The NFL is a results company. You are what your file says you are. And so forth.
But Robert Saleh was the first coach fired this season because he couldn’t catch a break.
Saleh never got his quarterback and it wasn’t all his fault. Saleh ultimately didn’t get the job done, as his 20-36 record will tell you. But Zach Wilson, Aaron Rodgers and others didn’t exactly help.
The Jets shocked the NFL world by firing Saleh on Tuesday after a 2-3 start. It didn’t come completely out of the blue, as the Jets came into this season with immense pressure to win and haven’t looked good for most of the season. The timing seems odd, but Saleh would lose his job anytime the Jets were below .500. Everyone knew this season was coming.
But the fact that Saleh is being ousted shows that you can find your dream job and then lose it due to circumstances completely out of your control.
Robert Saleh was fired during his fourth season
Before he was fired, Saleh had to wonder how things would be different if Rodgers hadn’t blown his Achilles tendon last season. Or if Rodgers hadn’t come at all.
The one thing Saleh had going for him in his three-plus seasons as Jets coach was defensive brilliance. They were bad in his first season, but the roster was a total mess. In the three seasons that followed, New York finished fourth, third and second in yards allowed. Saleh was hired because he was a great defensive coordinator with the San Francisco 49ers, and he fulfilled that part of the job.
The crime did not cooperate. The first misstep was Zach Wilson. If the 2020 Jets hadn’t had two meaningless wins under Adam Gase in December, they would have drafted Trevor Lawrence first overall and not Wilson second. Lawrence has his own issues, but he’s light years better than Wilson, one of the biggest draft busts in many years. Perhaps Saleh can be blamed for not developing Wilson, but let’s see if Wilson emerges as a viable quarterback with other coaching staffs in his career. Most likely, it looked like the Jets made a bad draft pick. That’s not all about Saleh.
Rodgers would fix it all after the Jets made a big trade for him. Then, four games into last season, he tore his Achilles tendon. Saleh has no control over that. Last season’s 7-10 with the worst quarterback play in the NFL certainly showed that Saleh can coach. He had to feel that with average quarterback play the Jets would have made the playoffs.
And it’s hard to blame Saleh for the offensive problems.
Saleh doesn’t win with Aaron Rodgers
Rodgers is, as the Green Bay Packers CEO once said, a “complicated guy.” To get Rodgers, Saleh had to give up a lot of control. Nathaniel Hackett was a favorite of Rodgers, and although he had a terrible season as head coach of the Denver Broncos, he was hired as the Jets’ offensive coordinator. That was a transparent move to bring in Rodgers, not because Hackett is a brilliant attacking mind. Hackett was appointed for a second season and it is difficult to imagine that this was solely due to his attacking acumen. The Jets and Saleh did their utmost to make Rodgers happy. When the offense struggled this season with Rodgers, who was a year older, coming off a major injury, it’s hard to pin that (or things like Breece Hall’s sudden struggles) on Saleh. It didn’t help Saleh that his complicated QB publicly gave him a subtle jab for not holding players accountable, or that he had an awkward moment on the sideline with him when Saleh apparently wanted to give his quarterback a celebratory hug.
And some other things were completely beyond Saleh’s control. Imagine kicker Greg Zuerlein making a field goal in the final minute of a Week 4 game against the Denver Broncos. Would a 3-2 Jets team, tied for first place in the AFC East, fire its coach? Probably not.
If the Jets had had Lawrence and not Wilson, if Rodgers had gone to the Denver Broncos or somewhere else when the Packers were shopping him and the Jets had come up with a different solution at quarterback, if Rodgers had stayed healthy while he might still be One If New York’s kicker hadn’t missed a field goal to beat Denver, Saleh’s story could be very different. At least he probably still has a job.
Saleh’s final record with the Jets will be 20-36. He’s not completely over that, or the Jets’ poor start this season. But he couldn’t catch a break either. Saleh ultimately took the blame when others around him failed. Life in the NFL isn’t always fair.
