(00:00) Jets fire HC Robert Saleh & name Jeff Ulbrich Interim
(24:30) Jets Owner Woody Johnson on firing Robert Saleh
PFT Live with Mike Florio
Jets fire Head Coach Robert Saleh
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Get your quote now at Progressive.com. Progressive Cash Relief Insurance Company and Affiliates National Average 12-month savings of $744 by new customers surveyed, who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations. NFL is built for chaos. And either the sky is falling or you've got suitable aspirations. There's no one between anymore. And the reality is what the standings look like. Now we're going to be completely different at the end of the season. I'm not panicked. Nobody in the building is panicked. There's always a sense of urgency. That's the most important thing. There's always going to be a sense of urgency to go out there and find wins and find efficiency on offense and continue to play great defense and special teams. But Monday nights are great opportunity to play football and do our best and try to get the result that we're seeking. That was former Jets coach Robert Sola just on Monday, stating the truth in every respect. The Jets, despite a sluggish performance against the Broncos that resulted in a one-point loss, despite digging a 17-point hole for themselves in London and almost coming back and winning the game, all they had to do was beat the Bills on Monday night. All they still have to do is beat the Bills on Monday night and they're tied for first place in the AFC East. But notwithstanding all of those realities, Robert Sola was fired out of the blue yesterday morning. Michael Holly and I will take you through what we think or know or believe happened. And we're going to try to spin it forward later in the program. But I say good morning to Michael Holly. Thank you for coming back. Thank you for joining me on what has become your kind of de facto usual Wednesday appearance on PFT Live. How are you? I'm doing well and credit to Devin McCordy by standing Devin McCordy on Tuesday. Did a nice job on what was my day last week, but he was a fine job, Devin McCordy. Now I'm happy to be back and I do expect some craziness today. You will piss me off. I think it's time. I think it's time for us to have our first big fight. So I'm looking forward to it. Not quite yet. Not quite yet. It takes me a while. Now look, I could possibly piss you off, right? So that doesn't take me long. But my approach usually is Michael. I will deliberately try to piss people off just because, I don't know, I get bored. And I think maybe the better I know someone, the more I'm willing to just kind of screw around and see how far I can push it. The thing that upsets me is when I accidentally piss someone off. Because number one, I want to be able to enjoy it. Like I got to clean up the mess on the back end, but I didn't get to enjoy it on the front and it takes me all the way back to when I was a kid. And I would do a cost benefit analysis on whether that line I was going to use while talking back to my mother was going to get me spanked with one of the very simplements in the household back in the 70s when it was not just socially accepted, but it was socially expected that you would use corporal punishment on your children when they were smartasses. And I would run the numbers in my head. I was way ahead of analytics. I had the ESPN analytics says go for it in my brain when it was time to rip off that line that was going to be worth when I got on the other end. So if I would accidentally say something that I didn't think would get me in trouble and I got spanked, I'd be very upset because I didn't get to enjoy it. I got the punishment, but I didn't get to enjoy the crime. So we're from the same era, Mike. You say spanked. In my house, it was whooped. And this is this was not the timeout generation. We didn't come from the timeout. Joe, you just go sit down and express yourself and then come back when you're all good. You know, it was Mike, we used to get it at home and at school. I remember a paddle about this big, a paddle at St. Mary's grade school, Akron, Ohio, shame on you guys. But they used to have this paddle with about nine holes in it. So like line of three rows, three holes each line. And if you acted up, if you did something that the nuns didn't like. Sister Mary Arthur, rest in peace. You did something that the nuns didn't like. You'd go and they'd give you like four or five wax. It's crazy. So I never, ESPN analytics for me was don't go for it. Never. Never. Never. No, no, I never went for it at school. Home was where I would do it because at school, I, there's something about the public beating that was worse. I'd like to take my beatings in private. That didn't bother me nearly as much as having an audience for, for the spanking, the whooping or, or whatever the case may be. And I don't remember, I don't remember a lot of that at St. Michael's school in