During his short time as Jets coach, the Aaron Glenn era has been the inverse of the Robert Saleh regime.
In terms of wins and losses, we don’t know how Glenn’s tenure with the Jets will ultimately end. But he has run training camp very differently from his predecessor.
One of the many aspects that is different is that Glenn is planning to play the Jets’ starters in the preseason. After he was mum about it earlier this week, Glenn told reporters on Thursday that the starters are going to play against the Green Bay Packers on Saturday night.
“We’re playing, we’re playing,” Glenn stated. “I can’t tell you how much guys are going to play. That’s going to factor by how the game goes, but we’re playing.”
Since the NFL went to three preseason games and many starters sit out in favor of the players on the bubble, Glenn is making the right call. The Jets have a brand new coaching staff and a new quarterback in Justin Fields, who all need to get on the same page by the Sept. 7 season opener against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
It’s not to say Fields and the Jets haven’t been on the same page during training camp. However, Fields’ practices have been uneven, and he has struggled with his accuracy and holding onto the ball too long.
“I think we need to at least see the field each and every game,” Fields said. “I think that will be good for our team, it will be good for [offensive coordinator] Tanner [Engstrand] in the in-game stuff, it will be good for me, the guys on offense.”
I concur with Fields. But it isn’t just the new quarterback that could use preseason snaps against another team, but the entire offense as a whole.
“Some of it’s me, some of it’s dropping the ball, some of it’s just plain and simple things,” Fields said about the training camp struggles. “Stuff that, you know, it’s practice.
“I’ve been a part of games where we have a red zone Friday, we run the play three times, we don’t hit it one time, and then Sunday comes and we hit it the first time we run it. So, like I said, our guys are talented enough to get the job done, and of course, when we don’t have the days that we want to have, it’s just about how we respond.”
Fields started just six games for the Steelers last season after Russell Wilson suffered a preseason calf injury. He went 4-2 in those games, but was replaced by Wilson once the veteran was healthy.
So, needless to say, Fields hasn’t played a lot of football over the last 12 months. The last time Fields started more than six games was during the 2023 season when he was with the Chicago Bears. He passed for 2,562 yards, 16 touchdowns and nine interceptions on the way to a 7-10 record that season.
In addition to trying to learn a new offensive system, Fields is also still developing chemistry with his new teammates.
Then there’s Engstrand, who will be calling plays for the first time since he was the offensive coordinator of the then-XFL’s DC Defenders. After being the Detroit Lions’ passing game coordinator for the previous three seasons, it is crucial that Engstrand gets into a flow of gameday situations and makes adjustments on the fly, even if it is just the exhibition season.
“This is game week, and we have to go through our procedure on how we are going to go about going through game week,” Glenn said. “It’s important for the players to understand exactly how to operate in that situation, going through our warm-ups, all those things. So, this will be an important week for us.”
Glenn is committed to instilling a physical identity in the Jets. During the three weeks of training camp, Glenn has emphasized physicality, which has included live tackling during practices and drills, something that is atypical in today’s NFL landscape.
The previous Jets regime didn’t tackle during drills or play most of their starters during the preseason. That proved costly during last year’s season opener, especially going up against a San Francisco 49ers team that is physical. The Jets lost to the 49ers, 32-19, in a game that wasn’t as close as the final score indicated.
Glenn is going to do things his way and wants to change the Jets’ mentality, aiming to transform them into a formidable football team. Last year’s Jets were undisciplined and lacked resilience on their way to a 5-12 season.
Penalties continue to be an issue during training camp. During their Green and White scrimmage last weekend, the Jets were called for 12 penalties, with most of them on the offensive side of the ball.
Glenn has had officials at practice throughout the summer, after the Jets’ experience under the Saleh regime, which led the NFL in penalties over the last two seasons.
“It’s no secret that we were the most-penalized team in the league last year, so that’s one of the things that I want to nip in the bud early,” Glenn said earlier in training camp. “Making sure that the discipline part of what we do, that we fix that now.
“You cannot win games in this league with an undisciplined team.”
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