Tom Rock: It's a matter of when, not if, Jets fire Aaron Glenn
Jets head coach Aaron Glenn walks off the field after a loss to the Miami Dolphins at MetLife Stadium on Sunday. Credit: Ed Murray
There have been plenty of despondent Jets postgame locker rooms over the years. So many times frustration simmered among the players after a game as they grasped for answers in near silence, trying to process what had just happened to them on the field and what was about to come at them in their immediate future.
Sunday’s atmosphere after a 28-25 loss to the previously winless Dolphins at MetLife Stadium topped them all in terms of gloom. This wasn’t the reflective stillness that follows defeat. It was the hush that acknowledges imminent organizational change.
Shortly after owner Woody Johnson left the space with a firm shove of the door — without comment to reporters but wearing a grim and disgusted expression — the players barely could look each other in the eye or muster any of the typical chitchat after their failures. Their play had doomed them on the field, dropped the Jets to 2-5 and almost certainly marked the unofficial end of the head coach in whom they still say they believe.
“Our fans deserve better than that,” Aaron Glenn said. “And that starts with me.”
Amen.
The Aaron Glenn Experiment has been a failure and it needs to end. After this one, the only detail left to work out should be when Johnson decides to act on it.
It may be this week. Perhaps it will be at some point before the next meeting with Miami in Week 12. It could come during the bye in Week 13. It might even drag on through December or last until the end of the regular season.
Those are merely the dates on the forms in Human Resources, though. Glenn repeatedly has demonstrated throughout his tenure here that he is incapable of leading this team forward, and Sunday’s illustration of that inability should be the final piece of evidence regarding his fate.
Glenn’s record stands at 5-19. He is 0-8 against teams in the AFC East. Only Rich Kotite, who was 3-21 through 24 games en route to going 4-28, had a worse record than Glenn as head coach of the Jets among those who lasted at least 24 games on the job.
Even when his players try to defend him, they inadvertently damn him.
Demario Davis pointed out that the NFL is a league built on “parity” when he tried to suggest that the Jets did not overlook their winless opponent on Sunday. Yup, that’s correct. Yet under Glenn, the Jets somehow have been unable to grab their share of that balance.
Geno Smith pointed out that most games in the league come down to one score and that the Jets have “been in every game we played.” Putting the accuracy of that last part aside, yes, so many NFL contests each week are dramatically determined in the details. Those are the very elements of winning that Glenn’s teams have not mastered.
Worse, they don’t even seem to recognize them.
This Jets roster wasn’t built to be a contender this season, but it was supposed to take a step forward in its competitiveness and its ability to function. That progress has been almost impossible to find.
There were several errors in execution on Sunday. They had first-and-goal at the 1 in the fourth quarter and had to settle for a field goal rather than a potential tying touchdown. They had an opportunity to get the ball back later in that quarter, but safety Minkah Fitzpatrick whiffed on a tackle that led to a 63-yard touchdown.
Smith threw an early interception, Jason Sanders missed a 40-yard field goal that clanked off the right upright in a three-point loss, and they couldn’t stop a Dolphins tush-push sneak on fourth-and-1 that sealed the victory for Miami.
None of that is inherently on Glenn.
There were a few specks of positivity. Mason Taylor caught two touchdown passes and a two-point conversion. Omar Cooper Jr. briefly turned the booing into “Coooop!”-ing with five grabs for 115 yards that included a 60-yarder and a 52-yarder.
Yet there are plenty of areas in which Glenn is guilty of leading the Jets down the wrong path.
He went into halftime with all three of his timeouts rather than deploying them on Miami’s late scoring drive to save precious seconds for an offensive opportunity. He keeps saying he knows that the Jets need to get the ball to Garrett Wilson; the receiver was limited to three official targets (plus one that was nullified by a Miami penalty) in the entire game. He is the defensive play-caller, the one area in which he has been somewhat competent this season, and Malik Willis and the Dolphins were able to pick apart his blitzes and scramble around the Jets’ schemes.
As we’ve stated previously, there actually are several elements at play that work in Glenn’s favor as far as keeping him around a little longer. He does have a close relationship with Johnson as a former Jets player. There probably is not an organizational appetite to fire a head coach before Thanksgiving for the second time in three years. And the candidate most likely to replace Glenn, offensive coordinator Frank Reich, who has experience as a head coach, has done little to distinguish himself in his time here.
That’s fine. No change in leadership this week or in the next several is likely be able to salvage this season. This year always was and remains about a future that begins when the Jets acquire their next quarterback in the spring and open a new chapter.
Now we know it ought to be with a new head coach, too.
Glenn’s days with the Jets should be over at this point. It’s just a matter of which day winds up being his last.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