Wheeling, West Virginia. But I do remember, I do remember, and I've told this story before, I inadvertently bumped into a nun one day who was the substitute teacher. And she dug her nails deep into my arm and left an ugly, nasty combination, bruised and cut. And, and when I went home and my mom saw it, I was six years old. She said, who did this to you? And it's like, I can't tell on the nun. I'll go to hell. So I saw, so one of the older kids. And I think they knew at the school, I think there was a reason that this nun was a substitute. And I just accidentally bumped into her. I'm like, you know, dopey little six year old kid coming in from recess and I accidentally bumped into her and I got the nails. I got the nails. I'm surprised I don't have a scar, frankly. Anyway, I might go to hell for sharing that story, but you know what, you know what? No, going anyway. But before we get to it, Michael, I need to know what title do you want to be referred to today? I think today should be we should call each other whatever it is that we would like to be known as ambassador is taken the rest of the alphabet is available. How about just for Wednesday, how about his Excellency? I mean, you know, it might be a little wordy though. It might be low. His Excellency, Michael Holly, you know, you have to do the whole thing. And our second reference, you can't go Excellency. You can't go how you got to do the whole thing all the way through. How about you? I think I'll go with future Pulitzer winner when hell freezes over. How about that? Is that too wordy? How about that? I'd like that. I'd like that very much. Okay. So, and the reason, the reason that we say ambassador somewhat derisively, and I don't know that Woody Johnson specifically requested that, it would make it a lot worse if he did. But the fact that there's an environment within the New York Jets organization that would prompt whoever it is that typed up the story yesterday that was posted on the Jets website about the firing of Robert Salah would refer to him as both chairman in one breath and ambassador in the next breath. Speaks to the atmosphere. It might just be, might just be a little toxic, a little toxic in the workplace when whoever it is that's typing up that story feels compelled to refer to the owner of the team as something he hasn't been for three and a half years, ambassador. But it's also revealing, Michael, because the last straw for Woody Johnson came in the place where he was the ambassador under the first Trump administration and will be, he expects, I'm told, per sources, again, if there's a second one. Mike, last time we talked, I don't know if it was the last time we're a couple of weeks ago, we talked, we made a reference to quarterback records, and some people aren't aren't into those I am I do believe in quarterback records. I don't know if you have a good quarterbacking record tends to translate to the field. I think we should keep ownership records to keep ownership records because that's that's revealing to what the problems are in organizations we spend so much time talking about coaching staffs and front offices. We don't spend enough time talking about owners and how owners can get in the way of production. So, Woody Johnson yesterday at Journalistically, I'm glad he spoke. But if I'm a, if I'm a Jets person corporately, I'm putting my head in my hands and shaking my head and saying, what a disaster. He told you everything you needed to know. He said, as he tried to get credibility, he said, Hey, I've been here for 25 years. I've been here for 25 years. I've done this before. Yes, Woody, you've done it before. What's your record? So, not only have they missed the playoffs for 13 straight years, as he's been there, they might you realize they have missed the playoffs 19 times in 25 years. So 75% of the time, the Jets missed the playoffs under Woody Johnson. And so, I'm not here to say Robert Salo is a great coach. I know he wasn't. And I know Nathaniel Hackett is not a great offensive coordinator. And I know there's some flaws on the roster that maybe they didn't see six weeks ago. But it's so much bigger. As you said, it's a toxic environment and starts with the capital A ambassador, Woody Johnson, and then it goes down. You can't overcome it. Most teams cannot overcome an ownership situation like this. And Michael, I agree with you completely. I usually do this in January, once six, seven, eight teams fire their coaches. But the dysfunction with any dysfunctional organization, regardless of which sports league, which industry it is. It starts with the top, especially when the person who's in charge also is the person who owns the place and doesn't answer to a board of directors or shareholders or whatever. These are multi-billion dollar football operations run as mom and pop stores. And the person in charge doesn't have to pass any tests, doesn't have to show any knowledge of business or football or human resources or human nature