The New York Jets have fired head coach Robert Saleh. It’s not yet Week 6.
Suffice to say, the 2024 NFL season has not gone as Jets owner Woody Johnson had hoped. The Buffalo Bills’ rolling rebuild, Miami Dolphins’ injuries and New England Patriots’ de-evolution into a Superfund site created a tremendous opportunity to reign above the AFC East. Instead, New York is 2-3, with those two victories coming against the aforementioned Patriots and a nearly-as-bad Tennessee Titans team.
Something had to be done. Since you can’t fire the players — especially when one of those players is a former four-time MVP for whom you sacrificed multiple high value draft picks — Saleh was the obvious choice.
This was only partially related to his work on the sideline. Saleh wasn’t quite a lame duck coach, but with his contract expiring after 2025, he was close. He hadn’t done enough to earn an expensive extension. But he wasn’t quite bad enough to be fired in October, either.
The Jets’ defense — Saleh’s purview as the former coordinator of the San Francisco 49ers — remains elite. New York gave up the most yards in the NFL in his 2021 debut. In the three years since it’s ranked fourth, third and second. His defensive expected points added (EPA) per play allowed in 2024 is sixth-best in the league despite the fact his highest profile offseason addition, Haason Reddick, refuses to practice. Since 2022, the game’s most efficient defenses have been the one Saleh left behind and the one from which he just got fired:
Tuesday’s firing was not a treatise on the Jets’ defense. It was a scream into the void about an offense that continues to stink. This was acceptable in Weeks 1 through 3, where Aaron Rodgers was working off the rust of last season’s torn Achilles and slowly coming to life in a 2-1 start. This did not last.
Rodgers fell apart when the rain hit in Weeks 4 and 5. He threw more interceptions (three) than touchdown passes (two) in a pair of losses — one reasonable (the streaking Minnesota Vikings) and one less so (against Bo Nix and the Denver Broncos). He has yet to throw for 300 yards in a single game as a Jet and has broken the 250 yard mark once in five games he’s finished. His 6.0 percent deep ball rate ranks 28th among 32 NFL starting quarterbacks. His 6.0 yards per attempt are lower than Zach Wilson’s 6.2 in relief of the former MVP in 2023.
New York was actually pretty accommodating of all this! Rodgers got swamped and tore his Achilles in Week 1 last season, so the Jets revamped their offensive line. Rodgers’ 27.6 percent pressure rate is sixth-lowest in the league. His 2.3 seconds of pocket time per dropback is on the low side, but it’s the same it was in 2021 … when he was NFL MVP as a Green Bay Packer.
He’s been forced into a gameplan that emphasizes short throws in order to mitigate pressure and the waning arm strength of a 40-year-old. His average target distance is down from 8.0 yards in his final season as a Packer to 6.4 this fall. That’s a bitter pill to swallow for a quarterback who has been superhuman downfield in a long, celebrated career.
But it’s a sensible one.
.@Cambeezy_!!!
📺: @NFLNetwork pic.twitter.com/EcrsFRBong
— Minnesota Vikings (@Vikings) October 6, 2024
The fact of the matter is Rodgers, who’d played his least efficient football as a full-time starter in 2022, hasn’t gotten better as he breached 40 years old. The processing is still there. The scrambles that once kept plays alive are a step slower. The darts that once fit through tiny windows for big gains are now sailing or sagging. There are moments when classic Rodgers shines through. There are at least an equal amount in which he does not.
can't remember how many times Aaron Rodgers has walked this tightrope in the past to crush opponents (mostly the Bears). just isn't quite right yet pic.twitter.com/wexFihKiLq
— Christian D'Andrea (@TrainIsland) October 6, 2024
The Jets understood this risk when they traded two second round selections and a first round pick swap to the Packers for a quarterback who’d burned his bridges in Wisconsin. They knew the cost was high and there’d be a chance, regardless of Rodgers’ off-field whatever, he’d no longer be the perennial MVP candidate he once was. New York took that risk anyway, because that’s what drafting quarterbacks like Zach Wilson, Sam Darnold, Christian Hackenberg and Mark Sanchez will do to you.
That bet keeps losing, and someone had to pay. It wasn’t going to be Rodgers, the player on whom the Jets staked their short term ambitions. With Saleh’s contract nearing its end, he was the sacrifice Johnson deemed necessary.
Now Jeff Ulbrich takes over as interim head coach. He’d better have some deep balls cooked into his game plan.
