Aaron Glenn‘s first year as an NFL head coach has certainly not gone according to plan. He is set to remain in place for 2026, however. 
The Jets will retain Glenn for next season, Ian Rapoport and Tom Pelissero of NFL Network write. His job security has been a talking point for several weeks, but the most recent indications have been that Glenn and general manager Darren Mougey will be safe. CBS Sports’ Jonathan Jones adds owner Woody Johnson wants to evaluate the current HC-GM tandem with a better quarterback situation in place.
The Justin Fields signing proved to be a misstep leading up to the decision to bench him. Fields’ time in New York is likely nearing an end, and the Jets have already done homework on some of the top quarterback prospects for 2026. With five first-round picks across the next two years, acquiring a new passer will certainly be feasible.
The Jets have undergone plenty of changes in recent years, but Dianna Russini of The Athletic writes (subscription required) Johnson is still “committed” to Glenn’s organizational plan at this point. Improvements in 2026 will be sought out, though the current decision-making group will remain intact. Certain changes – including a full-time replacement for Steve Wilks at the defensive coordinator spot – will become the focus of the hiring cycle as it plays out.
After a four-year run guiding the Lions’ defense, Glenn took his first head coaching gig by joining the Jets. Entering Sunday’s action, the team sits at 3-13 amidst struggles on multiple fronts. Drafting a passer along with making moves to replace Quinnen Williams and Sauce Gardner – who were both traded away at the deadline – will be key priorities over the course of the spring. As Gary Myers of 880 ESPN New York notes, Glenn has another four years remaining on his contract at a rate of $10MM per year. Nonetheless, a notable step forward will no doubt be expected during his second season at the helm to avoid further talks of a dismissal.
Johnson has drawn criticism on a number of fronts during his tenure. That includes the selection process for many of his coaching and GM hires, although he has consulted outside voices on many occasions. An interview with two NFL executives and one local insider from Tony Pauline of Essentially Sports reveals that Johnson received a recommendation from Peyton Manning to hire Adam Gase in 2019. During last year’s interview process, ex-Jets general manager Mike Tannenbaum was among those sought out as contributors. Johnson is positioned to rely on the status quo in that capacity for 2026, however.
He should be retained. There isn’t but a handful of coaches in the history of the NFL that could have had a .500 record with that roster. Gotta give the guy at least one more season.
Agreed
The roster where he decided to retain most of the players and everyone he brought in were duds? Every player, aside from like two, regressed on this team. You do not gotta give the guy one more season. Despite coming in saying this team just needs coaching and its all about coaching, his player evaluations and development have led to a historically bad season even for Jets standards.
Bills fans agree.
Good luck Jets fans 🤞
The cycle of losing teams: Rather than starting fresh w/ new GM, HC & QB. Next year, a new HC will be saddled w/ a QB they didn’t choose; to go along w/ a horrible GM. Year 3 will be a new GM & most likely a new OC. It never stops.
Giants & Titans are repeating this cycle this year.
Excuse me but we waited until Year 4 to mid-season fire Daboll. We’re paradigm-shifting the whole cycle.
They were projected to be a bottom five team before the season, then they traded away two of their three best players, lost the third one to injury, and had their quarterback situation bottom out completely before their only healthy option was an undrafted rookie from the practice squad. It would be really weird to bring in a respected former player, go full tank, and then give him the axe after one year like that in a new regime.
With all due respect, once they signed Fields (and arguably Glenn) you knew there were no expectations of success/improvement for the season. Someone has to be in charge of the roster of a bottom 5 team. How did it get to be there in the first place? Glenn’s biggest downfall this season was the D. At least field a competitive D being a former DC. For comparison, did you see how hard a banged up SF D played last night? They were charged and ready to play. I don’t see any of that from Glenn’s team. Doesn’t bode well for the future.
“How did it get to be there in the first place?” isn’t really a first year head coach question. They have to do better, for sure, and his seat will be on the warm side for a coach entering his second year, but firing a head coach after one season is a drastic thing to do, especially when it’s a bad roster. And it’s not like this was a Carroll hire where the point was to get competitive as fast as possible.
Not saying to fire Glenn. They hired him, so you stick with him for at least 3 years to show consistency. But a few seasons ago, Jets had a talented roster, where did it all go? Glenn has to have some input on the roster. Just 3 seasons ago you had a very good D that kept them in games, playmakers on offense, and an inept QB that was the glaring need. They were so close. If draft and develop a QB is where they’re going, I doubt Glenn or the OC they have is the right fit.
Welcome to NFL attrition. Look at the best version of that defense (2023). Quinnen is gone. Sauce is gone. Reed is gone. Mosely is gone. Johnson hasn’t come back the same from an achilles tear. JFM has been gone for a couple years now (and you could feel his absence last year). Even last year they were missing some of the interior line depth they had. Whitehead is gone (and aged out anyway). Quincy has been banged up. Huff was the best pass rusher on the best version of that defense and he’s been gone for two years. He was sort of replaced by Reddick, who’s gone.
