You know who needed this more?
It wasn’t the players. It certainly wasn’t the fans who stuck it out in the rain at MetLife Stadium.
Head coach Aaron Glenn needed the Jets’ 17-12 victory over the Cleveland Browns on Sunday afternoon. My guess is that had the Jets lost, offensive coordinator Frank Reich might have been the head coach this week.
The Jets were awful again, letting a 10-6 fourth-quarter lead slip away. They got a fortuitous break: Browns punter Corey Bojorquez fumbled a snap, and backup linebacker Terrin Wallace recovered. Without that mistake, the game might have ended differently.
To the Jets’ credit, they took advantage. The Browns led 12-10 six minutes earlier on Deshaun Watson’s 29-yard touchdown pass to Denzel Boston, but they missed the extra point.
This is a hard sell for owner Woody Johnson to bring his beleaguered coach back. Fans booed the Jets all day. Had the Jets lost, the chants of “FIRE GLENN” would have reverberated through the crowd.
The Jets have shown you they have not made any progress. The Week 1 win against the Tennessee Titans is now fool’s gold, since the Titans are winless through five games with no hope in sight.
This is a team that has struggled to score points. The defense gives up way too many big plays. They are often undisciplined, and they mismanage the clock. This is a poorly coached team.
They had more penalties that had an effect on the Jets running the offense where they would not get a first down.
Sunday was no different than any other game the Jets have played.
This is why it’s hard to feel good. The Jets head coach can say his team gutted it out, and that’s true. But I can also say the Jets were lucky, and that luck eventually runs out. It isn’t sustainable. It also helped that it was raining, which likely kept Watson and Jets quarterback Geno Smith from throwing for fear of an interception.
The Jets didn’t quit or fold when they could have at many points in the game, and that’s why Glenn gets a reprieve to coach another two games at least.
Johnson has to be relieved that he did not have to fire Glenn this soon. He would love to see the coach he hired do well. Firing another coach this early in the season would also be a bad look, and head coaching candidates might not want to coach the Jets. Two years ago, Johnson fired Robert Saleh after a 2-3 start, a move that looked like panic. This is different. Glenn is coming off a 3-14 season, and the Jets have shown no progress since. Johnson would be justified if he fired him now.
Glenn should have been fired after last season. He was overmatched at games and did not seem ready for the job. The fans lost trust and patience with him after that hopeless 3-14 year.
The bar is so low that if Glenn showed some slight improvement, he would be back next season.
With the Jets at 2-3, Glenn has a chance to show he can be the guy next season and beyond. It’s hard to believe the Jets are beating the New England Patriots at Foxborough in the next game. But they should beat the winless Miami Dolphins at home, which would put them at 3-4 and match last season’s win total.
If the Jets get to 3-4, Glenn likely gets a full season to show he’s the guy. It would be too late to make a coaching change by then. I doubt Reich or anyone would make a difference with the season likely falling on the wayside.
At this point, the Jets head coach just wants a chance.
I have no idea where the Jets go from here. It’s hard to be optimistic after watching this game. This is not a playoff team, and this is not a winning team. That’s okay. But the Jets need to show progress from now until the end of the year for Glenn to coach another season.
Glenn was lucky yesterday. He knows it, too.
For him, it was better to be lucky than good on this Sunday. It’s all he can muster.
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