or anything. All you have to have is either enough money to buy the team or you have to be connected to the person who bequeathed to you when they die. That's it. That's it. And then you become an owner of a team. And just because you do it for 25 years doesn't mean you're any better at it. Jerry Jones has been GM of the Cowboys for 35 years because he made himself the GM when he bought the team. And his biggest qualification at this point is he's been doing it for 35 years. He was never qualified on the way in. Woody Johnson wasn't qualified on the way in when he decided to buy the Jets. So the dysfunction starts at the top and it manifests itself in all sorts of different ways, but it does. And we've been talking a lot this season about how the Jets have ruined quarterbacks, Geno Smith, Sam Darnard. Oh, look at how they do when they go somewhere else. Maybe there's hope for Zach Wilson. Maybe there's hope for Christian Heckenberg for Crying Out Loud. So the Jets ruin a lot of things and it all starts with ownership. And I think part of the reality, Michael, and I don't pay a whole lot of attention to what others say on other shows because number one, listening to myself for two hours a day. Is more than enough content for me, but I don't want to be accused of stealing people's ideas. I like my own ideas. I don't know how many other people are willing or able or inclined to say, Hey, folks, you can complain about the quarterback. You can complain about the coach, but let's have a conversation about the owner because the reason your crappy team is crappy is because the owner is unfit, unqualified, unable to run an organization the proper way. Yeah, if you look at it, you mentioned Jerry Jones. I'm going to put Jerry Jones in a different category, Woody Johnson. At least once upon a time, a long, long time ago, Jerry Jones came in with Jimmy Johnson and he built a team or helped, you know, depending on who you ask. And Jimmy will say, Hey, I did it and Jerry will say, you know, I was responsible. Anyway, they did build a team that had three championships in four years. Jerry Jones has built a team that has never gone through a 13 season playoff drought. So he tends to hold on coaches too long, rather than moving on, say, five games into a season. So I think Woody is in an entirely different category, the dysfunction and the clown show that you've seen that comes back. Like a recurring Broadway show, playing once again in Florin Park. Here we are, the Jets. And so I can't think of a lot of organizations who do it quite like the Jets do and I really didn't grow up as a Jets fan, some of my best friends are Jets fans, but I didn't grow up as a Jets fan. But I wanted to give them all a virtual hug yesterday, because whether they want to admit it or not, they've seen this story before. They've seen it over and over. And it's disheartening, discouraging. You know, one of the things I'll say to from time to time, Michael, and I don't think we've had this conversation. Fans tend to in fights between players and teams, they root for the laundry. They line up behind the team. They ultimately line up behind the owner because the fans are going to be there bridging generations of players. They're going to come and go. The fans are forever. Once you, once you have fully accepted that that is your team, there's nothing you can do. And you can't fire the owner. Jed York said that seven years ago, right before the 49ers stumbled into Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch because they'd gone through Jim Harbaugh, fired him, fired Jim Thompson with a fire chip, Kelly. It was a mess. Can't fire the owner. And I've noticed some Jets fans, and I really don't know how much to lean by way of truth and reality from Elon Musk's Hellscape known as X. But, you know, a lot of these Jets fans are rallying around Woody Johnson because they have no choice. How dare you say these things about our horrible, awful owner who can't own his way out of a paper bag? How dare you? Because what else are they going to do? Because it's not like he's going to wake up one day and sell the team. Oh, that's, that's something. That's something Mike. I mean, just go back. Look at it. You know, so I know, you know, Woody Johnson wasn't around. He was, is it called ambassador ring? Maybe he was ambassador ring when Robert Salah was hired. And that was Chris. Chris was in charge of that, that hiring cycle. But yeah, he, he didn't make things better when like year one, year two after Zach Wilson, he goes out and he says we're a quarterback away from being a championship team. And he's mad about that. He's mad about the quarterback situation. Then he makes Salah fire the other Lefloor, Michael Lefloor, as his offensive coordinator. Salah brings in Nathaniel Hackett because he knows it gives him the best shot of getting Aaron Rodgers. The same reason the Broncos hired Nathaniel Hackett. They thought they were going to get Aaron Rodgers. And