New York Jets Fire Head Coach 5 Games Into Season

The New York Jets fired head coach Robert Saleh on Tuesday after a disappointing start to the 2024 season, ESPN NFL insider Adam Schefter reported.

Saleh was in his fourth season with the Jets, a team that had high expectations for 2024 with a healthy Aaron Rodgers and a talented offense to go with its lockdown defense. In its first five games, the Jets lost three games, including a loss on Sunday to the undefeated Minnesota Vikings in London. Schefter reported that Jets Defensive Coordinator Jeff Ulbrich will take over as the interim head coach following Saleh’s firing.

Saleh went 20-36 as head coach of the Jets. He was hired to take over the Jets team after spending four seasons with the San Francisco 49ers as the defensive coordinator. Saleh’s firing marks the first time Jets owner Woody Johnson has terminated a coach in the middle of the season.

Throughout much of Saleh’s tenure with the Jets, the team put up some of the best defensive numbers in the league but struggled to find a reliable quarterback. In the 2023 offseason, the Jets traded for Rodgers, but the quarterback tore his Achilles on his first drive last season. In Saleh’s 56 games, the Jets started six different quarterbacks.

Ulbrich’s first game at the helm will take place Monday night against the Buffalo Bills, their division rival currently leading the AFC East, standing at 3-2. Saleh brought Ulbrich to New York in 2021 to coach the defense after Ulbrich spent six seasons with the Atlanta Falcons as a linebackers coach, defensive coordinator, and assistant head coach. The Jets’ defense is currently the #2 defense in the NFL, giving up just 256 yards per game.

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The Jets’ offense has struggled in the early season, scoring just 18.6 points per game, which puts it in the bottom half of the league. The offense also only averages 287 yards per game, the sixth-worst average in the league.

Forty-year-old Rodgers, who was traded to the Jets from Green Bay in April 2023, has taken on more of the offensive burden as the season has progressed. In Sunday’s loss to the Vikings, the veteran quarterback threw 54 passes and was picked off three times. The week before, Rodgers threw 42 passes against the Denver Broncos in the Jets’ one-point loss.