Saleh’s Demise A Most Unsurprising Shocker
The only thing “stunning” or “shocking”, the words a friendly media used when reporting on the Jets firing of Head Coach Robert Saleh on Tuesday, was the timing. Woody Johnson had never replaced his HC in the middle of the season in his 24 years as owner.
But other than that, why was this so stunning? Was it undeserving? If anything, it was way too late. Saleh came into the season with a record of 18-33 (.353 winning percentage) and a minus-301 point differential over his first three years on the job. That he survived Black Monday 2024 should have been the “stunning” part, but I guess he successfully spun the season’s 7-10 record as a direct function of losing star quarterback Aaron Rodgers to an Achilles rupture four snaps into the opener to the incompetent higher-ups. Never mind that among those hired since 2000, only two other coaches with a similar record of failure got a fourth season. None got a fifth.
And neither will Saleh. Defensive Coordinator Jeff Ulbrich will take over a team that, at minimum, should have been operating on a playoff-or-bust mentality but slumped home from London at 2-3 following a 23-17 defeat to Minnesota with a tough game against Buffalo coming up on Monday night. Gang Green has hardly looked like a team playing up to its talent, and, despite Saleh’s misguided attempt at softening the damage done, Johnson no longer trusted him when he promised things will improve. On Sunday, the Jets continued a pattern of looking woefully unprepared at the start, particularly on offense, which didn’t record a first down until about four minutes elapsed in the second quarter. The red flag couldn’t have been any brighter.
Which is why I’m also skeptical that this change will be a needle-mover. To expect Ulbrich to step in and put the Jets on a playoff track is wishful thinking by both Johnson and the fan base. Ulbrich, like Saleh, comes from a defensive orientation and his resume includes no head coaching experience at any level. How he’ll transition from coordinator to HC is unknown. A select few take to it pretty quickly; most need years of trial-and-error.
Typically, defensive coaches view the games from a more conservative bent. They’ll have more faith than warranted in their defense, whether it has performed as well as the Jets have under his tutelage or not. That’s why the vast majority of top teams have offensive play-callers at the helm. That has never been under Ulbrich’s purview, so he will be flying by the seat of his pants when it comes to fixing the actual mess on his plate.
Ulbrich’s immediate concern is what to do with his offensive staff. Presumably, Rodgers and Offensive Coordinator Nathaniel Hackett remain tight despite all the dysfunction, so I can’t see the Jets pulling off a second drastic change. Per The Athletic’s Dianna Russini, Hackett is safe for the time being.
Will Ulbrich make offensive line coach Keith Carter the scapegoat? The Jets continue to look discombobulated in both run blocking and pass protection, averaging a league low 80.4 yards per game on the ground at a 30th-ranked 3.6 yards per carry while Rodgers is feeling the effects of being hit a combined 25 times over the last two games. Carter, remember, didn’t come to New York with the most sterling of reputations—his prior tenure with Tennessee was panned by his players.
I had a friend suggest that the Jets should just turn the play-calling over to Rodgers. According to SNY’s Connor Hughes’ reporting, Hackett sends him THREE plays to choose from anyway, and Rodgers makes a call in the huddle before reading the defense to see if he needs to audible. You can tell that Rodgers prefers to play at a faster tempo, but he’s often standing around waiting to get the call in his helmet while gesturing with a “let’s go” finger twirl. It’s part of the reason why it seems so many snaps every game are at risk of being flagged for delay-of-game penalties.
It's not such a far-fetched idea. Quarterbacks used to call their own plays all the time. If you were going to do it in the modern game, Rodgers, with his 20 years playing at the highest level in the league, would seem to fit the profile for the responsibility. Why not eliminate a step that wasn’t working anyway?
Unfortunately, the HC swap is probably all that’s going to change for the moment. The theory that a team just needs “a new voice” is often overrated. I doubt Ulbrich is going to transform a culture that tolerates mistakes to one with more accountability overnight. According to reports, he is well-liked in the locker room; will he be willing to step on toes now that he’s in charge of everything?
Saleh was also said to be well-liked, and the players took advantage of that. He had a moving backstory that included a life-changing event that saw his brother escape from the 61st floor of the South Tower on 9/11 and made him quit his finance job to follow his passion into coaching football. The media ate it up.
Maybe that’s why, to them, Saleh’s demise was so shocking.