so when Salah wants to make a change, because Woody says, Hey, I'm tired of doing the same thing over and over. Okay, you're tired of doing the same thing over and over? Okay. Well, you know what I want to do. I want to take care of the biggest problem on the team because my defense hasn't given up really defense hasn't given up more than 17 points this year. You know, the pick six, but take the pick six out. We haven't given up more than 17 points. So I'm going to demo Nathaniel Hackett. And then when that happens, and you tell me a counselor, I'm going to call you a counselor. Future Pulitzer Prize winner and counselor Florio. One health reasons over. Yeah, good health reasons over. Right. Tell me, tell me about the circumstantial evidence here. So Robert Salah goes to work yesterday and he says, All right, I'm going to make a change. I'm going to make the owner happy. I'm going to make a change. And Nathaniel Hackett is going to be demoted. I'm going to promote the passing game coordinator. And suddenly, just as he's as he's making that move, maybe Nathaniel Hackett finds out somehow word gets to Aaron Rodgers. Word gets to Woody Johnson. Woody and Chris come to his office. And instead of making a change, he's fired. And then we hear later that Aaron Rodgers had nothing to do with it. I don't know. I'm not the smartest guy, but I do have common sense. That scene was very, very coincidental to me. I don't know what you say about that one. Well, and Michael, just to bring it into even sharper focus, they actually had a staff meeting yesterday during which Robert Salah announced to all of the members of the New York Jets coaching staff. Nathaniel Hackett had lost his play calling and game day responsibilities, Todd Downing. And some thought that Hackett was fired. When I first caught wind of this yesterday and started working on it, put the reporter hat on a title that few will ever give me. And I can't argue that I've actually earned over the years. But, but, my understanding was when you win your Pulitzer. That's true. My Pulitzer for fiction. I want it for fiction. I don't care about the reporting stuff. Anyway, as long as it check clears, I don't care what they call me. Anyway, he wasn't fired, but I got the sense. It was kind of like, well, you know, he can stay if he wants to. It was kind of like, they're really going to make anything for you to do anymore once this happens. And I think the deeper goal was to maybe pivot this away from Aaron Rodgers and Igor running the show, right? Wasn't that what it was? Was it Dracula and Igor? It was Igor Dracula or Frankenstein? I can't remember. Frankenstein. Oh, it's Frankenstein. It was Renfield. Renfield and Dracula, Igor and Frankenstein. Whatever it is, Hackett is the Renfield or the Igor. And Rodgers is the Dracula or the Frankenstein, Dr. Frankenstein. So, yeah, Hackett finds out. Hackett tells Rodgers. Rodgers makes a phone call because Rodgers runs the team. Look, the worst thing that ever could have done, Michael, is accept the $35 million that he gave up last year in salad. Remember when he did that and everybody's like, "Hey, Aaron Rodgers is a great guy." No, Aaron Rodgers is trying to take control. And the best way to take control is to give somebody something you have no obligation to give them, and then you can hold it over them whenever you want something in the future for the rest of your life when you're talking about $35 million. So, there's no way they're going to make a move without him because I think his ultimate leverage is, "I'll just walk away. I'll just retire. I'll just leave. I got better things to do." And I wouldn't be surprised if he hasn't hinted at that at some point over the last two years. I don't need this. And so, okay, well, we got to keep this guy around because we need him so we better do what he wants. It's been the vibe from the moment he walked through the door. You know, Mike, I was just thinking about this yesterday because I agree with you 100%. You know, Aaron Rodgers is running the organization. He's ambassador too. Call him Ambassador Frankenstein or Ambassador Eagle or whatever, but he's running this. He's running the organization. And I was thinking, like, how many times have teams turned their organizations over to a quarterback on a second or third franchise and celebrated at the end of it? So twice. So, the Patriots, shame on them. The Patriots thought that Tom Brady was done after 2019. All he won it was, you know, a two-year contract, $25 million a year. He wanted a Drew Brees contract. The Patriots wouldn't give it to him and he went to Tampa. He took over the franchise with some pushback. We remember from Bruce Arians. He had some pushback, but ultimately he got his way. He was able to bring Gronk out of retirement. Antonio Brown, he got some of his guys and they were happy with the result. Brady did it. Peyton Manning, when the Colts gave up on him and said, "Hey, injury is just too much for us. We