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It looks like the Jets’ new defensive coaching staff is complete.
They hired Brian Duker as defensive coordinator and Karl Dunbar as D-Line coach. along with linebackers coach Ben Bolling, safeties coach Ryan Slowik, defensive assistant/nickel coach Ronald Booker, and defensive assistant Collin Bauer.
It’s amazing to me that people, some of whom write about the team, feel they are qualified to evaluate new assistant coaches.
Have they seen them coach position groups on the practice field with other teams? Have they seen them run position group meetings with other teams?
Is this staff an upgrade? I have no idea.
And to sit here and say that the new defensive line coach, Dunbar, is an upgrade over Eric Washington, that would be patently unfair.
Don’t get me wrong, Dunbar is a good D-Line coach, but so is Washington.
As far as the personnel he was given to work with last year, Washington was dealt a 16 in blackjack.
Is Ben Bolling a better linebacker coach than Aaron Curry? How would anybody around here know that? To borrow an old Chris Russo quote, “You wouldn’t know Ben Bolling if he fell on you.”
And also, Curry, like Washington, was dealt a really bad hand.
The Jets’ linebacker play this past year wasn’t good, but it wasn’t good the year before with the same two starters under a different coaching staff, so you are going to blame Curry for that?
Is Ryan Slowik a better safety coach than Chris Harris?
How the hell could any of his possible know that?
Is Harris still on the staff?
That is unclear.
He was the interim defensive coordinator for the last three games last year after Woody Johnson fired Steve Wilks, and then he interviewed for the permanent job, but lost out to Brian Duker.
Harris is not listed in the staff directory now, but his bio is still on the team website as the “defensive passing game coordinator/defensive backs coach.”
But he also coached the safeties last year.
Slowik is going to coach the safeties, and Duker is a secondary coach by trade, so you would have to assume he’s going to be spending a lot of time with that group.
I really don’t know Harris status now, but it’s unfair to say Slowik is an upgrade over him coaching safeties.
Harris was another guy dealt a bad hand. The Jets are in dire need of an instinctive ballhawking coverage safety. Remember, they had no picks last year, and this was one of the reasons.
People who say the Jets upgraded their staff this offseason, I will say they certainly did with Frank Reich as offensive coordinator and Bill Musgrave as QB coach.
You don’t need to have seen Reich work on the practice field or in meetings to know he can run an offense on a high level – he did it with the Super Bowl Championship Eagles, and then for five years as head coach/OC of the Colts.
Musgrave, who played QB, has been coaching quarterbacks for over 25 years.
So those are two upgrades, but as for the defensive, nobody knows that right now.
But one thing is for sure, the personnel department better provide better defensive personnel for this new staff than they did for the old one.
Entering this off-season, if the Jets are being realistic in evaluating the defense, and eschew rose-colored glasses, they probably need 6-7 new starters on defense, new starters at positions on all three levels.
You can trash the Jets’ old defensive staff all you want, but they were all dealt bad hands.
That was not a good defensive roster/depth chart last year, and it got worse after the Quinnen Williams and Sauce Gardner trades.
February 12, 2026
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