The New York Jets have fired head coach Robert Saleh, making him the primary coach to lose his job in the course of the 2024 NFL season. The transfer comes simply 4 days after Saleh instructed reporters within the UK to “leap on the [Jets] bandwagon,” as a result of it was going to get full.
Sadly for Saleh and the Jets the bandwagon broke a wheel, crashed right into a pile of horse manure, earlier than bursting into flames — sending the fumes of smoldering feces into close by counties. New York was shut on the scoreboard to the Vikings in London, however the sport felt something prefer it. Aaron Rodgers performed one of many worst video games of his profession, the offense by no means discovered a rhythm, and it introduced the group’s document to 2-3 on the season.
The job now falls to defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich, who has been named because the interim head coach. Ulbrich was the neatest resolution the Jets might have made primarily based on their teaching employees, avoiding the plain mistake of getting Rodgers’ buddy Nathaniel Hackett take over.
As for Saleh, it’s a crushing finish to a disappointing period. Extensively considered as a home-run rent in 2021, Saleh got here to New York scorching off the heels of a Tremendous Bowl run with the San Francisco 49ers the place he served as defensive coordinator. Probably the most coveted coaches in the marketplace, the idea was that Saleh might carry again the hard-nosed protection the group constructed its id on.
What adopted was crushing mediocrity. Saddled to quarterback Zach Wilson from begin, the Jets have been an offensive mess that couldn’t be corrected by means of protection. Then, with the choice to drag the plug are commerce for Aaron Rodgers the idea was that the group would contend for a Tremendous Bowl — however now the Jets are locked in the identical mediocrity they’ve been for the higher a part of their franchise historical past.
That is Aaron Rodgers’ group now, for higher and worse. Time will inform if Ulbrich has the power to drag the group out of its tailspin, or whether or not Saleh was only a scapegoat for the failures of the group’s getting older quarterback.