It didn’t take an exposé from The Athletic to know that the New York Jets are an absolute mess. But what Wednesday’s article penned by Dianna Russini and Zack Rosenblatt did was further shine a light on just how dysfunctional the organization is under a paranoid head coach and an offensive coordinator in over his head.
Russini and Rosenblatt spoke to 30 sources within and outside the organization. They painted the picture that the team was filled with excuse-making after Aaron Rodgers went down with an Achilles injury just three snaps into his Jets tenure. That started at the top with head coach Robert Saleh, who, according to reports, wept behind closed doors, saying that it was “unfair” that the New York Giants didn’t get as much negative coverage.
Maybe Saleh has a point, but the Giants didn’t see injuries to their offensive line, and playing three different quarterbacks became a crutch for their head coach to use as an excuse. Yes, the article details that after a 4-7 start, Saleh reportedly researched how teams led by the NFL’s best coaches performed without their starting quarterback. With Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin the lone exception, “That became Saleh’s battle cry as the Jets’ losses piled up and criticism mounted: What do you expect? We lost Aaron Rodgers.”
Yes, there was an inner mutiny between coach Brian Daboll and defensive coordinator Wink Martindale, which led to the latter’s departure. But somehow, the Giants still look in better shape than the Jets. And even after Daboll has been painted pretty poorly in the press this offseason, he never was paranoid enough to demand to look at members of his coaching staff’s phones to see who was texting reporters.
No, that was Saleh.
Rosenblatt and Russini reported in December that Zach Wilson was reluctant to return to the starting lineup after being benched in favor of Tim Boyle. Wilson was told he would be inactive for the remainder of the season and traded in the offseason. And behind an offensive line that saw 13 different starting combinations in 17 games, who could blame Wilson?
The problem here is the Jets took more issue with the “leaks” in the building than a player reluctant to play for a dysfunctional franchise that has stunted his growth and development at every twist and turn. Wilson isn’t blameless here, but why would he want to risk injury after being told he’d be inactive for the remainder of the season and later traded?
In the aftermath of that December report, Russini received criticism from Aaron Rodgers, who later implored on The Pat McAfee Show, “That’s a problem with the organization. We need to get to the bottom of whatever this is coming from and put a stop to it privately because there’s no place in a winning culture … and this isn’t the only time. There’s been a bunch of other leaks.”
This is the same Rodgers who unknowingly indicted himself as the team’s biggest distraction while bemoaning about “leaks” nearly a month later. And this was while he was still making weekly appearances on The Pat McAfee Show, where he’s been known to dabble in the world of conspiracy theories and accuse ABC employees of being pedophiles.
“Anything that doesn’t have anything to do with winning needs to be assessed. Anything in this building that we’re doing, individually or collectively that has nothing to do with real winning needs to be assessed. Everything that we do has to have a purpose,” Rodgers told reporters. “If you want to be a winning organization…everything that you do matters, and the bullsh*t that has nothing to do with winning needs to get out of the building.”
Rodgers’ issues with leaks apparently did not sit well with Saleh, who was even more paranoid in the aftermath of the Wilson story:
That sent Saleh into a tailspin. The coach held a meeting with his staff two days later where he asked the leaker to reveal himself, according to multiple people in attendance. “If you come forward now, you won’t get in trouble,” he told them while threatening to take their cell phones. Staffers were bemused by Saleh’s obsession with the Wilson story and his reaction to it.
This is the same Saleh who texts back and forth with former WFAN host Joe Benigno. Yes, the same Benigno who says he consulted Saleh about playing Wilson vs. the Houston Texans — a game in which he completed 27-of-36 passes for 301 yards and two touchdowns — and personally texted New York’s head coach with an offer to script the team’s first 15 offensive plays. From the sounds of it, he couldn’t be worse than Nathaniel Hackett.
But when your head coach is paranoid to the point where he complains about negative coverage and demands to know which one of his coaches is texting with reporters, it doesn’t exactly bode well for the health of the franchise or the fact that the same head coach is texting buddies with one of most jilted Jets fans you’ll ever meet.
The report here lays bare the dysfunction plaguing the Jets, revealing a culture rife with excuses, paranoia, and internal strife. Beyond the on-field turmoil of coaching clashes and player disgruntlement, these revelations raise serious concerns about the franchise’s overall health and trajectory.