On offense, Garrett Wilson has been hurt and they entered the year with basically no other receiving talent. Braelon Allen got hurt for most of the year after looking like a nice sidekick to Hall. But the line is actually looking very promising. Membou looks like a potential franchise pillar if he stays healthy. Mason Taylor is looking solid, which took a minute, but that’s reasonable considering he’s a tight end and young for a rookie. AD Mitchell has shown some nice flashes since coming over (I’d be happy if they brought in someone to push him to number 3). I think it’s too soon to say their OC is the wrong fit given what he’s had to work with.
Not every team can have a Kyle Shanahan, Sean Peyton, Jim Harbaugh, or even Josh MacDaniel as QB whisperers if your plan is to draft and develop a QB (jury still out on O’Connell and Ben Johnson) but one thing for sure is having a DC as your HC doesn’t have a good track record of it.
I think the Texans and Seahawks would have something to say about that right now. Some of this is cyclical in terms of NFL strategy and coaching talent.
I’ll give you Stroud, he’s had a lot of reasons to fail, but hasn’t. More of the outlier though. For Seattle, Kubiak has a solid NFL resume. The decision to take Darnold is one of the better stories in the NFL. Do we give Kubiak credit for making Darnold better than O’Connell did?
Hard to answer that last question. I think Darnold would probably give Shanahan, O’Connell, and Kubiak all credit.
But I was answering “one thing for sure is having a DC as your HC doesn’t have a good track record of it.” Houston and Seattle are both pretty damn happy to have DC head coaches right now.
They can be super happy all they want. Take a look at the last 20 superbowl winning HCs and a large majority of them are offensive minded with some exceptions, like Bill Belichek. Its an offense driven league that gets new rules that benefit the offense every year and you can just look at the track record of hiring DCs as HCs past 2010 if you dont believe it. If you really want to narrow your scope down, first time HCs who were DCs have an even worse track record.
Glenn would need to be an outlier of all outliers to even bounce back from a 3 win season, not to mention he’d need to be an outlier to see success as a first time HC that was a DC.
To pretend the Jets were completely devoid of talent is very misleading. In 2024 this team was a consistent kicker away from a way better year than their record suggests. Of course, the moment they signed Fields to be QB1 was the moment they punted the season away but every single player regressed on this team. They didnt even get an INT this year. They were getting blown out and embarrassed like this before trading away Sauce and Q and is exactly why they did so. Glenns defense wasnt even that good in Detroit. The only argument for keeping him is that its only been one year and he used to play for us. The Patriots were smart enough to give Mayo the boot after one year, why cant we?
I ran through the talent pretty thoroughly. Outside of Sauce and the Williams brothers, who on this defense would you call a good starter? The Patriots had Maye and had Vrabel waiting. I also think you’re underestimating the job Glenn did with a Detroit team that invested way more on offense and suffered a ton of injuries last year.
Quite literally every single player regressed under Glenn. That included Sauce and Q too, who we all know are extremely talented. Players that were undoubtedly starters, like Quincy and Sherwood, have become unplayable. This is way more than just a talent issue. Again, 0 INTS on the year. Even if it was just a talent issue, they fully ran the offseason and chose to retain these guys and the guys they brought in, aside from maybe Briggs, have been all duds. He was also their DC for more than just last year and again, never had that good of a defense.
Out of the last 25 years, there have been 29 first year HCs who have won less than 4 games in their first year. Only 8 of them have went on to post a winning record before being fired. We’re to assume that for no reason, the guy whos led the team to a historically bad season, is supposed to turn it around and beat every single odd thats compounding against him right now?
Retaining him is a waste of time and draft picks and i guess we’ll see it when he gets fired by the end of next year.
Poor guy. I understand he should’ve realized there was a good chance he’d be forced to coach the Jets multiple seasons when he accepted the job, but it’s still impossible not to feel bad for Glenn and his family.
All the close losses early … Nick Mangold’s untimely death … Kris Boyd shot and nearly killed … the lopsided losses post-Thanksgiving … not to mention the QB churn.
The only recent season that was worse was 2020 when every home game was behind closed doors due to a horrible pandemic.
We all know why he’ll get another year
@spooky
Please elaborate on “we all know why” all knowing one. Because I don’t why?
I think he might be talking about his skin color .
Yeah, I knew what he (spooky) was implying with the dog whistle. Just wondered if he would actually answer my question?
Which is why he probably has no problem with only 15-20% of the head coaches and coordinators looking like roughly 70% of the players. Along with many head coaches and backup QB’s of a certain type getting numerous and more opportunities due to what they have in common with 90% of the owners.
Of course, I’m wrong at what I’m implying and will be accused of playing the “race card” because we all know those decisions are made only because of qualifications, the “free market” and nothing to do with race. smh