Grant and Danny
Jets Fire Robert Saleh After A Slow Start In 2024
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Mostly players are not even in the facility unless they're getting some treatment. They're at home, but he got to work, study in the film doing the things he normally does, walk into his office first thing this morning, and he got intercepted before he got to his door to sit down at his desk. And he was told he was meeting with ownership, Woody Johnson, Chris Johnson, his brother. They promptly dismissed him. He's been fired. They have elevated defensive coordinator, Jeff Ulbrich, who is a solid disciple. Asala was five games into year four. He was 20 and 36 as the head coach of the New York Jets. Back to back seven win seasons. The last two years, last year, obviously, they lose their quarterback, Rogers and the opener. So they wanted to give him a shot with Aaron Rodgers, and he and Rogers have been butting heads. I mean, that is the worst kept secret in the league, mostly behind the scenes, but occasionally publicly as well. You've seen some weird interactions. We talked about the press conferences last week, where Rogers went after Salah for not basically coming down on the lineman for jumping off sides on false starts, rather, saying that Rogers needs to clean up his cadence. There was the weird interaction on the field where Salah went to give him a hug and Rogers kind of shoved him away. To me, this is pretty obvious. Aaron Rodgers runs that team. They went and made the deal with the devil. And maybe that's not the right phrase here, but they brought in the 40 plus year old quarterback who wants to run the show, who was angry in Green Bay because they wouldn't let him run the show. They said, here you go, sir. Here's your organization. Take us to the Super Bowl and forgetting for a moment that Rogers has really struggled and not playing well. It's been a disaster, mostly. Like Salah's defense is number one in the NFL right now. The offense is 27th. Salah fired. Rogers is going to continue to start and probably try to bring in his buddy Devonta Adams. Yeah, easy to get rid of one than the other at this point, right? Just giving contracts. Um, I felt like his days were numbered when he said the maybe Rogers has to change his cadence or clean up his cadence, whatever that was. I thought that was the most wrong thing anybody has ever said in a podium. Like the weapon that he has. Now, I'll get there in Rogers in a second, remains a lot to deal with. His first team all a lot to deal with. He's the captain. He'd like to own the team as well. He's a lot to deal with, but that's still a weapon that cadence and that thing has gotten more free plays than anybody in arcade in human history. I mean, that is a thing that needs to be emphasized and utilized. And when he said, yeah, man, I got to clean up the cadence. Wrong days are numbered. It's almost like the first time either remember in mini camera that excused absence, excuse absence thing. Yeah. When Rogers was in Egypt, I think it was. We didn't know that at the time, but instead of just coming up to the podium and lying to everyone for the betterment of either your relationship with Rogers or just to not create drama. Like let's not even make it that he had to put Rogers over and make him look good, but just to avoid in a major media market where every molehill is a mountain, everything's a thing. He came up to the podium and was like, yeah, it's an unexcused absence. He'll be here when he wants to be here. And it made Rogers the bad guy in that situation. Now, I'm not pretending like he's a victim. He chose to go to eat on one of the few times that he should have been at the office working with his team where it's mandated all off season. But that was a choice that Salah made that clearly damaged their relationship. You got to know who you're working with. Rogers is a giant pain in the ass who wants to be appealed to and appeased and told how good he is all the time. And he doesn't want you pushing back and bristling like he wants you to do it his way. So if you're going to play games with Aaron Rogers, you're going to get the horns every now and then. So between that comment and then the podium discrepancy, we need to do something different with snap count. And then Rogers saying, or we could just hold guys accountable. You knew this thing was rotten from the inside out. Yeah. So I did not expect you land on the plane from coming home from London. And then the first day you come back to work, you're gone. I was stunned when I saw this today. I thought he was going to get fired because they just don't look right. But you thought at the end of the year, right? No, somewhat sometime during the season. So you thought they'd continue to play like crap and he'd get fired. Yeah. That was definitely a possibility. I guess for me, I hadn't really thought about it beyond. I didn't think it was this right now. Yeah. I did not have right now. I'm not I'm not some sort of seer. I also don't think Salah is a great coach. Again, he's 20 and 36 overall. He has not gotten the quarterback situation correct, which is not all his fault. He has not gotten the OC situation correct, which certainly recently has nothing to do with him because you're basically placating Rogers by going and getting Nathaniel Hackett. Having said that though, Danny, you hired a defensive minded head coach. He is the defensive leader of the building, right? He is the head of the snake on defense. And since the moment he was hired, they are number one in points per drive. They are number one in EPA per play defensively. He gave you a great defense. Yep. Now your GM, Joe Douglas has to pick players on offense that make plays. Your decision at quarterback has to work. I'm not saying his hands are clean here, but when you hire a defensive minded head coach, if they give you a great defense, they kind of did the thing that they do. Like the guy