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Googling the Jets on Wednesday, one of the headlines that popped up – “WR Omar Cooper Jr. Sees Similarities Between Aaron Glenn & Curt Cignetti.”
Cooper was picked by the Jets at the end of the first round, pick 30, in the 2026 draft.
His coach at Indiana for his last two years in Bloomington was Curt Cignetti.
This past season, Cignetti led the Hoosiers to the college football national championship.
Aaron Glenn is entering his second season as the Jets’ head coach.
In his first season as Jets coach, the team went 3-14. It was a rough season for Gang Green. Some wondered if Glenn would make it to a second season.
Before Cignetti turned around Indiana’s football program, he did the same at James Madison.
So some cynical types might consider the comparison of Glenn to Cignetti a little lofty.
“He reminds me to a certain extent to ‘Cig’ with all the culture and mindset thing,” Cooper said to the Jets’ in-house podcast. “When I had my top 30 visit with the Jets – he was talking and everything he was saying, I was ‘like you kind of sound like ‘Cig’ when he first came in.'”
Some might argue that one whole in the comparison is that the player said ‘when Cig first came in.”
Glenn is not first coming in. He is entering his second season with the Jets.
After Glenn landed the job in January of 2025, he talked about changing the culture.
For whatever reason, he wasn’t able to do that in his first year.
Perhaps he will be able to in Year Two with the assistance of linebacker Demario Davis, who was added in free agency. Davis’ leadership skills are off the charts, and he’s quickly become the player-leader of the 2026 Jets.
“I think Demario has kind of been at the forefront of everything,” said Jets CB Nahshon Wright. “He’s been leading us, and everybody is taking heed of that and following him.”
Jets player leadership wasn’t great last year, especially on defense, so Davis is a Godsend.
And this should help Glenn.
But it’s only fair to wonder why the culture didn’t improve in his first year under a new head coach who stressed the importance of changing the culture.
That first year, even if you don’t win a lot of games, should be about a sea change of the culture that the new coach was brought in to change.
Look how much first-year coach Ben Johnson changed the culture in Chicago last year, and the same with rookie head coach Liam Coen in Jacksonville.
You could make a strong argument that on significant reason the culture didn’t improve in Glenn’s first year was some dubious decisions on the player and coaching rosters.
The bad coaching, on offense and defense (special teams were well coached), and poor depth chart were perhaps just too much to overcome, even culturally.
So with what looks like a solid off-season by GM Darren Mougey, turning over the roster, with four potential starters in the first two rounds, and a lot of veteran starters and back-ups added in free agency, many of them possessing excellent leadership skills, along with the addition of big-time OC, with alpha dog leadership skills in Frank Reich, and Glenn taking over the defense after mysteriously turning it over to somebody else last year who played a different system than his, the Jets should be in better shape to culturally this year.
So maybe in Year Two, Glenn will live up to Cooper’s Cignetti comparison.
Based on what we saw in the coach’s first year, some might discern it’s hard to make that argument right now.
But Glenn can change a lot of narratives this year by coaching a team that wins a lot more than three games and a team that looks like a better-oiled machine than last year.
July 16, 2026
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