Head Coaching Candidate: Aaron Glenn

Edition #777

☀️ Good morning! ☕

Monday was a little bit of a whirlwind with so many interview requests being submitted by the Jets, but I will say that it showed preparation and planning, something that we don’t always associate with the Jets.

If the interviewees current employer has a first round bye then they are free to interview this week, so someone like Mike Borgonzi from the Chiefs for GM and who we’re talking about today, Aaron Glenn from the Detroit Lions.

But a lot of the names on the list are in action this weekend on wild-card weekend, so we’ll need to wait and see on those names. It’s why we’re focusing on Glenn today.

• The Jets completed an interview with former Head Coach Rex Ryan yesterday for their vacant HC position. Just a reminder that Rex has not coached in the league since 2016 and his last winning season came in 2010 and overall he holds a 65-68 record as a Head Coach including the post-season.

• Jets requested permission to interview Bills assistant GM Brian Gaine for their GM job according to Adam Schefter.

• Jets plan to interview Packers VP of player personnel Jon-Eric Sullivan. Sullivan joined Packers organization in 2004 and worked his way up, promoted to VP in 2022. This according to Jeremy Fowler.

• The Jacksonville Jaguars are going to interview Robert Saleh for their vacant Head Coach position.

• The Jets submitted an interview request for Saints interim coach Darren Rizzi who went 3-5 in charge of New Orleans this year. The 54-year-old was born in Hillsdale, New Jersey and was the special teams coordinator for Miami between 2010-2016.

• Brian Flores has confirmed that he will interview with any and all teams who requested one. The Jets are one of those teams to be interested and he’s close to the top of my personal list.

• ESPN had a mock draft out this week and I’m including it here because I like the selection for the Jets 😂 - Mason Graham, DT, Michigan*

  “The Jets enter this offseason with plenty of holes on the roster after being arguably the most disappointing team of the 2024 season. The lack of depth along the defensive front was exposed all season, and Graham would help fortify it. He makes a lot of sense to pair with Quinnen Williams on the interior. Graham is a stout and disruptive force inside against the run and also in the pass rush. His 19 pressures ranked in the top 20 among FBS defensive tackles.”

It’s hard to know what to believe at this time of year, the coaching cycle rumours are only slightly more reliable than the draft cycle rumours.

However, multiple people have “reported” that Aaron Glenn holds a strong interest in taking over the Head Coaching job in New York, and the interest is mutual.

It makes sense to start with Aaron Glenn as a player. The Humble Texas native played his college ball at Texas A&M after dominating the community college scene at Navarro College. As a sophomore he recorded 2 interceptions, 60 tackles, and 15 pass deflections, which brought the Aggies calling.

He was drafted by the Jets in the first round back in 1994 and stayed with the team until the 2002 NFL expansion draft where he was picked by the Houston Texans. The Jets made him available and he was one of three players who headed from NJ to Houston alongside tackle Ryan Young and cornerback Marcus Coleman who was moved from safety to corner by Bill Parcells.

While with the Jets, Glenn had 24 interceptions, 3 pick sixes, 36 passes defended, 5 forced fumbles and 396 tackles in 8 years. He was an outstanding player back in the day and made two Pro Bowls with the Jets and one with Houston. He was also named to the New York Jets All-Time Four Decade Team which was voted on for the fans and revealed in 2003. A lot of people here will remember Glenn fondly.

So it’s fair to say that Glenn and the Jets have significant history and a lot of that history was positive. He was here for the Rich Kotite years which included that 1-15 season in 1996, but he was also here for the Bill Parcels years including the 12-4 season in 1998 which ended in an AFC Championship game defeat to the Broncos, a game where Curtis Martin famously rushed for 14 yards on 13 carries.

“You’re able to go out there and play comfortable if you know there’s a coach out there that believes in you,” Lions cornerback Amik Robertson said of Glenn. “And when you got a person like that, man, you want to play for them. You want to run through a wall for them. When you got coaches like that man, you want to go out there and do good, because if you looking good, they looking good and we all looking good.”

Glenn went on to play for the Texans, Jaguars, Cowboys and Saints before starting his coaching career with the Cleveland Browns in 2014 as the assistant defensive backs coach. He had spent a year as the GM of an indoor football league team in 2012 before becoming a scout with the Jets between 2012-2013. In 2014 the Browns went 7-9 and had four players selected to the Pro Bow, three of those players were defensive backs (Joe Haden, Tashaun Gipson and Donte Whitner).

