Grading the Jets' pretty good, pretty familiar hire of Aaron Glenn (sorry, Lions)

The year is 2021. The New York Jets, haunted by questions at the quarterback position, pluck a highly regarded defensive coordinator to lead them out of the woods and break a long playoff drought.

The year is 2025. The New York Jets, haunted by questions at the quarterback position, pluck a highly regarded defensive coordinator to lead them out of the woods and break a long playoff drought.

Robert Saleh's inability to build even a league-average offense led to an unceremonious ousting last fall. Now former Jets cornerback and, most recently, Detroit Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn gets to try his hand resuscitating a zombie franchise that hasn't seen the playoffs since 2011.

Glenn will have some advantages Saleh, the former San Francisco 49ers coordinator, did not. He's inheriting a defense that ranked third in yards allowed each of the last two seasons, anchored by young(ish) stars like Sauce Gardner, Will McDonald and the Williams brothers (Quinnen and Quincy). But that group backslid mightily after Saleh's firing and was hamstrung by an offense that struggled to sustain drives or put points on the board.

Glenn's arrival should help. His ability to adjust kept Detroit functioning like a well oiled machine despite losing more than half his starting lineup to injury through the course of 2024. While that eventually became untenable in the playoffs, it serves as proof he can scheme his way through best- and worst-case scenarios effectively.

The offense is a different story. No one's quite sure if Aaron Rodgers wants to return for 2025 or whether the Jets are on board. The four-time MVP played like a 41-year-old coming off a significant injury in 2024. While he finished the season stronger than he started it he still wasn't particularly good. Tyrod Taylor returns, but New York doesn't have a premium pick (seventh overall) in a QB-light draft and modest salary cap space in a free agent marketplace with few viable starters.

This creates a scenario where Glenn is stuck in the same bad situation that tainted Saleh. The Jets' great defenses in 2022 and 2023 led to back-to-back seven-win seasons because guys like Zach Wilson, Mike White, Joe Flacco, Trevor Siemian, Tim Boyle and Chris by-dog Streveler were starting games at quarterback. For Glenn to escape that gravity, he's gonna need a couple booster rockets -- a viable quarterback and an offensive coordinator who can approach the kind of innovation that revived Jared Goff in Detroit.

That's a big ask, but the fundamentals are solid. A franchise known for dysfunction made a strong decision that likely had nothing to do with Glenn's Madden awareness rating. After drifting rudderless without Saleh they've got an adult in the room once more. That will raise their floor -- potentially enough to keep them from finding a franchise quarterback in the draft.

Will it be enough to meaningfully improve on the 7-10 stasis of the recent past? It's way too soon to tell. But Glenn is a smart, easily defensible choice. That earns the Jets a solid "B" at the end of their coaching search.

This article originally appeared on For The Win: Grading the Jets' pretty good, pretty familiar hire of Aaron Glenn (sorry, Lions)