got the number one pick. We're going to take Andrew Luck." He took over the Broncos and they had great results. But that's Peyton Manning and Tom Brady. So, multiple champions, both of those guys. Aaron Rodgers is a multiple MVP winner. I've never looked at him as those guys. I don't think he's like that individually, yes, but collectively, collaboratively. I don't think that's his gift. And so what you get with Aaron Rodgers in decline, not bad, but in decline, taking over your franchise is what you've always gotten. Dysfunction, chaos, and Rodgers is the one who asked for accountability. He says, "Hold them accountable, Robert. Robert tried to hold your guy accountable and you wouldn't let him do it. You blocked them." So, it's just really more of the same, just different names, different numbers, but more of the same nonsense. It's a great comment that you make because I was texting with someone yesterday about Rodgers and how he is, how he's become, and the comment that the other person made was, "Pate Manning and Tom Brady were actually worse than Rodgers. They just hit it better." Rodgers doesn't care. And Rodgers did reach that point probably three, four years ago where he made his heel turn and he got to the point where he just doesn't care anymore. He spends his whole life obsessed with what people think and he finally decided at age 37, 38, "I just don't care anymore," and he doesn't try to. And I still think he does make some effort, make some effort to conceal what he's doing, what he's doing is running the show and the best evidence of it came yesterday. What does access mean? Access means a quinceanera for Lupita and most to come. Access means an extra room for La Boella. Access means going from dreaming to achieving. No matter your goals, U.S. Bank Access Commitment Programs provide the tools to help you reach your financial aspirations. Access your financial goals at usbank.com/accesso. Equal Housing Lander, alguno cervisius buelen está resolón inles solen inles, miamiro FDIC. You know, we all find ourselves in situations where we can feel a little bit nervous. 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Let's hear a little bit, Michael mentioned earlier Woody Johnson yesterday speaking to the media. Here is Ambassador and Chairman Woody Johnson on his decision, his and his alone to fire Robert Salah. This is one of the most talented teams that has ever been assembled by the New York Jets. I wanted to give this team the most opportunity to win this season. I feel that we had to go in a different direction and that's why I did that today. This change, the change that we made today that I made, I believe will bring new energy and positivity that will lead to more wins starting now. When you make a decision like this, it's not an easy decision. It's quite a lot of soul searching and looking back at my experience in sports, particularly with the New York Jets for 25 years. I took it very seriously and that's why I made a decision because I thought and think that it's going to make us more competitive and it's going to help us reach the goals that the team and I want to accomplish. It's always hard to tell when it's audio only because there was no press conference. It was just a conference call whether the person is reading from PR prepared script or speaking off the cuff. I interpret the audio there as talking points with loose ad lib that they sat down and came up with this as an organization. Here's what you're going to say and one thing we learned from the off season hard knocks with the New York Giants, what the truth is and what you're going to say are two different things in many cases. This was the best way to put lipstick on the pig. This was the best spin they could come up with and they were spinning yesterday. I saw plenty of reporters attributing self serving jets news per sources and I hate that. I had push back on our report yesterday that Robert Salah was escorted out of the building and my response is put some, give me a statement on the record. Because I don't traffic in team or league self serving off the record. If it's something that helps you put your name on it and I'll put it out there. And I feel like what we saw and heard, not saw but heard from Woody Johnson was their best effort to make this look good. And, you know, again, citing your 25 years of experience. I don't know that that's as impressive as ambassador because look at the 25 years. Right. The last three coaches, he's hired and I guess one of them, one of them did, you know, coordinate a Super Bowl defense eventually. But the last three coaches, he's fired, top, a higher, top goals, Adam Gates and Robert Salah. So it's not like, hey, you know, look back. Look at all these guys have hired. Look what they're doing now. And you thought I was crazy when I hired them then. But now look where they are. I mean, Bowls, a good coordinator. Bowls is doing all right, Tampa. He's doing all right. He's doing