The Athletic: Aaron Glenn is the Jets’ antidote to the Aaron Rodgers era

One of the best articles written about Aaron Glen comes from the Athletic.

Aaron Glenn is the Jets’ antidote to the Aaron Rodgers era

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/65...n-glenn-aaron-rodgers-face-of-jets-franchise/

The billboards popped up all over the interstate. There was one in Paramus, another in East Brunswick. Fans took to the internet to call them out. They were more frequent as you drove closer to Florham Park, home of the New York Jets’ headquarters. Each one was the same: a smiling Aaron Rodgers in a white Jets cap and Jets jersey (photoshopped — this was still the spring of 2023). Next to the headshot, a message: “Welcome to the party, Aaron Rodgers.”

The party was a celebration of a new quarterback and a new era for the Jets, but it was more about what it represented for a beaten-down fan base: hope. When Rodgers ran out of the tunnel at MetLife Stadium in Week 1 of the 2023 season, wielding an American flag, the windows of the press box vibrated from the noise. Soon after — four plays, to be exact — Rodgers tore his Achilles. He returned a year later and played every game in a season everyone would rather forget.

By early February, the head coach and general manager who had recruited him less than two years earlier were long gone, fired over the course of a season defined by overwhelming failure. A brief meeting at Jets headquarters confirmed what everyone already knew was true: The party was over. The new boss, Aaron Glenn, wanted nothing to do with Rodgers. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.

The Jets have moved on from the bombast of the last two years — and replaced it with a sort of quiet most are unaccustomed to around here. There were no billboards welcoming Glenn, Justin Fields, or any of the new faces of the New York Jets to town. Though there really didn’t need to be: This is Glenn’s show now. And it is not a party.

For Glenn, the task ahead of him with the Jets has plenty in common with his early days with the Lions. If you ask anyone in Detroit, they’ll tell you: He’s built for it.

An 0-10-1 start to a season is, by almost any measure, a failure. But inside the Lions’ building in 2021, it didn’t feel that way. If anyone saw the little moments that were happening in between those losses, you would have seen what Glenn, their first-time defensive coordinator, saw: This wasn’t a team of losers. The results weren’t showing up, but they were fighting — in close losses and in blowouts. They’d remain winless until December, but the Lions were playing and practicing their brand of football, even if few outside of the building saw the vision.

“These guys, man, they believed,” head coach Dan Campbell says now. “They never gave up. They practiced their asses off out here. We’d come out on Wednesday, they’re 0-10, and they’re busting their asses. It never changed. As a matter of fact, we gained steam. We got better, we got stronger and that was the bedrock for what we are now.”

Where the Lions are now: Super Bowl contenders. It’s not something anyone in the orbit of that organization could have imagined four years ago. But Glenn did, and so did Campbell.

“We always said we would never sacrifice our identity for anyone or anything,” Campbell says. “(Glenn) always had my back in that regard, so we just worried about what we could control. We had to just get these guys believing. Don’t worry about, ‘Oh, we lost again.’ No, go back and say we just gotta clean this up. And our guys did that. I never had to worry about what AG was saying in that defensive room, the way he was coaching. I knew that he was saying exactly what I said and what I believed in. Because he believed in it too.”

 

Glenn was more than the defensive coordinator — he was a sounding board. For the players, he was a father figure and a motivator. For the front office, he was an evaluator. General manager Brad Holmes and his staff often leaned on Glenn for his scouting acumen, developed over years spent as a Jets scout before moving to the coaching side. Holmes would ask Glenn for his opinion on offensive prospects as often as he did defensive ones.

Campbell often would let Glenn take over some of the head coach’s responsibilities, too, so Glenn would be ready when he finally got his opportunity. Campbell would let him put together the game plan, work up the practice schedule or help with travel logistics.

In the 2022 offseason, Glenn interviewed for the Denver Broncos job but didn’t get it, one of a half-dozen jobs he got passed over for in recent years. In a press conference after he didn’t get the Broncos job, Campbell told reporters that “the thought of losing him, I just had this feeling of, like, I was going to be walking around without any pants on.”

Campbell smiles when that quote is brought up now that Glenn is really gone, off coaching the Jets.

“Every coach needs someone like him,” Campbell said. “And that’s what he was for me.”

You’ll hear many similar stories from Lions players, about Glenn getting on them — really getting on them — during practices. For his players, he earned the right to do so because of those in-between moments, when they knew he cared. He often insisted on being the one to break the news to a player who was being released at the end of training camp, and many times he was making calls to free agents — some of them marquee, some relatively minor — to let them know exactly what their role would be. He always told the truth. He got to know players’ families and their backgrounds to understand what makes them tick.

“He doesn’t treat every player the same,” Campbell said. “The standard is the same (for everyone), but the way he relays the message, he knows everybody is different. Some guys need a hug. Some guys need to be barked at. Certainly, he’s going to bark. That’s just his nature. But he also knows how to hug you up and tell you, ‘Hey man, that’s a good job, and I like where you’re going.’ You can go to his office and he’ll sit there and talk to you, man. He’ll listen to what you have to say. He’ll give you advice. He’s great like that. He’s really like an uncle to these guys.”

