Aaron Glenn can absorb another Jets loss, but there likely will be changes

Right after the Jets returned from their game in London last year, they fired their head coach.

That’s not going to happen this time. Aaron Glenn is off to the worst start of anyone who has held his job with the organization, having lost his first five games, and the Jets are going into Sunday’s game against the Broncos as the league’s only winless team, but there remains a lot of institutional faith in what Glenn is trying to accomplish.

“Every day, that’s all I think about is how do we get us a win so we get this thing going right?” Glenn said this past week. “That’s all we need. We just need one. Once we get one, we’ll get this thing going right where we need to. I understand everything that’s been going on with us, but I have all the confidence in the world that we’ll get this thing going.”

Are there areas in which he can improve as a game-day tactician as well as a weekday leader of the team? Yes. Are there schematic issues that are causing the Jets to be overmatched? Sure. Are the mounting losses becoming embarrassing for a franchise that was hoping Glenn would eradicate those feelings and make the team far less circus-y? Certainly.

Barring some kind of hideous meltdown in this contest — and that’s a caveat that must be mentioned any time we are discussing the Jets — Glenn will survive the plane ride home across the Atlantic.

The rest of the team? Well, some players might not want to unpack so quickly upon their return from the week-long trip to England. They could be on the move again in fairly short order.

The NFL trade deadline is Nov. 4, so after Sunday, the Jets will have only two more games — next week hosting the Panthers and the week after that at Cincinnati — before their opportunity closes to receive any capital in exchange for players who are not part of their future plans.

And if they happen to be 0-6 by the time most of us watching from New York even think about what we are going to have for lunch on Sunday, well, there could be quite a few who fit into that category.

“This is probably like my fifth month dealing with this now,” running back Breece Hall said on Friday of the long-lasting rumors of his imminent departure.

A loss on Sunday certainly would stoke that storyline from a background smolder to a sizzle.

It isn’t that Hall is not a good fit for the Jets (even though his uncharacteristic fumble last week against the Cowboys was a key moment in that loss).

It’s more about his value and his current contract, which expires at the end of this season. He’ll become a free agent at that point and the Jets, if they decide not to re-sign him, would lose him without getting anything in return. Worse yet, they could lose control over where he ends up, even if it is not with the Jets.

That’s a situation the Giants found themselves in a few years ago with their running back on his rookie contract. As was reported at the time and as has been unveiled further in the newly released “Saquon” documentary on Prime Video, Saquon Barkley asked the Giants for permission to seek a trade in the summer of 2023, just before the deadline for him to reach a long-term deal with the team that had used the franchise tag on him was about to expire.

John Mara, the team’s president and CEO, told him no. He told Barkley he was “too valuable to this franchise” for the Giants to entertain such thoughts.

Barkley played the 2023 season under the franchise tag but walked away in free agency in March 2024 . . . right to the Eagles, right to a 2,000-rushing-yard season and right to a Super Bowl championship.

Imagine Hall finishing this season with the Jets and then going to Buffalo or New England and winning it all there? Even for the Jets, that would be a low moment.

That is why they need to consider moving Hall to a team in need of a very good running back in the coming weeks — and preferably to one that doesn’t play in the AFC East.

That gets a little dicey with Braelon Allen, the Jets’ other running back, expected to miss the next few months with a knee injury. But if they are 0-6 with Hall, how much worse can they be without him?

“At this point, it is what it is,” Hall said of the speculation. “I’m here. I want to be here. I love being a New York Jet and everything. But at the end of the day, I don’t control what goes on. I only control what I do on the field and how I handle my business off the field.”

Hall isn’t the only Jets player who could be traded.

Cornerback Michael Carter II seems to be getting squeezed out of his role as the starting nickel in the defense; the Jets drafted Malachi Moore and traded for Jarvis Brownlee Jr., both of whom play that position.

Linebacker Quincy Williams is due to become a free agent after this season and probably is not part of the team’s long-term vision, considering they gave Jamien Sherwood a three-year, $45 million deal this past offseason (as disappointing as he and that contract have become).

Defensive tackle Quinnen Williams certainly would be an attractive commodity for other teams. He’s long been considered the cornerstone of whatever version of themselves the Jets have been building, but at this point, he and the team might be wondering if he’ll still be playing at a high level once the Jets are truly ready to win.

About the only players who should be off the trading table for the Jets at this point are Sauce Gardner and Garrett Wilson — both of whom signed long-term extensions in the offseason — young offensive tackles Olu Fashanu and Armand Membou, and promising rookie tight end Mason Taylor.

Everyone else? They’re clearly not helping now. If the Jets can get anything for them that might help in the future — draft picks, young players, cap relief, frequent flyer miles — they should absolutely do it.

What do they have to lose?

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

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.