Now, there is no indication at all that anyone’s job is in jeopardy, just like there’s no indication at all that any of them are right for the job. Any honest evaluation of Saleh, LaFleur, Ulbrich or anyone on the staff is that, at the very least, the jury is still out. Way out, in fact. The results this season have been terrible. Even they wouldn’t deny that.
Or to put it another way: Who really knows if any of them can coach?
But the other honest part of the equation is that this is what the Jets signed up for: A leap of faith that they knew from the beginning would take years, not months, to play out. The minute they committed to what was essentially a total rebuild, gutting their team so they could roll with far too many young players, they were committing to holding their noses and ignoring the 2021 results. That’s why Saleh’s job isn’t in jeopardy even if this 3-9 team ends up with a 3-14 record.
And the same should be true for LaFleur and Ulbrich even if they end up coaching the 32nd-ranked offenses and defenses in this 32-team league.
“I get that you’re, like I’ve said a million times, if you make a call and it works, you’re smart. If you don’t, you’re an idiot,” Saleh said on Friday. “A lot of people might want to call our coaching staff idiots because a lot of things aren’t working when you want them to. At the same time, it doesn’t change the soundness (of the calls).”
That was in response to a question about whether Saleh, a successful defensive coach, might want to get more involved on a defense that has, by its own admission, been an embarrassment, a disaster, and a joke in recent weeks. He’s been asked that before, by the way, and he’s already involved and doesn’t plan to step in further. From his standpoint, at this moment in time, there isn’t any need.
Because – and here’s the theme of the Jets’ season that everyone has been hammering home since the first day of training camp – it’s not about the results. That’s hard to hear and hard to accept, but the wins and losses aren’t nearly as important as the growth of the players. This whole season has been about developing young, raw, promising talent into players who, hopefully in the near future, can help the Jets win.
Want to stunt their growth? Fire the assistant coaches. Change the schemes. Tell the players that all the head-spinning learning they did this year, all their long film sessions, all the improvement they’ve shown (and yes, there’s been some) was nice, but now they get to start over in Year 2. After committing to this youth movement and telling everyone to be patient, it would be the worst (and dumbest) thing they could do.
And for proof, all they need to do is look at LaFleur’s offense. For the first six games of the season it looked … well, there’s no real way to describe it because it didn’t look like much. There wasn’t much evidence of a coherent scheme. Certainly there was barely any production. It was hard to say exactly what it was that he was trying to do.
Then Mike White was forced to take over at quarterback and he, Josh Johnson and even Joe Flacco showed glimpses of what the offense could be when the quarterback was at least competent and, lo and behold, it turned out LaFleur could coach. Even when rookie quarterback Zach Wilson returned last week, the LaFleur offense seemed to mostly work.
