It’s one of the oldest jokes in English-language humor, but it always finds new applications.
“Why did he take the Jets job instead of waiting for something better?”
“Well, he said he wanted to be an NFL head coach in the worst way.”
Robert Saleh, who’d been defensive coordinator with the coaching-factory 49ers until moving to New York in 2021, reportedly was escorted from the Jets facility Tuesday after arriving for work with the intention to prepare the team for their Monday Night Football confrontation with the Bills. The Jets own a 2-3 record despite the return to health of star quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
Or maybe it’s because of his return, kind of?
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Saleh’s sudden departure is another piece of evidence that quarterback desperation is perilous for any NFL franchise. We’ve seen it in multiple forms across the league, from teams investing a first-round draft pick on a player obviously not worth the bother (Kenny Pickett, Steelers) to those lavishing salary-cap-strangling contracts on those who aren’t superstars (Dak Prescott, Cowboys and Trevor Lawrence, Jaguars) to this latest episode of incompetence from Jets owner Woody Johnson.
Meanwhile, the Vikings are 5-0 with two-time reject Sam Darnold.
Not at all coincidentally, the Jets drafted him No. 3 overall in 2017, then mishandled his development.
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Saleh came to the Jets in 2021 with impeccable credentials as a defensive coach, earning a Super Bowl ring as a quality control coach with the Seahawks in 2013 and three years as a DC with the 49ers that included a Super Bowl appearance. Statistically, his Jets performed well on D, including a No. 2 ranking in yards allowed through five games this season.
There are two sides to every football, though, and the other is controlled by a quarterback. And, in the Jets’ case, that QB is a soon-to-be 41-year-old conspiracy theorist whose last top performance against a quality opponent was delivered on Christmas Day 2022. And that fellow, Rodgers, happens to have cost a fortune in draft picks and cash money.
Saleh did not have a winning record in his 3.29 seasons, but neither did the Jets disintegrate in 2023, when they built their attack around Rodgers and he took just four snaps before shredding his achilles tendon. They wound up 7-10 with a combination of Zach Wilson, Trevor Siemian and Tim Boyle as starting quarterbacks.
The return of Rodgers was supposed to rejuvenate the team’s possibilities, but they might as well have been running out an actual Jets legend, like 81-year-old Joe Namath. Rodgers did not reach 200 yards in his past two starts. His passer rating of 81.6 ranks 26th in the league. He’s 23rd in completion percentage among those with at least four starts. He’s thrown more than half as many interceptions as touchdowns.
We can point to the multiple picks the Jets presented to the Packers in exchange for Rodgers as the most severe price the Jets have paid. It’s probably an exaggeration to point to his impact on the salary cap, because his deal was rather cleverly designed to spread the hit all the way to 2029, but it’s not nothing.
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The biggest issue with accepting Rodgers as the savior, though, is a team with this defense and nifty young offensive assets like receiver Garrett Wilson and running back Breece Hall isn’t getting exceptional play from the most important position. Because it always was unlikely.
Any NFL owner who looks at Tom Brady’s extraordinary success with the 2020 Buccaneers and asserts that to be replicable misses a lot of what happened that year. To begin with, it was no ordinary NFL season because of the pandemic. More so, Brady was joining an extraordinary Tampa team that was aching for consistent QB play and leadership. And Brady was a unique artist at his position, relying more on NextGen processing of information more so than elite arm strength or dynamism. In ordinary circumstances, that fades far more slowly with age than athletic ability.
How many other teams have made such a move and then celebrated afterward? Russell Wilson was handed all of Denver’s nuggets and went 11-19 over two seasons. In Cleveland, the question regarding Deshaun Watson’s performance is whether the trade that landed him or the contract he signed was worse.
Quarterback is the most impactful position in all of sports, but there’s no magic solution, no matter how hard desperate owners try to will elite play into existence. The Packers knew they were trading into a suckers’ market when they chose to move on from Rodgers to young Jordan Love, and they’ve been able to build depth with the three extra draft selections they received as well as select linebacker Lukas Van Ness by moving up two positions in a pick exchange with the Jets.
Saleh might have been an effective head coach in a different, better circumstance. The Jets’ absence from the playoffs for 13 consecutive years is not an accident. It’s a series of them, too many tracing all the way to the top of the franchise’s org chart.
There are only 32 of those jobs in the NFL, and one of them is controlled by Woody Johnson.
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