all right so far. He's doing all right. He's doing all right. I don't know. Is Adam Gay still, is he still in the game? I don't even know. I don't know where Adam Gates is right now. And I think Robert Salah is also a good coordinator, but head coach just wasn't happening for him. But you're right. You're right about the talking points. I got that yesterday too. You said it perfectly. It's talking points like somebody coming by with like Post-its. You know, he's talking and they got some Post-its next. Hey, remember this? Remember this one we want to hit? This is not Aaron Rodgers. We got to make this point. It wasn't Aaron Rodgers. This is the best decision. Why'd you do it after five games? Because, you know, you needed a change, a different voice, energy in the building. And if you really want to pander to Jets fans, you say, I'm tired of hearing the same thing over and over. Because a lot of Jets fans, hey, I don't want to hear this. I don't want to talk about a struggling offense anymore. I don't want to hear patience. But the irony there, as I mentioned earlier, the irony there is that he's been doing the same thing over and over. And I don't want to take away the enthusiasm that some Jets fans may have, but I couldn't help it. I went down a rabbit hole yesterday, Mike, and I went back and I looked at the commentary when Robert Salah was hired by the Jets. This was a slam dunk hire. Robert Salah, slam dunk hire. Nine teams wanted to interview him. It came down to Robert Salah and Arthur Smith. They were the finalists for the Jets. I've forgotten about all this stuff. And, oh, he's been successful everywhere. He's been. He took the last ranked defense in San Francisco in 2016. He turned them into a top five unit. He's going to bring offensively, too. He's going to bring a guy who understands imaginative offenses in Michael Affluor and everybody respects him. And he's got great knowledge of the game and all this stuff. So we do this over and over. They got the guy. The guy's not the problem. And I won't be surprised. I just said, I don't know about him as a head coach. But I won't be surprised if he gets a second opportunity, you'll see the Sam Darnold, the Sam Darnold being of Robert Salah. He'll go somewhere else and do what Todd Bowles is doing right now in Tampa, at least having a playoff team. Maybe not a championship team, but leading a playoff team. It's in the walls, Mike. It's in the carpet. It's really not the guy. And I think that other teams will come to that conclusion as they try to sell Robert Salah to a fan base. If he goes somewhere else, picks the right spot as defensive coordinator, does what he did in San Francisco, he'll be back in that mix again because of Sam Darnold and Gino Smith and Zach Wilson. If Zach Wilson becomes something between now and whenever Robert Salah would be in position to be interviewed and hired again by someone else and Todd Bowles. Whatever Todd Bowles doesn't Tampa now that they don't have Tom Brady and they made it to the playoffs last year, got to the final eight and so far this year they're in position to get to the postseason again. So I'm with you across the board on everything you're saying. Now, we had mentioned the potential influence of Aaron Rodgers on the ultimate decision yesterday to fire Robert Salah. Ambassador Johnson with someone sitting next to him pointing to what to say on the post it notes, explaining whether he consulted with Aaron Rodgers on the decision and whether what he Johnson spoke to GM Joe Douglas before moving forward. I did talk to him the night before, but we didn't discuss this, you know, specifically at all. I mean, we're basically talking about the previous game and, you know, his breaking 60,000 yards 60,000 record and accomplishing that. Sorry, got hit so many times, and then how was he feeling and no, no, in terms of whether I was going to do it or not. No, we didn't discuss that. I did talk to Joe Douglas about it, but at the end of the day, this was my decision and my decision along. And, you know, I've had enough experience doing these things. First time I've done it this early, but I thought, you know, once again, I thought and think that this will help the team, help the talented team achieve the goals that the team wants and that I want and the fans want. You know, people sometimes think circumstantial evidence is less than direct evidence, but circumstantial evidence can be every bit as powerful. The best example is I go to bed. There's no snow on my car. I wake up the next morning. There's two inches of snow. Circumstantial evidence is it snowed while I was asleep. And I say that because when I was practicing law, there were so many times people would say, no, I didn't consider the fact that this person was over the age of 55 when they were fired, whatever the case may be, they would never admit. You're never going to sit down on a witness stand and say, yeah, that's why I did it because it gives up the