After yet another depressing, if embarrassing, loss on Friday evening at MetLife Stadium, Jets head coach Robert Saleh stood quietly at a postgame podium and was asked the question that always begins to emerge for coaches of losing teams.
“Are you worried about your job security?’’ Saleh was asked after the Dolphins had their way with his Jets, 34-13, in the NFL’s first Black Friday game.
Saleh, who understands this is the drill, without showing an ounce of losing his cool, calmly and flatly replied, “No,’’ he’s not worried about his job.
In the moment, though, it felt like the wrong person was standing at that podium being asked that question.
Yes, the head coach is the public face of the team. But the truth is that general manager Joe Douglas is much more the root of this problem than his head coach. The shame is that Douglas is made available to reporters by the team only a couple times a year, so that allows him to conveniently hide from public accountability for the mess he’s created.
The problems the Jets are facing right now, as they careen out of contention for a first playoff berth in 13 years, have a lot more to do with the moves Douglas has made (and not made) than the coaching job Saleh has been doing, which can be best described as survival since the moment he lost Aaron Rodgers to that ruptured Achilles tendon on the fourth offensive play of the season.
A closer look at the current state of the team is that they’re playing a third-string quarterback behind a fourth-quarter, preseason offensive line that has started 12 different players in 11 games and Friday was on its eighth different starting combination.
Excuses? Perhaps. But those things matter.
If there’s a culprit here, it’s Douglas, who continues in very large part to get a free pass, dating back to when he was hired and given a six-year contract in June 2019.
The Jets are 24-53 under Douglas’ watch since he was hired. Douglas’ predecessor, Mike Maccagnan, was 24-40 in his four years before being fired. Before Maccagnan, John Idzik was 12-20. And before Idzik’s forgettable two years, Mike Tannenbaum was 57-55 from 2006-12 with three playoff berths — the Jets’ last three trips to the postseason.
All general managers push their share of wrong buttons. But consider the moves Douglas made this past offseason that have spectacularly backfired:
- He signed receivers Allen Lazard and Randall Cobb, two of Rodgers’ former teammates in Green Bay. Lazard ($22 million guaranteed) had 20 receptions and seven drops in 10 games before he was a healthy scratch Friday. Cobb ($3 million) has three receptions for 20 yards and was a healthy scratch in four games. So, there’s no true No. 2 receiver to draw coverage away from Garrett Wilson.
- Running back Dalvin Cook, who was signed in preseason for $7 million, has 162 rushing yards and no TDs on 50 carries in 11 games and has been a complete non-factor.
Other than the series of home runs he hit in the 2022 draft — landing cornerback Sauce Gardner, receiver Garrett Wilson, running back Breece Hall and four other significant contributors — Douglas’ drafts have left much to be desired.
The worst of them all was taking quarterback Zach Wilson with the second-overall pick in 2021 compounded by his stubborn insistence on sticking with him for too long as if not wanting to acknowledge his error.
Douglas’ most damning mistake this season has been what he hasn’t done with the backup quarterback position behind Rodgers, resisting bringing in a dependable veteran.
It was one thing to make the mistake of believing Wilson was improved enough to run the team in the event of a Rodgers injury. But when it was clear Wilson still was ill-equipped to be a starting NFL quarterback, Douglas did nothing to address it by the trade deadline.
Meanwhile, the Vikings were acquiring Josh Dobbs from the Cardinals for a sixth-round pick to replace Kirk Cousins, who was lost for the season with an Achilles rupture.
So, what does Jets owner Woody Johnson do now? It’s a tangled web he’s weaved with Rodgers at the center of it all.
Usually, in a drastically disappointing season like this, an assistant coach or two is fired as window-dressing scapegoats. In this case, based on the offensive performance, offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett would be the most likely candidate to take the fall.
But Hackett is one of Rodgers’ closest friends, so presumably if Rodgers is returning to play in 2024, Hackett is going nowhere. Defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich cannot be fired, because the defense has been the team’s backbone and only bright spot.
As for Saleh, Rodgers has constantly expressed his admiration for the head coach, so that should help keep Saleh safe in the world in which the Jets live, where the Rodgers is the de facto GM.
And finally, in this bizarre and twisted scenario, even Douglas would appear circumstantially safe, because how can Woody Johnson fire his general manager and hire another one while telling the new GM the coaching staff stays?
As it always seems to be with the Jets, it’s complicated.
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