After just one season, the Jets are moving on from offensive coordinator Tanner Engstrand, Ian Rapoport and Tom Pelissero of NFL Network report. The two sides are parting ways.
This doesn’t come as a surprise after a weekend report indicated Engstrand’s future was in limbo. It nonetheless continues a major staff shakeup for Glenn, who has cleared out several coaches – including both coordinators – dating back to the mid-December firing of DC Steve Wilks.
While Glenn and Engstrand discussed a non-play-calling position for 2026, they ultimately decided to go in other directions, per Rich Cimini of ESPN. Glenn is now on the hunt for a veteran replacement for Engstrand, someone to serve as a “head coach of the offense,” a source told Connor Hughes of SNY . Former Colts and Panthers head coach Frank Reich looks like the frontrunner to take over, but the Jets will need to interview at least one external minority candidate before that could take place.
Glenn, previously the Lions’ defensive coordinator, worked with Engstrand in Detroit from 2021-24. Engstrand shifted from offensive quality control coach to tight ends coach/passing game coordinator to passing game coordinator during that four-year span. Glenn saw enough positives from Engstrand to bring the former Ben Johnson understudy to New York as a first-time NFL offensive coordinator last January. However, Engstrand’s hiring only came after Nick Caley turned down the Jets. Then the Rams’ tight ends coach, Caley became the Texans’ offensive coordinator in early February.
Several weeks after hiring Engstrand, the Jets added former Bears and Steelers quarterback Justin Fields on a two-year, $40MM deal in free agency. The Jets guaranteed Fields $30MM, but they’re already poised to move on this offseason after an unproductive 2025 in which Glenn benched him for the rest of the year in mid-November.
With Fields, journeyman backup Tyrod Taylor and undrafted rookie Brady Cook playing in at least five games apiece, the Jets averaged a paltry 140.3 passing yards per contest. They easily placed last in the league in that category, falling short of the 31st-ranked Browns by 25 yards per game.
To make matters worse for Engstrand, knee issues limited star wide receiver Garrett Wilson to seven games. With Wilson down for 10 games, running back Breece Hall was the Jets’ only established offensive weapon. Hall put up the first 1,000-yard season of his four-year career, and tight end Mason Taylor had a 44-catch rookie campaign, but bright spots were otherwise few and far between.
After ranking 29th in both total offense and scoring under Engstrand, the Jets will employ a 12th different offensive play-caller in a 16-year span in 2026 (h/t: Cimini). Although Glenn will return after posting a 3-14 record as a rookie head coach in 2025, his staff will take on a much different look next season.
Lions should get him back on the staff in some capacity
So the HC who doesnt call plays, just hires his guys and does time management, just had his OC and DC fired after 1 year and what feels like half of the rest of his staff all while managing time poorly and we’re keeping him… because?
Do you breathe through your mouth? You don’t sack the head coach after one season unless there’s some real issues like a DUI or domestic violence!
On a serious note, this should pave the way for Frank Reich to be the Jets’ new offensive coordinator.
Chucky you are the biggest mouth-breather here. You can definitely, and should definitely, sack AG after a year. We’ve all seen enough.
You got owned. Take it like a man
Nah. Miss me with your drama gossip girl take tho
But all the coordinators and staffers do get the pick slip. It’s one thing to say this is a rebuild so let’s hold this together and we’ll persevere and build a winning culture eventually. I’m even ok with firing perhaps a coordinator or 2. But when u essentially gut the coaching staff to the point where Glenn is the only one remaining from the original staff then why are they holding on to him still. Especially with the coaches that are/were available.
And especially considering the selling point of hiring Glenn was that supposedly he’d put together a great supporting staff to build that culture. He obviously failed to do that
Patriots fired Mayo after one season and look what happened this year
Worked out very well for the Patriots when they did exactly what you said not to do.
I’m sure you’re being a bit hyperbolic here, but you do know a head coach does A LOT more than just manage time if they’re not a playcaller, right? Even at the high school level, this is true.
Yeah. But can you name me one thing Aaron Glenn specifically does though?
There’s no way for any of us to know and it would be pointless to speculate.
So you know they do a lot more things but you can never know what things those are? Got it
No, and you can’t either. Every staff works differently. I can name things head coaches do, but unless you’re in the building you don’t know which a head coach does and which they delegate out. I take it you’ve never coached at any level before?
Yeah, I cant name what Aaron Glenn does either, thats my point lmao You coaching peewee football isnt a flex btw
Always funny when people comment like that. You have no idea who I am, so you have no idea what I have or haven’t done lol. Of course I haven’t coached in the NFL but I’ve coacher higher than peewee. But even a peewee coach would know there’s more than just clock management in head coaching.
I’m not sure why you’re so bothered by such an inane comment though. We obviously want the same thing for the Jets, so it’s not like we’re on opposing sides here, but it’s important to look at things objectively and one of those ways is to know that Glenn’s job assuredly extends beyond just managing the clock. Not sure why you’re fired up about me pointing that out or being so abrasive.
Who said I was bothered? I asked what does Aaron Glenn do and you responded by implying you coached like it matters lol Obviously he probably does more than clock management and hires, which is why to your first comment asking if i knew that, i literally responded “Yeah”
What a mess. Hope he lands somewhere more functional. If the Jets hire Reich, they’re basically telegraphing that they want a nice steady interim coach on hand to ride out a tanking season when they fire Glenn. It should actually be a decently appealing job next offseason, but right now this is messy, even for one of the leading organizations in messiness.
