Robert Saleh’s NY Jets future is in danger due to his incompetent staff

Robert Saleh isn’t the problem, it’s his supporting staff

There are a few NFL coaches who are regarded as the greatest in the business today. Most of us can agree that Mike Tomlin (Pittsburgh Steelers), Sean McVay (Los Angeles Rams), Andy Reid (Kansas City Chiefs), and Kyle Shanahan (San Francisco 49ers) are at the top of the list.

With a cumulative win-loss record of 435-247 (64% win percentage), 31 postseason berths, eight Super Bowl appearances, and four Super Bowl titles, these coaches have clearly been successful.

My case for keeping Robert Saleh as head coach looks pointless right away when weighed against his miserable win-loss record of 18-33 and lack of postseason experience. However, it’s impossible to ignore the similarities between these coaches and Saleh.

 

Three of the top four coaches I listed are regarded as offensive masterminds. They

had some of the top coordinators in the game on staff when they each won their individual Super Bowls.

 

Steve Spagnuolo, a 2008 Super Bowl champion with the New York Giants after

helping to overcome the then-unbeaten New England Patriots, was Reid’s

defensive coordinator while he was with the Chiefs.

 

Robert Saleh was Kyle Shanahan’s defensive coordinator as they advanced

to the 2020 Super Bowl, and they made Patrick Mahomes

There was Wade Phillips of the Los Angeles Rams. Some people rank Phillips as one of the all-time great defensive coordinators. The last time a defensive player won MVP was during Phillips’ lone Super Bowl triumph in 2016. Von Miller was one of those players.

 

The lone defensive-minded head coach among the four, Mike Tomlin has an amazing 17-year winning streak, but his team hasn’t had much luck in the postseason recently.

His lone Super Bowl win and last Super Bowl appearance came in 2009 and 2010 respectively, with Bruce Arians as his offensive coordinator. Arians went on to win a Super Bowl with the GOAT Tom Brady in Tampa Bay, but he also had success at the highest level with a win percentage of 62.4% as a head coach.

Why Robert Saleh’s staff is more to blame for NY Jets failures

Now let’s circle back to Robert Saleh. Saleh is one of the best defensive minds in the game today. He took over a Jets defense in 2021 that ranked 26th in points allowed the year before.

The Jets have improved their defensive ranks since his debut season as head coach, and new players are rising to prominence in the league. He has contributed to the development of Quinnen Williams, Quincy Williams, and Sauce Gardner into All-Pro players, and the rise of players like Bryce Huff and Quincy Williams gives us hope for the future.

Unfortunately, this hasn’t resulted in victories for us Jets supporters. But take a look at all of the elite head coaches listed above; during their most prosperous seasons, they all had excellent opposite-side-of-the-ball coordinators. And the Jets have really fallen short in this area.

When it comes to the offensive end of the ball, Robert Saleh and the management have made poor choices. Mike LaFleur’s best days are still to come; he was a young, inexperienced player.

Everyone is aware of Nathaniel Hackett’s past. In summary, though, he was successful with a subpar quarterback in Blake Bortles and then again with one of the best quarterbacks in Aaron Rodgers. Of course, there is ample documentation of the Denver fiasco.

Play action and the run game were key components of offensive designs throughout that Bortles season in 2017. Even with today’s technology, such a scheme still requires a standout quarterback and, most crucially, an elite offensive line to produce results. The Jets lacked both and were counting on Aaron Rodgers to make things right.

When you have a quarterback like Aaron Rodgers, a lot of your offense is dictated

by his pre-snap judgments and his pre-snap observations. After Rodgers was

injured, Hackett didn’t appear to make any offensive modifications, according to

reports from Zack Rosenblatt and Dianna Russini of The Athletic.

Nathaniel Hackett revives nightmares of Adam Gase

The offensive coordinator calls in the formation and play, but the final outcome is largely dependent on the player under center. The Rodgers-Hackett relationship is eerily similar to the Peyton Manning-Adam Gase relationship. Let’s go back to 2019 when the Jets fell victim to a similar trap.

Gase was hired for the success he had with Manning and the Denver Broncos. He followed up that success with a couple of mediocre years in Miami, ending his tenure with an overall losing record.

It was reported by ESPN’s Jeff Darlington that Manning called up Christopher Johnson and personally recommended Gase for the head coach role. Gase led the Jets to rock bottom, finishing his tenure with an abysmal record of 9-23.

As a quarterback who was renowned for calling his own plays and making

audibles at the line, Manning was the only player for whom Gase had any

genuine success in his career. With Rodgers and Hackett, the Jets are

precisely where they need to be right now.

As we’ve seen this season with the Jets and in Denver, Hackett is ugly without

Aaron Rodgers. Rodgers only lasted four snaps, so Hackett is back. We still don’t

know precisely what this combination is capable of.

Fans of the Jets can only hope that the team has the same kind of success as Manning-Gase had in 2013, when the quarterback broke records and guided his squad to the Super Bowl.

Given the defense’s progress over the last three years, Robert Saleh merits another opportunity. Unquestionably, player development is what actually makes the future intriguing.

However, his time as the head coach of the Jets is running out unless he teams up with an elite offensive coordinator.