This goes right back to something Aaron Glenn said on the day he was introduced as the team’s latest head coach: “We’re the freaking New York Jets and we’re built for this s–t.” The problem is that through the first 10 games of Glenn’s rookie season, the Jets have proved him right. Especially that last part about what they’re built for.
It’s not just that they continue to be so hard to watch, and not just because they have quarterback play, mostly from Justin Fields, as bad as there is in the league. And it’s not just the way they continue to beat themselves, continue to get called for the same boneheaded penalties that have become part of the team’s permanent DNA no matter who is coaching it.
There has been another problem, and a significant one. That has been with their rookie head coach, who has made things as hard on himself as the Jets have made things (painfully) hard for their fans.
It is why, even with the Ravens waiting for the Jets on Sunday and starting to look like the powerhouse they were supposed to be when they were 1-5 — at the same time the Jets were 0-6 — that Glenn needs a reset, not just on his program, but for himself.
Put it another way:
What he really needs to do over the next seven games, some of them winnable games even off what we’ve seen from the Jets to this point in their season, is reintroduce himself to his fan base all over again.
Glenn’s job shouldn’t be in any kind of peril, not after just ten games, and not after what the Jets gave away at the trade deadline, the beginning of yet another organization reset. He still needs to treat these remaining games, even in another lost season, like the same kind of audition as his players should. The players need to show, even with nothing to play for in the standings, that they are worthy of keeping their jobs. So should he.
This isn’t about the snark and attitude Glenn has shown to the media. Jets fans don’t care about that, even as much as a tough old player like Glenn has so frequently shown how easily his feelings can be bruised by media and social media. If you really are built for this — well, you know — you have to show a much tougher hide than that. If somebody is going to be a delicate flower about what’s being written and said, let it be the owner, something that happens to be a part of his own DNA.
We heard endlessly, from the time Glenn was hired, that he was going to be a culture changer. In the Jets’ early-season games, talking about how he was changing the culture seemed to be some kind of default mechanism for play-by-play men and their analysts. The problem was — and is — that as the season played out, there was hardly any evidence of that on the field. By the time they were 0-7 and coming off a 13-6 loss to the Panthers at home, it really was fair to ask this question:
If you didn’t know what year it was with the Jets, what year would you think it was?
Put me down as somebody who thought the Jets finally got something right when they hired Glenn away from the Lions where, as their defensive coordinator, he seemed to clearly establish his bona fides as a head-coach-in-waiting, if not here than somewhere else. I remembered him as a player, as a trusted Parcells guy in another time, and saw him as the right man for the Jets in this time. People around here, not just Jets fans, weren’t just ready to welcome him home, they were ready to embrace him.
Except more and more as the season has gone on, he has acted as if he has some kind of chip on his shoulder. Or as if he’s playing some kind of tough-guy role. People who know him better than I do say that’s not him. But it is the way he has too often presented himself, as difficult as his circumstances are with these players and this team. This is the one about how adversity doesn’t build character, but reveals. And he sometimes does seem to have gone out of the way to make things extremely hard on himself, for no good reason, even with a team this bad.
Here are some things he said after the Jets lost their last game, to the Patriots:
“I have very high standards for our team in general. That’s the one thing that we talk about quite a bit, and I will never go away from those standards. The players know that and they have bought into that and they know that, too. When I say details and discipline, again I am not just talking about the players. I am talking about us as coaches, too. We have to make sure we’re on the same page and we’re doing the things we have to do to help those guys. So this is not a one-way street where everything is on the players. Coaches are involved in it that too.”
Yeah, they are. Big time. You know how Aaron Glenn really should present himself over these last seven games? Like that. I was talking about Glenn with a diehard Jets fan today, one who goes a long way back and is still with them, and he put it this way:
“I just want this coach to be the player I used to root for.”
Glenn talks a lot about details and discipline. He and the players need to do more than talk about those things from now until the end of another regular season when they don’t come close to the postseason. Too late to do anything about that. Not too late for Glenn the coach to make a second first impression.