Battle of the Mouth Breathers lol
I am a Mouth Breather too ..it is why I wakeup in the middle of the night with Cotton Mouth…ugh
Anyway…the Jets played competitive football for the most part in the first 7 or 8 games…with exception to Buffalo
Cripes had they beaten the Buccaneers…which they could have….might have turned their season around…honestly…I wish them luck and we will see if the changes work
It really wasnt all that competitive. A lot of those games that look close on paper were just the Jets being garbage time warriors but they were not actually in any of those games outside of Pittsburgh. The Bucs game they got miracle blocked kick return for a TD and then immediately gave up the necessary yards for them to kick a FG and win.
Glenn sucks at his job so everyone else gets fired. What a team.
Seems messed up to fire them so late. I guess no staffs are ever really full and they can catch on but maybe have to take less.
I hope AG can get this right. He was one of my faves when Bill Parcells brought him to Dallas. Tough and feisty as they come. Hopefully Riech or whomever he gets can fix the offense. It’s just hard for any coach to win without a consistent qb.
I know what you mean, and I was rooting for him too. I thought that he was unfairly blamed early on for Detroit’s defensive issues as a coordinator, too.
Now, though? I’ve done a complete 180 on his coaching acumen. Everybody hates Rodgers, I get it, but the way that that meeting occurred was the first sign. The defensive stars getting frustrated so soon into the year and then being traded was the second (Williams attempted to walk those comments back publically by saying that he believes in Glenn, but it’s hard to reconcile that with what he said at the time).
The product on the field was third, and easily the most damning. It is underestimated how much coaches and schemes can control how they can force turnovers, but that said, a former defensive back who coaches defense should be able to log at least one interception in a season. Consider also that this hasn’t happened in the seasons where the league had fourteen games, or sixteen games, either-they play seventeen now, and it still wasn’t enough. The players looked uncoordinated on the field, even before Williams and Gardner were traded.
To that end, those who say that Glenn deserves some reprieve for having lost those guys, the Jets CHOSE to trade them. It’s not like Glenn was some unwitting or unwilling captive in that. I understand why, and the picks are good for the future, but you take the consequences with the reward when you make a decision to go in that direction. Building a culture is also about having player-leaders, too, so you have to realize that on a team with only a few of them, you do lose a lot when you get rid of them and you should be prepared to face those consequences.
Lastly, the near complete turnover of the coaching staff is a total disaster. Glenn is the head coach, but he doesn’t run the position group meetings or interact daily on a technical level with all of the players to imprint specifics about the gameplan. Most of the coaches who did do that are now gone. It’s really quite difficult to “implement a culture” when all of your messengers as to that (and your playing scheme) are being replaced after only a year (or less). One of two things are true, here: either Glenn made possibly the all time worst staffing choices ever, or his philosophy from the top is just terrible. Firing all of these guys and losing Engstrand, but keeping his own job, makes Glenn just look selfish, as if he is blaming everyone else (that HE picked) for last season’s failures. I don’t know how others around the league see it, but I doubt that it only appears that way to us.
Glenn’s tough guy mentality and no nonsense comments really look, well, pathetic when it looks on the other hand like he’s scrambling to save his job by turning over most of his staff, as if he isn’t taking responsibility for bringing them on to begin with. It also makes me think that that detail from Rodgers in his account of their meeting is true, when Glenn looked surprised when Rodgers said that he wanted to return and had to run out of the room to get Mougey to handle the meeting. It just seems like he is way out of his depth, and in retrospect, that his time in Detroit really did earn some of the criticism levied towards him…one of which was the inability of his DBs to get turnovers. In Detroit, he had injuries as a plentiful and very valid excuse, along with some draft busts, but eventually became respectable in time. Maybe he should have coached that unit longer to get some of that needed experience, because right now, Glenn looks wayyyy over his head, and like he refuses to admit it.
Whatever culpability Mougey has in this is unknown, but here’s the worst possibility: if Johnson has truly been hands off this year, as he supposedly decided to be, then what does this show him about that philosophy? Whomever is hired next could very well face an owner who says, “ Yeah, I tried that hands-off thing like everyone said to, and it didn’t make a difference.” Speculative on my part, especially with an owner as impatient as Johnson, but it’s the greater danger long term in this scenario. As we know, you can’t fire the owner.
“To that end, those who say that Glenn deserves some reprieve for having lost those guys, the Jets CHOSE to trade them.”
The Jets are doing the right thing as a franchise. Tanking as hard as possible to actually have a chance at drafting a real dude in 2027.
Is it right? That normally doesn’t work.
The Jets are a mess. Plain and simple.
Glenn chose the coaching staff, chose the QB while giving Rodgers his walking papers and then when the season is predictably disastrous, everyone else gets the boot besides the guy who helped make every major choice that put them all in a position to fail. Dont worry though, he’ll make all the correct choices the 2nd time around, lol.
The hate that the ESPN/talk radio crowd has toward the Jets is just as vicious as the hate the Trump/MAGA crowd has toward the people of Minneapolis.
Chucky. You have things to contribute. I’ve seen them. Please contribute those things.