'I just think we can do better': An inside look at the Jets' chaotic week, split with Robert Saleh

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — It was a typical off-day in the New York Jets’ training room. About a dozen players were receiving treatment for various injuries, trying to heal up as fast as possible for the next game. Most were on their phones, texting or scrolling or playing games to pass time.

Tight end Tyler Conklin was texting a friend when he glanced up and happened to make eye contact with tackle Tyron Smith. Then a look of disbelief came over Smith’s face.

“Dude,” Conklin said, “you look like you just saw a ghost.”

Just then, Conklin received a text.

“Oh, s—,” he said. He saw the same ghost.

In that moment, in what seemed like a synchronized symphony of pings and buzzes, the players in the training room learned with the rest of the world that their coach, Robert Saleh, had been fired after the Jets’ 2-3 start in his fourth season.

The news broke on social media at 10:08 a.m. Tuesday, when it was first reported by ESPN’s Adam Schefter.

ESPN sources: Jets fired HC Robert Saleh.

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) October 8, 2024

The actual news occurred only minutes earlier, less than 100 yards from the training room, where chairman Woody Johnson and his brother, vice chairman Christopher Johnson, walked into Saleh’s first-floor office at 10:03 to terminate his employment. That conversation took less than two minutes.

There was no formal announcement by the team initially. The players, the staff and most in the building found out the same way many NFL fans consume news.

Tackle Morgan Moses got a phone alert while he was working out in the weight room. Center Joe Tippmann saw it on his family group text as he was pulling into the facility’s parking lot. One player said he was in the bathroom when the news broke.

“It started as like a scene out of ‘John Wick,’ when he becomes excommunicado and everybody at the Continental gets a buzz on their phone,” said quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who was in the training room. “That’s literally how it was: Phone starts buzzing, and you’re faced with the reality.”

A new reality for the Jets, who were left to work through ownership’s decision to fire Saleh and make defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich the interim coach.

It was the first time since 1975 that the Jets fired a coach during the season. Saleh, 45, hadn’t even been born. Leaguewide, it usually occurs about twice a year — 44 coaches were fired or resigned in season from 2000 to 2023, per ESPN Research. The Jets, perennial losers over the last decade-plus, managed to stay off that carousel until now.

The firing produced a week like no other, and that’s saying something for a franchise that has endured some tumultuous weeks in its star-crossed history. It saw Bill Parcells retire and Bill Belichick quit on back-to-back days in 2000. It saw starting quarterback Geno Smith get punched in the jaw by a teammate in the locker room in 2015. Heck, this is the franchise that produced one of the most viral NFL moments in the Butt Fumble with Mark Sanchez in 2012.

Saleh’s ousting was unfamiliar territory because of the timing, but ownership didn’t believe he was capable of ending the franchise’s 13-year playoff drought. The Jets and Ulbrich spent Tuesday absorbing the news and moving forward. They didn’t have long to linger before they started preparing for the Buffalo Bills on Monday (8:15 p.m. ET, ABC/ESPN) at MetLife Stadium. A victory would give them a share of the AFC East lead.

“Oh, s—,” indeed.

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WOODY JOHNSON TOLD reporters Tuesday that he made the choice to fire based on Saleh’s body of work (20-36 over three-plus seasons), not the last two games — 10-9 and 23-17 losses to the Denver Broncos and Minnesota Vikings, respectively. Saleh produced the worst winning percentage (.357) of any coach in team history with a minimum of 40 games.

“I just think we can do better,” Johnson said.

The Jets, with a healthy Rodgers and a rapidly closing championship window, went into the season with huge expectations. Johnson reinforced that sentiment in his post-firing conference call with the media, calling this probably the best roster he’s had in 25 years of ownership. Everyone in the building knew the stakes, but the gut feeling, according to a source close to Saleh, seemed to be he’d get until midseason if the team continued to sputter.

The mood in the building changed Sept. 30, the day after a sloppy and listless loss to the Broncos. The Johnson brothers and team president Hymie Elhai met with Saleh and were “out for blood,” a source close to the situation said. Woody Johnson was getting antsy even though his team was 2-2.