you hired walked through the door. And if you want to blame him for the quarterback situation, because that's partially on him too, no problem. But I guess my point is when you hire defensive minded, you better get quarterback right. Because if you don't, it cannot work. So they are, there's, there's some things that aren't necessarily, I don't know if it's on Salah, a little bit's on Aaron Rodgers, I don't know if it's on Nathaniel Hackett. I don't know what I don't know. I do know this. Breeze Hall was excellent. I promise you that's a good run. Are we sure? Yes. Because I was sure before the year his numbers are awful. There are atrocious. Brian Bouldering had a great breakdown of this where there is just on a play that should be getting five, six, seven, eight yards. There are dudes in the backfield that are ruining it. Like they, their run game is broken. They're the worst run team right now in the NFL statistically. And they're among the worst run teams that I've, that I've watched. I mean, they can't do it. And that's with Breeze Hall and Raylan Allen, both of whom are you would think I think we feel like are really good. Yeah. Breeze Hall is explosive, can do a little bit of everything. He's got a little, I'm trying to think of the guy. Why am I playing with his name? Held out for a year, Pittsburgh Steel's running back. Yeah, he's got some league on Bell to it, the way he doesn't glide the same way, but has that kind of little bit of looseness. Breeze Hall can play. He's averaging three yards a carry. Let me ask you a question though. Why is he averaging three and their other running backs are averaging more? I'm not saying he is the problem. Like Braylan Allen, before this past week, I think was at five yards. He's at four and a half still in the mid fours. That's a pretty big discrepancy. It's a large discrepancy. I think I think it's early game. It's first down. Let's do the thing and the debris saw is getting stuffed. Listen, I haven't gone carry for carry, but remember those years where Washington starting running back was pretty pedestrian, then Chris Thompson's averaging five yards a carry on draws and getting better looks? Who knows what's true, but Allen runs hard and I like him too, but Breeze Hall's a stud. Be that as it may, they're broken right now. And instead of firing everybody or firing everyone on the offensive staff or doing something to try to fix this, they're going just for the top, the head of the snake to see if maybe that gives them a jolt. But if your evaluation of the jets is, they're a pretty talented team with some good pieces. They're season slipping away. Like they're two and three and probably should be worse than that. Like they don't look good at all. They're all that sticks below this week, which is a nice little one way ticket to two and four, perhaps right now. I think you give them a little bit more of a chance because of that seemingly locked in dead cat bounce. Doesn't mean you always win, but when a team fires a coach in season, that next game is almost always better than the several that precluded it. Wouldn't you agree with that? Yeah. I mean, that's, that's why the, the, the term has been coined, right? I mean, you look at, you know, any kind, there's a major change. I mean, Carolina is back to being terrible, but the first day it wasn't Bryce Young, everybody's skipping free in the fields and their offense was the best in the sport that weekend. You know, now they've progressed back to the mean and adult and do any and adult and things. But that happens when, when a coach, everyone's like ding dong, which is dead, we feel better about ourselves now and we go out and play a little bit better. If I'm a Jets fan, or if I'm in that front office, this move at least gives me hope that something will change. It doesn't mean solid was the whole problem. Frankly, the problem is the offense. Yes. I mean, that the problem is unequivocally and irrefutably when they have the football, not when they're defending. They're great when they're defending. This change is nothing. Nathaniel Hackett, still Nathaniel Hackett. They need Rogers who through three picks, mostly bad picks in a bad performance in London to play a lot better. None of that changes when you fire Robert Salah, but you're just hoping for a momentum shifting goalie pool, basically. Like when the team is playing like crap, maybe the goalie isn't 100% of the problem. Let me let up a soft goal or two. You've given up five goals after, you know, 25 minutes or something, but you pull the goalie because it just rattles everybody's cages a little bit and you start to walk a little straighter, a little narrower. They got the bills this weekend. If they win that game, they're in first place. You get that. I don't mean you specifically, but think about this. Buffalo's lost two in a row. The dolphins are dead. The Patriots are awful. They might be going to Drake May here in the next week or two. It's there for you. If you can just be okay on offense, and I think maybe this is a let's just see if we can motivate people to be a little bit better on that side of the ball. Yeah. This is one of those. It's worth a shot type type moves, right? Again, it's it's unfair. It's why the head coach makes so much money. It's why he's in charge. So you get this, you know, we again, we can't fire 15 people. We're not getting rid of Aaron Rodgers. There's nothing. There's only so much we can do. Our hands are pretty tied. Before this thing slips away, let's try to do this now and try to get this thing on the right track. I don't know if it's going to work long term or not, but again, I'm surprised it was today. I thought they'd go another couple of weeks. They'd be middling. And if their eval is, we're too talented to be this bad, then yeah, get rid of the culture center that the head coach. But this is basically to me, a tug of war between Aaron Rodgers and Robert Salah that Aaron Rodgers won.