doink” Wild Card loss to the Eagles that first year did a number on Nagy. He needed to get back to his Kansas City roots, where he helps with game-planning as the team’s OC (though Reid calls the plays). Some coaches, however, learn from past mistakes and come back with a better approach the second time around. Reid himself was excoriated and run out of Philadelphia, albeit after 14 years instead of Nagy’s four, before winning three Super Bowls in K.C.

Nagy’s defense in Chicago was well ahead of his offense despite his extensive background on that side of the ball. Still, his work with QBs who aren’t bums shows he knows how to scheme guys open and use the QB’s legs to the team’s advantage. The Jets have had one offensive-oriented HC since canning Rich Kotite in 1996 and that was the disgraced Adam Gase. It’s time to try something different.

Runner-up HC—Aaron Glenn

There are a lot of folks reportedly in Glenn’s corner and for good reason. The word is spreading that he hit it out of the park during his January 9 virtual interview. Glenn did a remarkable job as Detroit’s Defensive Coordinator this season to work around a hellish injury plague. His leadership skills are said to be first-rate without the rankling that contributed to Flores’ demise in his previous HC shot in Miami.

Why don’t I have Glenn in the lead then? Because everyone with a HC opening is talking to him with serious intentions. Does the notoriously cheap Johnson want to get into a bidding war for a coach? He probably thinks Glenn should take a “home team discount” because the Jets drafted him in the first round in 1994.

There’s also my bias that wants the Jets to go with an offensive play-caller here, for reasons I have enumerated several times before in this forum. However, I will leave open the possibility that Glenn could prove to be the exception to my rule.