In 2016 he was hired by Sean Payton of the New Orleans Saints to be the Defensive backs coach where he helped Marshon Lattimore to three Pro Bowl appearances (2017, 2019, 2020). In his final year in New Orleans they had a top-5 passing defense, which is what earned him the Detroit Lions defensive coordinator role under Dan Campbell.

That Dan Campbell relationship goes way back, Campbell arrived at Texas A&M the year after Glenn left, but they both played under Bill Parcells and both coached under Sean Payton. The move to hire Glenn was made just days after Campbell was made head coach and it was his first appointment. Considering where Campbell has taken the Lions, that detail isn’t insignificant. If you’re underestimating the love and respect that Campbell has got Glenn,

“First of all, he’s salt of the earth,” Campbell said of Glenn. “He’s an unbelievable human being. He’s a man of high character. He’s a grinder. Nobody works harder or longer than he does. He’s a student of the game. For a guy that has learned so much, he wants to learn more and more, he’s just constantly looking up better ways to do things, other ideas. I think he’s strategic, the things that we go into the game with to attack opponents, I think it’s some of the best in the league.

“He doesn't have bad days. He’s not one of these guys. …He can get pissed off, believe me, he’s a fiery guy, but he just doesn't live like that. Everything is, ‘Hey, you tell me what it is, you tell me what we’ve got and we’re going to make it work and we’re going to make the most of it and we’ll be good.’ And it’s — he’s just positive, upbeat, grinder. I can’t say enough great words about him. Everybody respects him and those guys play — they play hard for him.”

Campbell quote to the Athletic on Glenn

Campbell once joked that if Glenn were to leave he’d feel like he wasn’t wearing any pants. for all those Jets fans who say “We need a Dan Campbell” well Aaron Glenn is that man. He’s relatable, but tough. He’s considerate and detail orientated, but strict and demanding. Players love to play for him, not because he’s their best friend but because he makes them better.

But wind the clock back to 2022 and things didn’t look very promising for Glenn. Just take a quick look at the stats below on Glenn’s time as coordinator, they’re not the most appealing.

But numbers can be misleading and for all the talent Detroit had on the offensive side of the ball, the defense was another matter. Patience was required as one of the youngest units in football learned to fail and then succeed as a result.

“Obviously, things are a lot different. Different team. We’re playing better as a defense and stuff these days, but back then, he was the same AG,” McNeill told The Athletic, when comparing 2021 to 2024 “He was laying the brickwork back then, just trying to get everybody on board to buy in and trust the process, but he’s the same AG. He’s still trying to get everybody to do that. You have to do that every day, every year.”

Drafting and development, that’s been the main focus of the defense and look around that unit, you’ll see talent but you’ll see that most of those players have improved significantly under this regime, Kerby Joseph is one that jumps off the page straight away, Brian Branch too, Derrick Barnes is another and you obviously have Aiden Hutchinson and Alim McNeil on the defensive line.

Read enough articles and you’ll hear a few consistent things, leader is one, culture-builder is another, well-rounded is a third. I know those defensive numbers don’t jump off the page but we’re not here to hire a defensive coordinator, we’re hear to hire a leader of the entire roster.

I’ve always liked Glenn and respect and appreciate what he did in Detroit, and this year he’s done it with numerous injuries to key personnel, on Sunday night he shut down Kevin O’Connell (who he worked with in Cleveland) and made Sam Darnold look pretty ordinary. Now he’ll need to do it a few more times in the playoffs.

I’m going to leave this final quote here which is the one that really grabbed me and made me believe that Glenn would be an outstanding Head Coach and that’s bolded for a reason

“I spent a lot of time throughout the years, since 2021, going to visit offensive coordinators and just talking to them on how they see the game and how they prepare for a game and that has opened my eyes on how I should prepare for a game,” Glenn said Thursday. “The other thing is, I’m always eager to learn and there’s a number of college coaches that I’ve went and visited from a defensive perspective, just to understand their thought process of the game. …It’s good to sit there and listen to them and get the, ‘Why?’ behind why they use them because at some point, hell, I might use it. So, there’s a lot of information that I’ve gathered throughout the years to help me be not just a better defensive coordinator, but a better coach, and that can be understanding the offense, special teams, across the board.”