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Nobody expected Aaron Glenn to wave a magic wand and turn around the Jets in one year.
But in a rebuilding year, which 2025 kind of was, the expectation baseline isn’t necessarily going to the Super Bowl, or even making the playoffs, but steady improvement throughout the season as the team gets more comfortable with the new schemes and culture.
And here lies the biggest issue with Glenn’s first season as Jets coach. It wasn’t the 3-14 record, per se, but more that regression of the team as the season progressed.
In a preview of the 2026 Jets on the Bootleg Football podcast, hosted by two film junkies, Brett Kollmann and E.J. Snyder, the latter pointed out this regression.
“They struggled in the first part of the year to be completely cohesive,” Snyder said. “They were good in certain areas, but were not able to put it all together. You talk about teams jelling. It might take a while with this new addition or this new coach. 6, 7 weeks into the season, we should not see those lapses anymore. You should see solid adjustments; we should see them figuring things out. We have seen that in Week 4, and it’s Week 7 – we have plans for that, we have contingencies.
“It was a slow-motion trainwreck at the end of the season – everything went bad – couldn’t run the passer, couldn’t stop the run. The wheels just came off in the middle of the road – the car just stopped.”
So that was probably the biggest issue with Glenn’s first season as Jets coach – the team went backwards as the season progressed.
Let’s say the Jets went 5-12, but you saw steady progress as the season moved along; fans would not have been thrilled about the record, but perhaps more forgiving.
So entering Year Two, with a revamped roster and coaching staff, you could argue that one of the most important goals for Glenn this year is steady progress – week after week.
Now, granted, it’s assumed he can’t get off to an 0-7 start like last year. He might not survive that.
So it’s not just about winning enough games to impress ownership, perhaps going 9-8, but getting better and better as the season progresses.
Some might argue that one reason for the regression and total collapse was the team trading two of their best players, defensive tackle Quinnen Williams and cornerback Sauce Gardner, on November 7, but keep in mind they were 1-7 with those players last year.
So one of Glenn’s biggest missions this season has to be steady progress and no regression.
In so many ways, this is like the first year of a new program, given that the team will have new offensive and defensive systems and a revamped roster.
Last season ended with five blowout losses. Not the way you want to wrap up your initial season as a team’s coach.
“It was hard to watch at the end of the season – it was brutal,” Snyder said.
In the last game of the year, the Buffalo Bills, playing a lot of backups with the playoffs on the horizon, blew the Jets out, and the week before that, New England did the same, with seven key players out.
No doubt the Jets had some injury issues at the end of the season, but New England and Buffalo were playing a lot of backups, so you can throw the injury excuse out the window.
Aside from being dominated from an X’s and O’s standpoint in those two games, another big issue clearly was a poor Jets roster in 2025, devoid of quality depth.
It looks like Darren Mougey fixed that issue in the off-season, spreading around the Jets’ open cap space, not just signing several new starters, but many quality veteran backups.
So with what should be better offensive and defensive play-calling this year, and better depth to withstand injuries, the Jets should be better this year.
And there will be no excuses for going backwards as a team as the season progresses.
Because if that happens again, and you don’t see improvement as the season rolls along, Glenn could have some job security issues.
July 24, 2026
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