Aaron Glenn was one of the hottest coaching candidates during this year’s hiring cycle.
He was a viable candidate for any of the vacant job openings, but the former Lions defensive coordinator felt he had unfinished business with the Jets.
“I wanted this job, I interviewed for a number of them, but I wanted this job,” Glenn said during a press conference, introducing him as the Jets coach and Darren Mougey as the new general manager. When I was going for my second interview, I wanted to make sure this would be the first of second interviews. I didn’t want to leave the building without shaking Woody’s hand and make sure we had a contract. It was all about the Jets and it has been that way from the beginning.
“This is where I started and you can’t write a better story than that. This was my start with a number of situations. As a player, as a scout, and now as a head coach. And you can’t write no story better than that.”
Glenn, 52, was selected by the Jets in the first round of the 1994 NFL Draft out of Texas A&M. He played eight of his 15 seasons in the league with the Jets and was a key member of their turnaround.
After a 1-15 season, the Jets fired Rich Kotite in 1997 and hired Bill Parcells in hopes of turning around a struggling organization. In just two seasons, Parcells led the Jets to the 1998 AFC Championship before losing to the eventual Super Bowl champion Broncos.
That was also motivation for Glenn to return to the team that drafted him.
“In ’98, we played the Denver Broncos and we are winning 10-0 in the first half,” Glenn recalled. “We came back in the second half and they kicked the ball off and it was windy and the ball stops midair and they recovered it. They scored two touchdowns.
“I be damned if I’m not going to come here and get that back. And that’s one of the reasons why.”
Following his retirement in 2008, Glenn spent time with his family and worked in the business world. One day, he was watching a football game on ESPN and Glenn began “cursing the TV.”
That’s when his wife of 28 years Devaney suggested that he become a coach.
“It was like a weight off my shoulders,” Glenn said. “Because that’s my passion and it is okay to want to be a coach. Back then, I felt like I wanted to be a businessman, but I’m a football guy.”
After his wife gave her blessings, Glenn called Parcells and told him he wanted to coach. But Parcells, who remains his mentor, wanted him to start working as a scout at the ground level, but Glenn didn’t want to scout.
“‘Well, that’s what you’re going to do because I think you have a chance to be a head coach, and the best coaches are really the best evaluators,’” Glenn told reporters what Parcells told him. “So, I took his advice, and probably the best advice I’ve had since coming back in this league.
Glenn returned to the Jets organization in 2012 before becoming the Browns’ assistant defensive backs coach in 2014. He worked his way up the coaching ranks, first as the Saints’ defensive backs coach for five seasons in 2015 and then as the Lions’ defensive coordinator for four seasons beginning in 2021.
Detroit went from bottomfeeders to contenders in the NFC with Glenn and Lions coach Dan Campbell. Glenn believes having that scouting background helped him eventually become Jets coach.
“Understanding how to do it from an in-house perspective and then actually going on the road to be a college scout, to be able to evaluate every position that helped me tremendously to be in this position,” Glenn said.
Now, Glenn and Mougey will be tasked with helping the Jets do precisely what the Lions did: turn around a struggling organization into a winner. Gang Green has not made the playoffs since 2010, the longest postseason drought in North American sports.
The Jets also haven’t recorded a winning season since 2015.
“Put your seatbelts on and get ready for the ride,” Glenn said. “There are going to be some challenges. But with challenges, becomes opportunity. Here’s what I do know, we are the freaking New York Jets, we are built for this s–t.”
Along with Glenn, Mougey will be tasked with turning the Jets around. Mougey, 39, began his scouting career with the Broncos in 2012 and worked there for 13 seasons. He climbed the ranks from a scouting intern to assistant director of college scouting, director of player personnel, and eventually assistant general manager, a role he was promoted to in 2022.
Mougey was actually in the Broncos front office when they interviewed Glenn for the coaching vacancy in 2022, which eventually went to Nathaniel Hackett, who only lasted one season before he was fired. Denver asked Glenn what would be his message to the team in his first team meeting, and Mougey said he was blown away.
“He pushed back, he sat up, and he delivered a powerful message, like when he finished, we’re all kind of looking around like, wow,” Mougey said. “As we went on through the search, because he was one of the first guys we interviewed in that search, we kept going back to it like damn, he killed that thing.”
Both Glenn and Mougey will report directly to Jets owner Woody Johnson. The first significant decision of the new regime will be Aaron Rodgers‘ status and whether he will return for a third season with the Jets.
Johnson told reporters that Glenn and Mougey will decide Rodgers’ future. Rodgers, 41, is still deciding whether to return for a 21st season. It is unclear if Glenn and Mougey want Rodgers to be the Jets quarterback.
However, Glenn told reporters that he had already communicated with Rodgers and that there would be discussions about him and the other players on the roster.
But Glenn already knows the type of quarterback he is looking for.
“A winner, a winner,” Glenn said. Mental and physical toughness.”
