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Jets defensive tackle Harrison Phillips made news in San Francisco at the Super Bowl.
“I think AG inherited a very cancerous, truculent group — whole, top to bottom,” Phillips told Roundtable Sports on radio row at the Super Bowl.
“AG” is Aaron Glenn’s nickname.
He was later asked by a New York Post reporter about the comments and said he wasn’t criticizing individuals but the “Same Old Jets” mindset.
“That’s a cancerous thought to have,” he told the newspaper.
Look, Phillips is a deep-thinking, highly intelligent Stanford graduate. He was trying to help out Glenn, coming off quite a challenging first year as Jets coach, going 3-14, and getting blown out in the last five games.
But I’m not sure if his theorem pinpoints what the actual issues were.
I just think it comes down to a bad roster and suspect X’s and O’s.
Not sure how many players, many of them who were new to the team this year, or only around there for a couple of years, were really brought down by the “Same Old Jets” mantra.
Most Jets players on this team were oblivious to that.
The Jets’ issues were related to talent and scheme.
“It’s not an NFL roster,” Brian Baldinger said late in the season. “It looks like an expansion roster.”
And as for the schemes, they fired eight assistant coaches, including both the offensive and defensive coordinators, so clearly the powers-that-be viewed the X’s and O’s as an issue.
Bad roster. Bad schemes. Good luck winning on Sundays with that combo.
And you had the double whammy of a defense that couldn’t stop anybody and having a QB position that couldn’t get the team into the end zone much. How are you gonna keep up on the scoreboad with the combination?
Aside from the Pittsburgh and Cincinnati games, the Jets’ offense was pretty anemic, and a strange thing is that they had a good running game this year.
So why didn’t that running game lead to more easy passes on play-action type plays?
One reason Sam Darnold (pictured above) had so much success this year in Seattle was the work of the running game spearheaded by Kenneth Walker, leading to a lot of easy throws. On Super Bowl media day, Seahawks guard Grey Zabel was talking about how much Walker helped their play-action passing game.
If you look at Caleb Williams’ big improvement in Chicago this past year, a lot of it had to do with a great running game setting up easy throws.
I’m baffled at why the Jets, even with inconsistent QB play aside from a couple of games, could not do more in the passing game with Breece Hall going for over 1,000 yards rushing.
In the game at New England, they were running well. Mike Vrabel praised the Jets’ offensive line for how well they played in this game, and yet, at one point in the third quarter, the Jets had 23 yards passing.
Weird stuff.
And speaking of the run game, the Jets’ run defense up the middle was often problematic, with a lot of runs at Phillips/Jowon Briggs after the Quinnen Williams trade.
Phillips and Briggs, both acquired in the summer, two high-character guys with good motors, certainly weren’t impacted by that “cancer.”
Phillips was clearly playing hurt, but he and Briggs need to do a better job of consistently stacking and shedding against the run.
The media put these two in Canton, but they both need to be more stout against the run than we saw in too many games this year.
In the season finale in Buffalo, with the Bills starting four backup offensive linemen, the Jets made tailback Ray Davis look like Emmitt Smith.
Phillips is a good man – consistently the conversation for Walter Payton Man of the Year Award, but I’m not onboard with his philosophy here, and that is fine – that’s what makes a horse race – different opinions.
Also, I think another factor here is that Phillips is on the books for a $7.5 million this year in the contract the Jets inherited from the Minnesota Vikings.
He certainly wants to hang around Florham Park and earn that money.
And as I said, he’s a very smart Stanford graduate.
He knows how to play the game.
This isn’t the first time he’s defended Glenn in the media.
Glenn is making most of the big decisions in Florham Park.
I will leave it at that.
February 6, 2026
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