Despite the warning flare, Saleh was shocked when he was fired, according to sources close to the situation. The loss to the Vikings in London, where they fell behind 17-0, was too much for Woody Johnson to stomach. That it happened in London, where Johnson lived from 2017 to 2021 as the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom, may have been a contributing factor.

Citing Johnson’s ties to London, former Jets coach Eric Mangini, an FS1 analyst, said on-air days before the game that it was an “absolute must-win” for Saleh, and Johnson would be “pissed off” with a loss. In 2008, Mangini failed to make the playoffs with former Green Bay Packers legend Brett Favre as his quarterback (sound familiar?), and he was fired only hours after the final game.

Technically, Saleh wasn’t hired by Woody Johnson, who was serving the final days of his ambassadorship, and some close to the situation believe Johnson never fully embraced Saleh as his coach. When Saleh was introduced to the media Jan. 21, 2021, he hadn’t yet met or spoken to Woody Johnson. The coaching search was spearheaded by Christopher Johnson, the acting owner, and general manager Joe Douglas.

Saleh and Woody Johnson are different personalities. Saleh is a patient, stay-the-course guy; Johnson, 77, can be demanding, looking for instant results. When the Jets endured a brutal defensive stretch in 2021, allowing 175 points over a four-game span, Johnson tried to pressure Saleh into demoting Ulbrich, sources close to the situation said.

Ironically, Woody Johnson has now entrusted his team to Ulbrich, a former NFL player and longtime assistant universally admired throughout the organization. He’s popular among players. Before Saleh’s team meetings, Ulbrich had a habit of dapping up his defensive guys, including cornerback Sauce Gardner and defensive tackle Quinnen Williams. Then he sat next to them in the aisle of the team auditorium — and the players said they loved that.

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JOHNSON COULD HAVE fired Saleh after last season, but he decided to give him a fourth season — something he’d never done with a coach coming off three straight losing seasons.

He announced his decision on Christmas Eve with three games remaining, citing an improved culture, strong defense and desire to maintain continuity for Rodgers, who, despite a season-ending Achilles injury in Week 1, gave Saleh a public endorsement a few days before Johnson went public.

The future Hall of Famer also threw his support behind Douglas and offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett, a close friend of Rodgers.

To keep his quarterback happy, Johnson gave mulligans to everyone after a second straight 7-10 season. Not that he had much choice. “Woody was boxed in,” a former league executive said, “and I’m sure that didn’t make him happy.”

Johnson lost patience this season as he watched the same issues from previous years — a painfully slow starting offense and too many penalties. In fact, the Jets have almost as many first-quarter penalties (13) as points (14). He got tired of seeing his team undermined by an offense that ranked among the league’s worst (last in scoring and second to last in yards during the Saleh era).

It was supposed to be different with Rodgers, just like it was supposed to be different with Favre all those years ago. But after five games, they have scored 93 points, the same five-game total last season with Zach Wilson at quarterback.

There’s widespread speculation that Rodgers was the driving force behind Saleh’s ousting. Rodgers has emphatically denied that — stating on the “The Pat McAfee Show” on Wednesday, “As far as any of the ridiculous allegations out there, I’m not going to spend more than one sentence in response to it, and that is that I resent any of those accusations because they are patently false.”

Woody Johnson said he didn’t solicit input from Rodgers, though he did call Rodgers on the eve of the firing.

According to Johnson, they spoke for about five minutes. He said he checked on Rodgers’ sprained ankle and his mindset after his three-interception performance against the Vikings. Johnson congratulated his quarterback on becoming the ninth player in history to reach 60,000 passing yards. Saleh’s status didn’t come up.

“In terms of whether I was going to [fire him] or not, we didn’t discuss that,” Johnson said.

Rodgers said he didn’t get wind of it until he got that text in the training room Tuesday morning.

