Jets fire head coach Robert Saleh

New York has officially moved on from their maligned head coach after a 2-3 start to the season.

In an absolutely stunning turn of events, the New York Jets have officially pulled the rip cord.

The organization has officially fired head coach Robert Saleh, as first reported by ESPN’s Adam Schefter and later confirmed by the team. After starting the season with a disappointing 2-3 record, and off the heels of back-to-back difficult losses, owner Woody Johnson made the remarkable decision to move on from the coach in his fourth season with the franchise.

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Overall, Saleh went 20-36 in his four seasons as the head coach in New York and had a feeble 1-8 record in games where the team had 10-plus days off to prepare. And while it is completely shocking that the organization actually made the decision to move on from Saleh today, the reasoning why should not come as a surprise.

In addition to the overall record and struggles over the last four years, we have seen a steady decline in Saleh’s energy. From his demeanor on the sideline to what he says on the podium before and after games, Saleh has increasingly looked like a dead man walking, exuding little-to-no energy in any capacity.

As the head coach of a professional sports team, you set the tone. Your energy is what is ultimately adopted by your team and thus we’ve seen Saleh’s dour demeanor permeate throughout this team and infest this roster like a plague over the first five weeks of this season.

When Saleh and Aaron Rodgers had that awkward moment on the sideline in the team’s Week 3 blowout win vs the Patriots, I had said at the time that it was a non-story that people were trying to blow out of proportion because it’s the Jets. But now, looking back on it, I think it’s pretty easy to argue that there was a clear disconnect between head coach and quarterback from the jump this season.

In recent weeks, we have also seen quotes from Saleh that a lot of his players have either directly disagreed with or simply had a completely opposing view on. Following their Week 4 loss vs Denver, Saleh pondered if Aaron Rodgers’ cadence was too complicated and that simplifying it could potentially solve the team’s pre-snap penalty issues. Rodgers did not seem to take kindly to that thought.

“That’s one way to do it,” Rodgers said in response after the game. “The other way is to hold them accountable.”

That trend of misalignment between Saleh and his players appeared to continue after their Week 5 loss in London against the Vikings. Despite back-to-back losses where the team had a lot of self-inflicted wounds and continued swirl around the quality of the coaching staff, Saleh preached patience when asked about what he’d say to a frustrated Jets fan base.

“It’s early,” Saleh said. “We’re five games in. We’d like to be better. We have a long way to go.”

Star linebacker Quincy Williams appeared to take a completely different tactic, however, and it was a message that Jets fans have been begging for from this head coach for years now.

“I'm going to be honest, people get tired of hearing the same shit,” Williams said after Sunday’s loss. “People gotta start taking accountability. People get tired of hearing the same thing every week. That's all I got to say.”

While the head coach was under severe scrutiny from everyone, including us here at Just Jets, the moment still came as a shock as this marks the first time in his 25-year tenure as the owner that Woody Johnson has fired a coach mid-season. I would have to imagine that the monumental expectations of this season weighed in heavily to the decision.

Defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich will assume the duties as head coach for the remainder of the season as the Jets look to turn things around on Monday against the Buffalo Bills.

There’s no telling what impact, if any, this will have on the team – interim coaches almost never find success in the course of NFL history – but the owner owed it to this roster and this fan base to try something, rather than letting the ship veer directly into the ice berg ahead.