Long Islanders are frustrated with the Jets, and they're placing the blame on Aaron Glenn
From left: Bellmore's Wayne Raso, his nephews Joseph Trani and Nicholas Trani, his son Jared Raso and his father Chuck Raso at MetLife Stadium to see the Jets' 28-25 loss to the previously-winless Dolphins. Credit: Wayne Raso
Wayne Raso has had enough.
Raso, 59, from Bellmore, has been a lifelong die-hard Jets fan and every Sunday has revolved around the team.
Sunday was a beautiful fall day in East Rutherford, and he attended the Jets’ 28-25 loss to the previously-winless Dolphins with his dad — it was the first game they attended together since the team’s final game at Shea Stadium in 1983 — his son and nephews.
It was the last straw for his Jets fandom.
He said the feeling inside MetLife Stadium was “demoralizing,” and he posted on Facebook on Monday morning that he no longer is a Jets fan and now is a full-time Giants fan. Despite ensuing feedback from his family and friends, he said there is nothing the Jets can do to get him back on board. He noted “it will never change,” and this move had been building since Adam Gase was at the helm.
“This is it,” he told Newsday. “I am not it. I am not the only one. I'm telling you, a lot of people are done. They have just had it. They can't do it anymore. It's not healthy.”
While other Jets fans Newsday spoke to Monday aren’t dropping the team, an overwhelming sense of frustration is bubbling. The Jets’ loss to Miami brought them to 2-5 and solidified what seems to be another lost season. Aaron Glenn now is 5-19 as the team’s head coach and 0-8 against AFC East opponents.
In the last two minutes of the first half under Glenn, the Jets have been outscored 107-6. That stat became more unbelievable Sunday, when Malik Willis’ 2-yard touchdown run with six seconds left in the second quarter capped a 15-play, 91-yard drive that lasted 8:38.
It seems to be a matter of when — not if — the Jets will make a change at head coach.
“I just think it's reaffirming what we all felt last year about Aaron Glenn, where he's simply not smart enough to make some decisions, especially around timeouts,” said season-ticket holder and Cold Spring Harbor native Josh Brown.
“The whole Packers finish [a 20-17 overtime loss for the Jets on Sept. 20] was atrocious. That threw away a win right there. This game, I think the worst part is when we actually start hearing explanations from him that don't make any sense.”
Brown, 31, cited how Glenn didn’t call his three first-half timeouts at the end of Sunday’s first half. He said the coach’s postgame explanation that “we just felt like we were going to stop them and be able to get the ball back” didn’t make sense.
Tom Wilson, 46, of Massapequa Park, is a season-ticket holder who was at Sunday’s game. He said the vibe was “pretty bleak,” and his whole section was chanting Garrett Wilson’s name to try and get Geno Smith to throw the ball in his direction; he had only three targets.
Tom Wilson added that the Jets’ 2-5 record is “kind of what I had expected,” and he did not like their addition of Smith from the get-go. He initially didn’t mind the hire of Glenn, but now it seems “he's getting in his own head.”
“He's going to lose the locker room,” he said.
Greg Princivil, 43, of Middle Island, grew up watching Glenn play for the Jets and said “he was my hero as a kid.”
“When he took the job,” he said, “I thought to myself, this is not going to be good because that's going to ruin his legacy as a Jet.”
Princivil still thinks Glenn has time to turn it around, but he said the next hire the team makes needs to be an experienced coach — mentioning the Giants’ hiring of John Harbaugh — as bringing in first-time head coaches has “proven not to be a successful tactic for us as an organization.”
While the fans recognized the Jets have a talented offensive core of young players and plenty of draft capital, they are beginning to visualize a future with another coach.
Glenn, who played eight seasons for the Jets and was a scout for the franchise, clearly wants to be the one to make it work in Florham Park. But fans are struggling to see the path for that.
“There's so much bright that it really hurts that we have all this talent and then just ineptitude running it,” Brown said. “That's what hurts the most.
“I'm going to reach out again and see — I'll quit my own job and help. I don’t care.”
Ben Dickson is Newsday Sports' general assignment reporter. He joined Newsday’s high school sports staff in 2023 after graduating from Maryland, where he covered several of the Terrapins' teams.
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