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Some people suspect I’m not that high on the Aaron Glenn hire.
I’m not going to say that. I’m going to maintain neutrality and see how he does. I have no skin in the game and don’t own a crystal ball.
NFL teams are not democratic; these decisions are up to the owner, not the fans or media. NFL owners are essentially benevolent dictators.
This is Woody’s vision and we see how it goes.
I have no idea what the interviews were like, what questions were asked, and what they were looking for.
What kind of questions was Woody asking? Would love to have been a fly on the wall.
So it’s hard to judge anything about the process without being privy to any of it.
But here is a glass-half-full perspective on the decision to hire Glenn.
The Jets may have found the second coming of Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin.
And before I continue, I’m not one of those people who think the Steelers need to move on from Tomlin. He’s a hell of a coach and coming up short in recent years is a byproduct of not having a top-shelf QB, not Tomlin.
Now some will claim I’m stereotyping here in my comparison because Tomlin and Glenn are both African-American.
For the most part, no, that isn’t why I’m comparing them. But I’m guilty on one small level, and I will get to that in a minute.
Tomlin and Glenn are both alpha dog leaders who hold players accountable and aren’t afraid of offending people.
The Jets need some blunt-force trauma, and Glenn can provide it. Aaron is the epitome of a no-nonsense coach, a take-no-prisoners kind of cat.
And if the Jets want to maximize Glenn’s talent as an alpha dog leader of men, they need to hire somebody to call the defensive plays and let Glenn lead, lead, lead.
Lead, lead, lead.
Have I emphasized “lead” enough?
Like Tomlin, who doesn’t call plays on either side of the ball.
Also, I don’t mean it to be disrespectful, but you would make the argument that Glenn is a good defensive coordinator, not a great one, so it’s not like hiring Sean Payton and saying he should not call the offensive plays.
But Glenn is a tremendous leader, and that is what the Jets need to tap into the most out of this hire.
And this takes me to my point about the comparison to Tomlin, that has just a little to do with race.
I am not going to name names, but point to something I observed the last few years at 1 Jets Drive.
In a very PC society, I’ve saw certain position coaches, walking on eggshells in practice, coaching some position groups, perhaps looking not to offend.
Juxtapose this to Jets safeties coach, Marquand Manuel, giving unflitered blunt coaching to this safeties. Manuel would tell it like it is with his guys – no filter. Same with WR coach Sean Jefferson to his guys.
I don’t want to get too much into the weeds on this, but truly think this milquetoast approach to coaching can hurt teams on Sunday.
And you also hear total BS from some of these scared-to-say-the-wrong-thing coaches in press conferences, heaping praise on players who didn’t deserve it.
But then when you interview tight-end coach Ron Middleton, and brutally honest answers were flowing out of his mouth about his players, and he coaches the same way on the field.
My point is simple, Tomlin and Glenn don’t have to worry about this PC stuff. They both have walked a mile in a lot of these player’s shoes. They have lived a lot of their experiences in life, and neither pulls punches, no matter what the player’s persuasion is.
They coach like old-school coaches, not worried about offending people with their coaching, no matter what the player looks like.
You will never see Glenn walking around the practice field, meetings or press conferences on eggshells – ever.
“Walking on egg shells” is a foreign concept to him.
January 23, 2025
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