As one of the most in-demand head coaching candidates in the NFL, Aaron Glenn interviewed with several teams last season. But by his own admission, he wanted only one.
The New York Jets.
A former Jet before a highly successful career in coaching, Glenn promised changes during his introduction as New York’s coach in January.
“Put your seat belts on,” he said, “and get ready for the ride.”
Ten months later, that ride’s trajectory has gone straight down.
And Sunday’s Week 7 loss brought the Jets closer to the misery the franchise hoped Glenn’s appointment would make a thing of the past.
In a 13-6 loss to Carolina that dropped the Jets to 0-7, including 0-5 at home, New York benched the quarterback, Justin Fields, it had paid $30 million guaranteed to sign as a free agent only last spring.
It’s just the third time in the Jets’ 65-year history, joining 1996 and 2020, that it has started a season 0-7, and Glenn is the franchise’s first coach to lose his first seven games.
The Jets, the NFL’s lone remaining winless team, continued multiple worrying trends that have contributed to their winless season — uneven quarterback play, a porous offensive line and an inability to force turnovers on defense.
“We have to be able to pull out these low-scoring games,” Glenn said Sunday. “The thing is, our guys are fighting. There’s no quit.”
The Jets, who own the NFL’s third worst winning percentage (.350) since they last made the playoffs in 2010, are accustomed to head-shaking results. They entered last season with Super Bowl ambitions with quarterback Aaron Rodgers healthy, only to fire their coach and top football executive en route to a 5-12 record. Late in the season, The Athletic reported that the teenage sons of owner Woody Johnson influenced some roster decisions and that one trade had been nixed because the owner felt a player’s rating in the video game “Madden” was not high enough. (A Jets spokesperson at the time said the sons’ input was “used as a reference point.”)
This season was intended to be a new era. Following the criticism of 2024, Johnson reportedly gave up some measure of control over team decisions, and the team’s new management cut loose Rodgers and signed Fields, a former high first-round pick. Then, in Week 1, they had to watch Rodgers gloat after he outdueled Fields to beat his former team.
New York did not sign Fields, expecting a quarterback known more for his mobility than his passing ability, to dramatically change his game. Yet by Week 6, things had gone backward. Fields threw for only 45 yards, and New York finished with a franchise-worst minus-10 yards net passing.
Entering Sunday, the Jets owned the NFL’s third-worst offense and 20th-ranked defense. Still, the matchup against the Panthers appeared to offer one of New York’s best opportunities this season for its first win. Though Carolina had won two consecutive games, it was hardly formidable, having been outscored overall for the season. The Panthers’ defense ranked 21st in points allowed.
Yet the Jets’ offense was again impotent. It produced only 12 first downs on 11 drives and failed to score a touchdown in the first half for a sixth consecutive game — the first time the franchise has done that since 2000. With the ball near midfield in the final minute before halftime, the Jets did not even try to throw a Hail Mary, the first half instead ending on a sack.
Trailing 13-3 in the third quarter, the Jets benched Fields, which Glenn, who had previously supported Fields, said was his decision. Fields’ backup, Tyrod Taylor, went on to throw two interceptions.
Fields said he was “a little bit” surprised but “can’t be mad at the decision,” he told reporters. “I understand why.”
Even as Carolina lost its starting quarterback, Bryce Young, to an ankle injury late in the third quarter and never scored again, the Jets still could not take advantage. Particularly eye-opening has been New York’s inability on defense to force turnovers; it has produced just one, fewest in the NFL, in seven games. Glenn’s defense in Detroit last season finished in the top third of creating takeaways.
“Obviously, wins cure a lot in this league,” said Taylor, Fields’ successor. “And we haven’t had a chance to put one of those together.
“The message has to be the same, the work has to still be done throughout the week, and us coming out and executing at a high level, one play at a time, is what we need on game day. Not spurts of it, not a quarter of it, not a half of it, but for a full four quarters.”
