Robert Saleh's firing on Tuesday morning, just five games into the New York Jets' 2024 season, stunned the NFL. But this was not as much of a hair-trigger decision as it might have appeared. There were already significant concerns about Saleh's abilities as a head coach among some inside the Jets building at the end of the 2023 season.
Owner Woody Johnson, in comments made at NFL Honors a few days before this past February's Super Bowl, told reporters that his football staff had seen him as mad as he could be, indicated his disgust with the offense of the 2023 season, blasted the Jets for not having an adequate backup quarterback and included this ominous statement: "We've got all this talent and we've got to deploy talent properly. I think they all got the message. This is it. This is the time to go. We've got to produce this year. We have to produce this year."
Translation: The roster has good players; this is a coaching problem. Saleh was on notice from that moment.
The early returns certainly were not what Johnson or the Jets (2-3) could have hoped for -- Week 4's 10-9 home loss to the Denver Broncos was particularly bothersome -- and this time, there was no Zach Wilson to blame. Johnson -- whose brother, Christopher, hired Saleh while Woody was serving as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom during the Trump administration -- brought Saleh back after 2023 because he wanted to give his football staff an opportunity with a healthy Aaron Rodgers. The opportunity lasted five games.
That the offense has sputtered in the first five weeks of the 2024 campaign -- that the Jets haven't established the run; have struggled to pass protect, leaving Rodgers open to battering; still have work-in-progress timing between Rodgers and his receivers; that Rodgers threw three interceptions in the 23-17 loss to the Minnesota Vikings in London this past Sunday -- is almost beside the point. The Jets are not getting rid of Rodgers, around whom the entire franchise is currently orbiting. The future Hall of Famer has amassed tremendous power and security. So, if something drastic had to change, the thinking goes, it needed to be the voice and the message players are receiving.
It's worth noting that Saleh alone seems to be paying the price for the Jets' underperformance. The rest of the coaching staff -- including Rodgers' hand-picked offensive coordinator, Nathaniel Hackett -- remains intact for now. General manager Joe Douglas still has his job.
Is it early to pull the plug? Of course. And if the leash was going to be this short, Johnson probably should have given serious thought to making a change last offseason. Until now, Johnson had never fired a coach in the middle of a season. After the London loss, Saleh himself implored fans to remain patient because it was "early" in the campaign.
On the other hand, five games is not a blip, the Jets were not cleaning up even the most rudimentary issues and, at times, they looked startingly like the 2023 version of the team that went 7-10. Penalties plagued New York last season and were continuing to be an issue this season -- the Jets were the most penalized team in the 2023 regular season (124), and since 2023, they have been called for the most penalties in the NFL (163). Since 2021, the year Saleh was hired, the Jets have averaged the fewest points per game (17.3) and have the most giveaways (89) in the NFL. Saleh's 20-36 record is the third-worst in the NFL since he was hired.
"One of the reasons I decided to make a coaching change is exactly that, we need to find ways to win," Johnson said Tuesday. "We're not going to find those ways by doing the same thing over and over and over."
There had been indications that all was not as well as Saleh, Rodgers and others tried to portray it in recent days. After the dispiriting loss to Denver, which included five false-start penalties on the offense, Saleh wondered aloud if maybe the Jets were not good enough or ready enough to handle their more complex cadence -- a career-long signature of Rodgers' game. When Rodgers was asked about that idea, he replied: "That's one way to do it. The other way is to hold them accountable." That retort was a fairly clear dig at the team's coaching. And in London, linebacker Quincy Williams, in an interview with SNY's Jeane Coakley, pleaded for the Jets to "start taking accountability" and added "people get tired of hearing the same thing every week."
It gets late early in the NFL, and this coming Monday, the Jets play the Buffalo Bills for a chance to seize first place in the AFC East. Clearly, Johnson was concerned that if something didn't change quickly with his franchise, the opportunity of this season would slip away and the very small window with a quarterback in his 40s would narrow even more.
"This is one of most talented teams that has ever been assembled by the New York Jets," Johnson said Tuesday. "I wanted to give this team the most opportunity to win this season. I feel that we had to go in a different direction and that's why I did that today. The change we made, I made, I believe will bring new energy and positivity that will lead to more wins starting now."
Now it is on Jeff Ulbrich, the defensive coordinator who will serve as interim head coach for the rest of the season, to fix all that ails Gang Green. Ulbrich was likely to be a hot head-coaching candidate in the next hiring cycle, so this is an extraordinary opportunity to take over a team with plenty of talent and set it on a better path. Ulbrich will have to reinforce discipline, demand an end to the self-inflicted wounds of penalties and keep his defense playing hard while the offense tries to find its way.
The reality, though, is Ulbrich will have little control over New York's offense. It is up to Rodgers and Co. to fix it. Until they do -- if they can -- the Jets will underperform expectations. And Saleh won't be the last one with whom Johnson loses patience.
