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As you are all aware, on Monday, the Jets fired defensive coordinator Steve Wilks.
It was a good week for many Jets fans and fan reporters who have wanted Wilks and Allen Lazard gone. Lazard was waived.
Lazard hardly played this year, especially after the Jets traded for two receivers and anointed them starters quickly, even before they knew the playbook or had chemistry with the QB.
Lazard is now gone, as is the best receiver from camp, Brandon Smith, who hardly saw the field. Not much more Johnson could have done to prove he deserved a shot to play. It is what it is.
NFL football personnel moves are very political; we all know that, but that is a conversation for another day.
But let’s focus on Wilks today.
Good man, great character, but why was he hired to be the defensive coordinator when he was fired in San Francisco two years ago for some strange calls (Kyle Shanahan called a timeout in overtime of the Super Bowl to change one)?
Why was he hired when he had no background with Glenn and didn’t run the same system?
Look, if Glenn wanted to be a CEO coach who didn’t call the plays on one side of the ball, that is fine, but why didn’t he hire somebody to run the defense he had a background with and to run his scheme?
Look, this isn’t Monday morning quarterbacking. I wrote on jetsconfidential.com, when there were rumors Glenn was going to hire Wilks to run the defense, why he shouldn’t do it.
But I wasn’t trying to hurt Wilk’s ability to make a living. The article clearly stated that he should be hired as the assistant head coach and/or secondary coach, but not DC.
However, don’t expect Glenn to be asked why he made this eclectic hire.
While the team is 3-11, so is the beat.
The softest coverage around these parts I’ve seen in some time. I do my best to ask tough questions, but I’m just one person, and the press conferences are very short.
The Jets’ defensive personnel might be the worst in the NFL right now, so Wilks wasn’t dealt the best hand, but he didn’t help himself with his proclivity to call strange blitzes.
Bart Scott said on the Jets’ post-game show after the Jets’ 48-20 loss to Jacksonville – “Worst blitz package I’ve ever seen in football.”
Scott added that they “telegraph their blitzes.”
And remember, during his one year in San Francisco, there was an ill-advised “zero blitz” before the half in a 49ers loss to Minnesota, and this blitz led to a TD, and Shanahan was livid. This story was big news at the time in NFL circles.
“He knows he messed up on that call,” Shanahan said a few days after the loss to Minnesota. “I have no problem with zero blitzes, especially when people need a lot of yards. If you need to get 20 yards to kick a field goal, I have no problem with a zero blitz, but I do [have a problem] when there’s 16 seconds left, and that’s where he lost track.
“There was no necessary need for that, just because of the time. I have no problem with that play call, but at that time, you can’t do that. That’s not an option.”
A zero blitz is the riskiest of all blitzes because every defender who isn’t matched up with an individual in coverage will blitz, so if you don’t get there, it can lead to a big play, and that is what happened in Minneapolis, with Vikings receiver Jordan Addison hauling in a 60-yard TD pass.
Maybe Woody Johnson, Hymie Elyhai, or Ira Axselrad should have stopped Glenn from making that hire.
Maybe Jets consultant Rick Spielman, perhaps the smartest football man on the staff, a two-time NFL GM, could have advised Johnson to put the kibosh on this hire.
Once again, no issue with Wilks being hired as an assistant head coach, as a sounding board for Glenn. Or maybe to coach the secondary, but not to run the defense.
Shanahan is one of the smartest cats in football. Why ignore the decision he made?
So this baffling hire is gone, even before Wilks completed his first season with the Jets.
December 17, 2025
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