Rumored to be staying despite overseeing nothing but sub-.500 seasons, the Joe Douglas–Robert Saleh tandem will officially be brought back for the 2024 season. Jets owner Woody Johnson confirmed it Sunday.
Johnson, who was finishing up his U.S. ambassadorial tenure when the pair was hired, will sign off on the reported plan to give the power brokers a mulligan after the Aaron Rodgers Week 1 Achilles tear doomed the Jets’ season. Douglas has been on the job since 2019, Saleh since 2021.
“My decision is to keep them,” Johnson said, via the New York Post’s Brian Costello. “I think we’ve had some very positive moves. The culture of the team is a lot better. The defense is better. The offense needs a few pieces. … Like I said a year ago, we need a quarterback. We had a quarterback for four plays. Since then we haven’t been able to replace him. If we have a good quarterback, it makes everybody’s job easier. It makes the line better, the receivers better.”
The Jets are 16-32 under Saleh, who will join only a handful of 21st-century coaches in being retained despite beginning his HC run with three straight sub-.500 seasons. The team is a ghastly 25-55 under Douglas, who took over ahead of Adam Gase‘s first season. It is safe to say the Saleh-Douglas duo will be on some of the hottest seats in recent NFL history next season, but Johnson will allow them to stay in charge after the Rodgers acquisition produced a mere four plays of work this year.
This will not go over well with many Jets fans, seeing as the team has collapsed in back-to-back years. But Saleh did execute a defensive turnaround. The team ranked last in both scoring defense and total yardage in 2021; it finished fourth in both categories last season. This year, Saleh’s unit rank 11th in points allowed and seventh in total defense. Quinnen Williams and Sauce Gardner have emerged as long-term cornerstones, while veteran C.J. Mosley has stabilized his career under Saleh. Complementary pieces have emerged as well, but the 2024 mandate will clearly be on offense, where the team is finishing off one of the worst seasons in modern NFL annals.
New York’s numbers on offense are down from even 2022, when the Zach Wilson train careened off track. The Jets have scored an NFL-worst 13 touchdowns on offense this season. They rank last in total offense and DVOA on that side of the ball, with Wilson — via the team’s shortsighted plan to leave the former No. 2 overall pick as the unquestioned backup entering the season and its refusal to acquire a better option once Rodgers went down in September — leading the charge toward another woeful campaign. Wilson is expected to be elsewhere in 2024, but the Jets’ lead power brokers will be allowed to pick up the pieces around Rodgers.
Considering Rodgers’ endorsements of Saleh and Douglas this week, that seemed to entrench the duo for the ’24 season. Johnson did not, however, mention OC Nathaniel Hackett on Sunday. That could be telling, and Hackett has submitted one of the worst two-year runs in NFL history.
After leading the way in the Broncos’ offense plunging to the NFL basement last season, Hackett has followed that up with comparably awful Jets offense. Denver ranked last in scoring in 2022, leading to Hackett’s firing after just 15 games, tanking the play-caller’s stock after a successful Green Bay run (as a non-play-calling OC). But Rodgers has long backed Hackett. The four-time MVP’s support for Hackett this week will likely lead to the veteran coach sticking around as well. Indeed, NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport adds Hackett is expected to come back for the 2024 season.
Look no further than Johnson’s comments on Rodgers’ presence as an indication the QB will get his wish for OC continuity. Rodgers has been practicing with the team for nearly three weeks, doing so despite undergoing Achilles surgery in September. Rodgers’ much-discussed comeback will fall just short, but the Jets activated him from IR and are pleased with the impact he has made on the organization even without playing into the second quarter of Week 1.
“I think if you see Aaron Rodgers right now and the impact he’s having on the team and what he’s able to do with virtually no practice, it’s amazing,” Johnson said. “He’s in the fourth quarter of the league year and he’s throwing like he’s practiced all year. When he starts practicing and gets the timing with receivers just perfect, I think you’re going to see some amazing things.”
The Jets convinced Rodgers to accept a historic pay cut for the 2024 season, and after he was close to retiring this year, the 19th-year veteran said this week he wants to play through at least the 2025 season. Not counting this year as one of the two seasons he plans to play with the Jets, Rodgers will likely be given a considerable say in how the team addresses some of the Johnson-referenced offensive deficiencies in 2024. After the Jets based 2023 around how Rodgers could transform their operation, Johnson will keep the keys in Douglas and Saleh’s hands to see this plan to fruition.
No playoffs and they are done. Eliminated early and they will be a midseason firing.
They’ll listen to GM-Rodgers and bring in a few more washed up ex-Packers.
I get the frustration with the Jets. But they recognized Zach Wilson wasn’t the answer and went out and got Aaron Rodgers. Yes, he’s old but he’s no bum….As far as backup QB goes having Wilson sit behind Rodgers for 2 years to learn seemed smart to me. Retaining Mike White may have been the only negative to the whole QB room….just my IMO, I’m a Falcons fan and can’t throw stones haha
The Rodgers injury gave Saleh and the staff a mulligan on this season. Douglas would be safe regardless. This team needs to go out and dedicate all their resources to improving this embarrassment of an O Line and adding another receiver. Unfortunately it has become clear that Woody is letting Rodgers call the shots at person elk he wants to bring in to play alongside. THIS HAS GOT TO END. Every one of “Aarons guys” were an utter disaster this year.
Woody needs to go. Saleh is legit, they’re gonna keep failing if they fire him. That defense is good, he needs a good OC(which was probably rodgers himself) to push this team to a contender.
Granted, but to be fair, they were supposed to play in a different offense this year, with competent offensive line play. Still, as I said in the article on this subject earlier, the Jets should be bringing in their own players first and looking at ex-Packers to play possible holes second. There’s nothing wrong with a good acquisition or two fill spots, but you can definitely overdo it. These guys should be your guys to make this work in the long run, not your guy’s guys.
Should fire both
Joe Flacco was with the Jets the last 3 years and somehow he’s playing better in Cleveland than he did in NY
Saleh may be a good defensive minded coach and has the defense playing well but watching Flacco lead a Chubb less Browns offense to success should tell us exactly how awful the jets were/are at offensive planning.
Should clean house.
dude needs to be a permanent DC no shame in that
Saleh sucks he’s a bimbo
Not sure about bimbo, but it’s clear to even casual fans that Saleh is in over his head.
You mean meathead
Talk about giving a middle finger to Jets fans who have been too loyal and suffered too much under his family’s inept and arrogant stewardship of the franchise….
No Woody, a good quarterback doesn’t make the line better, a good line makes the quarterback better (and keeps him alive)
Eh, it can mask things if he gets the ball out quick (which Rodgers can) or is elusive (which he’s not, anymore). But he has to say something to prop up his decision to hang on to these guys, and try to cover up why they were so bad (though I would say he’s kinda thrown every qb not named Rodgers who played for them this year under the bus in doing that).
They’ll get a few more broken down ex packers players and they’ll wonder what went wrong after the finish 7-10 or 8-9 Poor Erin
We luv mediocrity Go Jets !