Even compared to their Robert Saleh seasons, the Jets took a significant step back in 2025. The team tumbled to 3-14 and will hold the No. 2 overall pick. This comes after a season in which they were noncompetitive in many games.
The Jets will certainly consider drafting a quarterback second overall, though this could depend on which passers declare for the draft, and Aaron Glenn will be a key part of the decision. The Jets are not expected to fire Glenn, despite some rumors he was in danger of being a one-and-done HC, but his Year 1 showing obviously underwhelmed.
New York’s offense ranked 29th in scoring and yardage. Brady Cook, in particular, looked overmatched when making starts at the end of the season. The Jets benched Justin Fields midway through the year, a move that will likely precede a 2026 release. As for who will be calling the shots in 2026, ESPN.com’s Rich Cimini notes OC Tanner Engstrand does not appear in danger of losing his job.
Engstrand did not have too much to work with this season. After the Jets lost Alijah Vera-Tucker for the year, Garrett Wilson went down seven games in. He somehow finished the season as the Jets’ leading receiver, with just 395 yards. This season marked the first time no Jet surpassed 500 receiving yards since the disastrous 1976 Lou Holtz-led campaign. The Jets did acquire Adonai Mitchell from the Colts in the Sauce Gardner trade, but adding to this room will probably be a priority after the team eschewed notable pushes for auxiliary weapons in free agency last year.
Glenn brought Engstrand with him from Detroit, where he served as the Lions’ pass-game coordinator. Engstrand, 43, held that role for two seasons under Ben Johnson. Engstrand was not closely linked to any other OC jobs during last year’s cycle, and he will assuredly enter 2026 on a hot seat based on what the Jets showed in his first season. The team also will need to re-sign Breece Hall, a long-stated goal, if it wants its leading 2025 skill player back.
On defense, Glenn fired Steve Wilks late in the season. Chris Harris replaced him, but the results were ugly to close out the campaign. The Jets gave up 35 first-half points to the Patriots in Week 17 and allowed a Bills team resting some starters, including Josh Allen, to score 35 in a one-sided Week 18 matchup. Bringing Harris back would not be a great look, but Cimini adds that will be considered. Outside options will also be on the table, however, as the Jets look to recover after a dismal 3-14 slate.
One of the outside options could be Don Martindale, Cimini offers. Martindale had a memorably explosive exit from New York two years ago, after a confrontation with Brian Daboll that led to his Giants ouster, and served as Sharrone Moore’s DC at Michigan over the past two years. Martindale, 62, and Glenn have not worked together previously.
Jets logic: ‘Although we went 3-14, we don’t need to make any coaching changes!’ Whomever they draft, should pull an Eli.
I’m not sure you can even properly evaluate Engstrand based on this year. It was his first year as an OC and he was given Justin Fields, Tyrod Taylor, and Brady Cook at QB with his #1 WR only playing seven games. What purpose does firing him serve? God Himself would have failed at OC for the 2025 Jets. The roster was awful. Can’t get blood from a stone, can’t get points out of the Jets 2025 offensive roster.
No problem w/ that, but the GM should have been fired. Fields had 4 years of NFL tape and they picked him up? Everyone saw that as a bad FA signing.
You have it all wrong, Fields is a combination of Lamar Jackson and Tom Brady. He just needs the right coaching!
No argument there, Arty. What a misguided plan that was to roll with Fields.
What exactly have they given Engstrand all that much of a chance to show? By the last stretch of the year, he was working with an undrafted rookie quarterback and missing the one good receiver the team had entering the year. Firing people just for the sake of doing something is theater, not leadership.
firing people after an historically bad season is what should happen btw. harbaugh is right there and theyre running it back with the same crew that thought Fields could work
They gambled on Fields with what was functionally a one year commitment. It didn’t work out. They were really bad. They were going to be very bad anyway. They fired Wilks already. They could have fired the whole staff on Monday. They could fire them today. Either way they wouldn’t be the ones to land Harbaugh.
Fields was a “gamble” that had a 0% chance of working out. Colts dragged Rivers off the couch mid season and it was a better idea than Fields. Idc that theyre using Wilks as their scapegoat, the whole staff is bad and a waste of our time.
Theres much better candidates out there than Glenn and its not just Harbaugh. A 2 time coach of the year was just fired by the Browns. We’ve been over this. 0 Ints, first time DC to HC, less than 5 wins in their first year, he’d need to be the outlier of all outliers to simply pull off a winning record and theres absolutely nothing that suggests hes the guy to do so. We’re going to be a year late and fire them mid next year when they start 1-5 so why are you on team “i hope they waste more of my time again”?
Then they’ve fired a coach who was there for the teardown years and bring in a coach with a bunch of new talent there. I don’t think Stefanski would sign with the Jets after the Browns either.
Just list all the coaching candidates and pick one, theyre all better than Glenn. But it seems youre stuck on delusional optimism and we’ll be here next year looking for a HC in a weaker class wondering why we waited
I’d rather see Glenn et al get another year than retread Nagy or McCarthy.
And that is a terrible opinion. Im not a Nagy guy but Glenn is simply a waste of time. There is nothing tangible that you can take from the 2025 season, which was historically inept, to suggest hes the right guy for the job.