Linebacker Alex Anzalone recalls days when he’d bring his son to the facility and they’d hang out in Glenn’s office for hours. They’d talk on the phone all the time. “He cares,” Anzalone said. “It can get somewhat transactional in the league, and at the end of the day, it is that, you know? It is just the nature of the beast. But with him, it’s just a little different. I think that’s why people gravitate towards him.”

Many around the Lions credit Glenn with helping wide receiver Jameson Williams turn the corner — or grow up, Williams said — after a rough start to his career. Glenn and Williams would meet every day before practice, even though Glenn wasn’t coaching the offense. “He was there for me,” Williams said. “I saw the real love he had for me. He’s not gonna let you cut no corners, and he’s gonna keep it straight with you every time. On the field, off the field, he’s going to give you the 100 percent truth.”

Glenn set expectations. He helped cultivate a culture in which excuse-making was prohibited, and his style of coaching helped players understand exactly what they needed to do. These were things he was doing in 2021, when the Lions went 3-13-1. He was doing it in 2022, when they started 1-6, and many were calling for his head. Nothing changed when they finished that season 9-8, and the defense played a big part in the turnaround, or when the Lions went 12-5 in 2023, won the NFC North for the first time in 30 years and made it to the conference championship.

Those concepts were the foundation of an impenetrable belief in what the defense could accomplish, even as a flood of injuries tore through his starting lineup last autumn. Stars and starters were lost for the season or missed time due to injuries. Late in the season, free agents like Jamal Adams and Kwon Alexander, both former Jets, were signed off the street and thrown in the lineup with the simple directive to play fast and violent.

 

I don’t give a f—.

Kelvin Sheppard, Detroit’s linebackers coach under Glenn, can still hear Glenn’s voice, and that’s the phrase that comes to mind. He catches himself saying it sometimes, in the same tone as Glenn — harsh, loving and wry all at once, with the seriousness of a coach who, genuinely, did not want to hear excuses. Everyone on the Lions’ coaching staff and roster heard it at some point over the four years Glenn coached the defense.

“It doesn’t matter the situation,” said Sheppard, who replaced Glenn as Detroit’s defensive coordinator. “You guys are down 14 players? It doesn’t matter. You guys are down 18 players? It doesn’t matter. The standard’s the standard, no matter who’s in the game. … He doesn’t wanna hear from the (position) coaches, that ‘this is my third-string guy.’ No, you better not utter those words.”

The defense, hanging on by a thread, kept it together. By Week 18, they remained one of the NFL’s best run defenses and finished with the seventh-best scoring defense. Cornerback Amik Robertson, in his first year with Detroit, had a one-on-one with Glenn early in the season that, he says, will stick with him. “I know what kind of player you can be,” Glenn told him. “You can be the best nickelback in the league. But I need you to try to be a piece of the puzzle, not try to be the whole puzzle.”

When Robertson was at the Lions’ facility signing his contract before last season, Glenn stopped him on the way out: Come watch some tape with me. For an hour, Robertson was in Glenn’s office watching tape. The coach showed Robertson how he planned on using him in the Lions’ defense

“He slimmed the game down for me: You see a little, you see a lot. You look at too much, you only see a little.”

Ahead of the regular-season finale against the Minnesota Vikings, the NFC North title and the No. 1 seed in the NFC at stake, Glenn had a thought for how to defend the Vikings’ best player, Justin Jefferson. Glenn texted Robertson: “You might be on 18.” It was a mismatch on paper. Yet, a few days later, Glenn texted Robertson again: “Hey. You’re on 18.”

The Lions dominated that game, and Robertson stifled Jefferson, who finished with three catches for 54 yards on nine targets. “That showed how he believed in me,” Robertson said. “I really had to be a reflection of him out there. I was representing him. By him believing in me to have a role like that, I didn’t even worry, because he believed I could do it. You see how that turned out.”

D.J. Reed really only knows about Glenn through the stories his new teammates tell him, and from the short conversation he had with Glenn before hitting free agency. He understands why the room he’s walking into looks, feels, and sounds the way it does. When Reed hit free agency after three seasons with the Jets, he knew he wanted something different. He wanted to go to an organization where he could focus on the work, on doing his job, and then going home and being present with his wife and three kids, one born recently.

“It was really important for me, quite honestly,” Reed said. “I’m just a person that wants to get better every day, and this is the perfect organization for that, to be able to focus on that and my family. That’s all I care about.”

Reed went through a lot the past three seasons. He found out his dad had passed away in the locker room before he ran out of the tunnel for his first game with the Jets. He had his first kid, and his second, and he played the best football of his career. But it was hard to ignore the circus around him, even when he wanted to. He found what he was looking for in Detroit.

“Everybody is on the same page here,” Reed said. “They told me why I’m here. They laid out their expectations for me. And it just fits me perfectly.”

That feeling Reed had when he walked in for the first time? Glenn cultivated that for the defense. Reed thinks the Jets can use a little taste of Detroit.