The Rodgers-Saleh relationship has been under a microscope since June, when Rodgers skipped a mandatory minicamp to vacation in Egypt. Saleh fined him. There was also the win over the New England Patriots, when Saleh tried to embrace Rodgers after a touchdown and was gently shoved by the quarterback — another viral moment.

Despite the perception of a rift, both men insisted their relationship was fine.

On the plane ride home from London, Saleh and Rodgers exchanged several texts, according to team sources. The texts were described as positive, a back-and-forth of ideas on ways to improve the offense.

On Tuesday morning, they spoke for about five minutes at the facility after Saleh was fired. On Wednesday, Saleh reached out to Rodgers to continue the conversation and they talked for another 30 minutes. Saleh doesn’t believe Rodgers influenced ownership’s decision, according to sources close to the situation.

After returning from London, Saleh made the decision to strip Hackett of his playcalling responsibility, according to sources familiar with Saleh’s thinking.

The plan was to demote him and give playcalling to passing game coordinator Todd Downing — a change ultimately made by Ulbrich. It was a tough call, knowing Rodgers’ close relationship with Hackett, but Saleh made the moves Tuesday morning. He was looking ahead to the Bills.

About a minute later, the Johnsons showed up at his office to deliver the news. Saleh requested the opportunity to address the team one last time, team sources said. He was denied.

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SOON AFTER THE news broke, the players and staff began to take steps forward and a series of meetings occurred.

By 11 a.m., the players on the leadership council — one veteran from each position group — were summoned to a meeting at the facility. The Johnsons, along with Ulbrich, addressed the council in a meeting that lasted about 10 minutes. They confirmed the coaching change and explained the rationale behind it, leaving the players with the impression that ownership had high hopes for the season under Ulbrich’s leadership.

Shortly afterward, there was a players-only meeting for about 10 minutes. It wasn’t your typical players-only meeting.

“It wasn’t like last year, for instance,” Conklin said. “We had one last year and it was like, ‘S— is kind of falling apart.’ This was more like, ‘Hey, let’s not panic. There’s a lot more season.’ Usually, with a players-only meeting, the sky is falling. This was like, ‘Hey, guys, the sky isn’t falling.'”

Rodgers spoke at the meeting, stressing the importance of accountability — the theme of the day, according to members of the leadership council. Several players spoke up. Punter Thomas Morstead, a member of the council, told reporters there can be a “walking-on-eggshells kind of feeling” when a coach is ousted in-season, with players wondering about job security with a new man in charge.

“We wanted to be open about the situation because it was just so raw at that time,” said linebacker C.J. Mosley, another council member. “We just wanted to make sure that we kind [of] took the time to really just reflect on why that happened, to let guys really express their emotions.”

Mosley said it was “definitely a wake-up call and an eye-opener for a lot of people.”

It’s a highly unusual situation. A team in the thick of contention usually doesn’t sack its coach. In the past 10 seasons, there have been four instances of a coach getting fired with at least a .400 winning percentage, per ESPN Research. But three of the four were at least 12 games into the season, out of the playoff hunt.

From all indications, Saleh didn’t lose the locker room. The team still was playing hard for him, evidenced by the late rally against the Vikings. After the firing, some players spoke glowingly of Saleh, most notably Gardner, who said, “I’m going to be completely honest. With what we’ve been saying [as a team], we’re doing it for him still.”

Then came a full-scale team meeting, led by Ulbrich. He used the opportunity to pay homage to Saleh, a close friend who had hired him in 2021. He told the players Saleh’s firing was on all of them, but the best thing they could do now was to come together as a team.

“Craziness,” Ulbrich called those first few hours. At the beginning of the day, he was game-planning for Bills quarterback Josh Allen. Now he was addressing the full team as an NFL head coach, sharing his vision and spelling out some subtle changes in the daily schedule.

His message to the team: “It’s time to lock arms” — a phrase repeated by a handful of players in interviews throughout the week.

After Tuesday’s change in leadership, one thing remains constant. Before starting his team meeting Thursday morning to begin preparations for the Bills, Ulbrich took that familiar walk up the aisle to dap up Gardner and Williams.

And they loved it.