Are you just infatuated with the underdog storyline thats giving you blind faith that hes a good HC?
I don’t have blind faith that he’s a good head coach. They should absolutely fire him after next year if it looks like more of the same. But I don’t see great purpose in firing a rookie head coach after one year with a torn down roster and bad quarterback situation.
The point is hes a bad coach. Whats the point in keeping a good one? They only “tore down” the roster (traded two players, mind you) after going 0-7. Its not like when Glenn had Sauce and Q they were winning. Additionally, they hand picked Fields, suggesting they were the ones to fix him. Even giving him 30MM guaranteed and running Rodgers out the door. They are solely responsible for the bad QB situation. They couldve brought Rodgers back and had Dart behind him, but theyre inept, so they didnt. Its hard for me to accept the issues they themselves caused as valid excuses
*Whats the point in keeping a bad one?
They guaranteed Fields one year. And you’re ignoring all they lost in the offseason. Reed, Mosley, Adams, AVT (injury, but still).
I still don’t think Dart is a great prospect and I’m glad they have Taylor. I know you’ve fixated on the Rodgers thing, but I don’t get the point in keeping a very old quarterback known for butting heads with coaches and young teammates in the first year of a new regime just to win 6 games instead of 3.
And it wasted an entire year of our time and left the roster in bigger shambles than before he joined. Not offering Reed a contract is their fault. Shooing Rodgers away shooed Adams away (their fault, again), Moseley barely played last year and Sherwood filled his role nicely until these goobers came in and everyone regressed into unplayable talent (their fault, again).
Dart is a better QB prospect than Fields, thats for sure. And keeping Rodgers allows a young QB to learn under him, which he has been very open to doing as has in the past. So even if they only won 6 theres still a plan at QB in place, rather than putting one of the worst QBs to start and no idea what to do if he doesnt work out. And someone should probably butt heads with Glenn, because hes a complete phony lmao You see how when Rodgers goes to a legit HC in Tomlin that theres 0 issues? Hire a legit guy, there wont be an issue. Did you know a former RB is our QB coach? Did you know Glenn doesnt call plays he just missed on an OC and DC hire and all the rest? So what does he do outside of speeches at the press conferences promising everyone the world? Glenn just sits there, has terrible time management, and doesnt even know how far away Nick Folk is to kick the ball to get 3 points with the game on the line.
Im really not sure why youre taking the contrarian stance here. There is 0 evidence that suggests he was a good hire and an overwhelming amount that suggests he was a bad one. When pressed, you just say its only been a year. Statistically, teams who have first failure head coaches after their 1st year havent done that bad.
Since 2016, 8 of 10 of those replacements of fired 1st year HCs have went to the playoffs.
“Im really not sure why youre taking the contrarian stance here.”
Buddy, you’re the one who started replying to me and is only getting wordier. Feel free to just stop talking to me. I’m not getting anything out of this.
Me replying to you does not mean I am taking the contrarian stance (the overall sentiment with most people is that Glenn should be fired, yet you disagree).
What a weird way to shift the conversation away from where youre clearly wrong but its still related to football, to completely unrelated and still wrong. You not “getting anything out of this” is some ignorance is bliss esque position to take. Embarrassing
I think firing head coaches after one season is a more drastic measure than this season calls for given what they had to work with. You’ve decided in your authority that I’m being contrarian. I don’t care. I’ve always thought your fixation on the Jets keeping Rodgers for this year was stupid. You clearly don’t care. I think it’s reasonable to mention deep into an exchange that it’s gone on more than long enough. I don’t care if you claim that’s embarrassing.
I did not decide in my authority that you are contrarian. That is such a weird thing to suggest that I am just making up that you are in the minority, rather than you accepting that youre actually in the minority. Go tap into the pulse of Jets fans and content creators and beat writers and you’ll see theres not many people that share your stance. I didnt just come up with it lol
A historically bad season caused by all of their terrible decisions doesnt call for drastic measures? Ok. Again, what they “had to work with” was all a result of how they handled the offseason. 1st year HCs after sucking get fired all the time, and the team is usually better for it.
Youve always thought my “fixation” on what was a clearly a better plan at QB than making one of the worst QBs ever our starter was stupid? Are you for real? With hindsight 20/20 youre still wrong and you think a better answer is stupid? How stubborn are you lol
And its less that you suggested that its gone on long enough and more that you completely pivoted away something you didnt have a good argument to counter mine with to something you thought you would and thats wjats embarrassing.
What would Rodgers have accomplished with this Jets team? 6 wins and drafting in the 8-10 range? Oh no, what a horrible missed opportunity.
And I don’t know or give a f— if I don’t match the consensus of Jets content creators. There’s a reason I haven’t seen what those people have to say.
Like I said before, it wouldve allowed a rookie QB not to be thrown into the fire immediately and instead sit and learn under a HoF QB for a while, no matter how good or bad the Jets do (and itd be much better than the, again, historically bad season we just watched). You keep forgetting that part.
I didnt say you had to care about what they say or what your opinion is of them. I said you were taking a contrarian stance, you essentially told me “nuh uh you made that up” and then when i tell you to look at the evidence you tell me “um actually idc”. Youre still in the minority, whether you care or not.