Reed was a crucial piece of a Jets defense that felt like it was expected to achieve perfection while the offense was settling for mediocrity. They weren’t being held to the same standard as their own teammates. Many in the locker room felt like the previous coaching staff didn’t do a good job of holding players — especially the older ones with greater NFL stature — accountable. They’ve felt a sea of change since Glenn took over.

“He holds us to a standard, and it’s amazing to see that he’s holding the defense, the offense and the special teams to the same standard,” said defensive end Jermaine Johnson. “This team will look a certain way, and if it doesn’t, it’ll be addressed. Even more impressive is how we all respond — it gets fixed. I’m just excited to go out there and do my part.”

Said running back Breece Hall: “In the past, there’s been a lot of instability around the whole operation. I feel like this year … it feels a lot better coming in here every day.”

And offensive lineman Alijah Vera-Tucker: “He praises physicality, but even more: accountability. That’s very important for a head coach to do. That’s something I haven’t seen much of in my career.”

Most in and around the organization have said that this was the most physical training camp the Jets have conducted, replete with tackling, since at least the Rex Ryan era. It’s the same way they’ve done it in Detroit since Campbell was hired. The Jets were the NFL’s most penalized team last year, something that Glenn won’t abide by in 2025. “Our last coaches preached discipline, and we didn’t listen,” said safety Tony Adams. In a preseason game, Glenn pulled defensive end Micheal Clemons after an unnecessary roughness penalty, and chewed out linebacker Marcelino McCrary-Ball — since voted a special teams captain — for a late hit. The players, so far, welcome the reprobation.

“It’s just the expectation that when we’re out on the field, how it’s supposed to look — and how he’ll get on my ass if I put a ball on the ground or don’t run with detail,” said wide receiver Garrett Wilson. “That’s what I miss from college.”

During practices, Glenn bounces around the field, observing offense, defense, special teams — every position group. In the offseason, he cultivated a plan for the type of players he wanted general manager Darren Mougey to pursue: younger, often under-the-radar players with something to prove. At the center of that plan: Justin Fields, the unassuming former first-round pick who used to run all over the Lions defense when he was with the Bears.

The result after an offseason of retooling? The Jets possess one of the youngest rosters in the NFL, a team projected by many to finish last in the AFC East. Glenn knows what that feels like. He also knows how to make it work.

“I know what it’s like to be a Jet,” Glenn said. “I know the pain and all the things the fans have been through. I might have been gone from here, but I was never gone in spirit, so I get it. That sticks with me a ton. I understand the pain. I’m hoping, I’m praying. I expect to make the pain go away. I think about that every day.”

Early in training camp, the Jets held a scrimmage with fans in the stands at Florham Park. While the players were stretching, fans started to chant his name. And he heard the “J-E-T-S- JETS” chant for the first time. “I don’t know why, but it just hit me,” Glenn said. “It hit me pretty hard.”

In the first week of training camp, Glenn snuck behind owner Woody Johnson, lowered his shoulder and bumped into him. They laughed as Glenn put his arm around his boss. By all accounts, that relationship, coach and owner, has gone swimmingly. In January, Johnson admitted he needed to be a better owner. Throughout the summer, various team sources insisted that Johnson — not exactly known for a patient, hands-off approach to the organization — had mostly taken a step back, allowing Glenn to cultivate the team in his vision.

In Detroit, Glenn saw what it meant to Campbell when his owner stuck behind him, even as the world around them questioned his ability to turn the Lions into winners. When the Lions started 1-5 in 2022, owner Sheila Ford Hamp held an impromptu press conference on the sideline during a practice. “A rebuild is hard,” she said. “But we really believe in our process, we really believe we’re going to turn this thing around.” They lost the next game, then won 8 of 10 to close the season.

Much of the Jets’ drama and dysfunction over the last two years has been rooted in the clashing personalities of two people: Johnson and Rodgers. One of them is gone. The other, so far, has made the necessary changes to get the Jets back on track. That is rooted in his faith in Glenn.

On Sunday, Rodgers will run out of the tunnel at MetLife again. The crowd will roar, but not for him. The Jets team he’ll face will look different than the one he tried, and failed, to save. Walk through the Jets’ facility, or by MetLife Stadium, and there is little evidence that Rodgers was once swirling at the center of this team’s universe. Even his locker at the Jets’ facility no longer exists after the team gave a full-scale facelift to its locker room. Rodgers’ space used to be in the back-right corner of the room, mixed in with mostly defensive linemen. For a few weeks, that space was taken up by Armand Membou. The rookie right tackle has since moved; now, Rodgers’ old spot sits empty.

When Rodgers used to exit the locker room, he always had the PR person assigned to him trailing behind. With each step, he could feel the eyes of assembled media members watching his every move — that crowd was there for him, and he knew it. Those crowds have since dwindled. Last week, Fields walked to his locker at the opposite end of the room. He got ready for practice and then he left. No one seemed to notice.

Glenn and Fields have talked every day since Fields signed. This is the kind of quarterback — and the kind of quiet — Glenn wanted.