whole case. So you have to prove it all through circumstantial evidence. And you already laid it out perfectly. The timeline from yesterday points directly to Aaron Rogers as at least knowing, reacting, doing something once he found out that Renfield slash Igor had been kicked out of the lab slash castle. So, and he can tell the truth that he didn't talk about it to Aaron on Monday night. There was no reason to talk about it on Monday night. Tuesday morning. Tuesday morning is when someone got word to the guy who runs the show, the ambassador in the ivory tower, that I better do something because this guy's about to make a move that's really going to piss off the guy who gave me $35 million when he didn't have to. Mike, when he calls Aaron Rogers, is he called directly, or does someone does a go between, please hold, please hold for Mr. Johnson. It's probably more like please hold for Mr Rogers. No, no, no, please, no, I'm talking about Woody calling Aaron, it would because they're both, they both got this thing. So maybe Woody's, you know, liaison says, Mr. Rogers, Ambassador, Ambassador Johnson would like to speak with you to have a second. And so you got the, and then Aaron's people, they go back and forth before they can have this a natural conversation, but that is one of those posted conversations. That's one of those posted notes. Your decision alone, it's right there. Your decision on hit that point, because that's what people are going to be talking about, Ambassador, your decision alone and you got to make it clear that it was yours, but Mike, if they had a conversation, we had a conversation, but we didn't talk about this specifically. So what did you say? Hey, Aaron, you got to do a better job taking care of the football. You have three interceptions in London. You're not reading defense as well enough. What are you saying? And if you've talked about being hit, okay, that's the entry point to, yeah, I'm taking too many hits. It's not working right now. And I think Robert doesn't have the answer or something to that, to that degree. There is no way that the owner of the Jets and the quarterback of the Jets had a conversation on Monday night and Robert Salah's name didn't come up. I just, I just find that hard, but that's, that's impossible. I think that is absolutely impossible. And when we speak of circumstantial evidence, we saw it last week when after the loss to the Broncos, Robert Salah at his press conference talks about issues with the cadence that trademark Aaron Rogers barking out that prompts defensive lineman to jump off side, gives your free play. He's been doing it forever. All of a sudden they have five false starts. Salah mentions cadence. Rogers says there's nothing wrong with the cadence. Hold the guys accountable to what you said earlier. The next day, Salah says, oh no, it's not cadence. It's the overall operation. And then later in the week, Salah got a little, got a little, got a little, not quite pissy, but it was like, hey, there is no cadence issue that was created. Yeah, by you. But it just speaks to the tension. And then in London, Rogers says, there's a driving force that's trying to create a wedge between him and Salah. The whole thing was just weird. And it gets back to the 35 million. When you accept that gesture, you are even further indebted to the man that you are expecting to turn around a downtrodden franchise that hasn't been to a Super Bowl since the 1968 season and somehow deliver on the promise that Brett Favre brought to town 16 years ago. And again, dysfunctional teams do dysfunctional things because they're led by dysfunctional owners who don't realize that that's not the way you do it. You don't put the quarterback essentially in charge. Michael, I go back to, and I wish I'd articulated this at the time. For all I know I did. Who knows? When Aaron Rogers skipped out on the mandatory mini camp, we got so caught up in. Well, he was at the OTA days and the mandatory mini camp is basically an extension. Oh, and he didn't realize, which is baloney, frankly, that the mandatory mini camp might be that second week of June. It's always the second week in June. I went back to, you know, his last seven years with the Packers. It was always that week. At the end of the day, just the mere fact that he did it. You can go to Egypt anytime you want for the rest of your life when you're done playing football. The fact that he did it shows a fundamental lack of that he's the coach. I play for him. I defer to him. I work for him. He wants me to be there. I'll be there. I'm not going to disrespect the process. Regardless of who the coach is, I'm going to know my role and do my job and be here for this mandatory mini camp because my concern was what message does this send to the locker room. Now that we're breaking down the aftermath of this, what message did it send to the rest of the world? And I think it reinforces the fact that the basic deference, respect and obedience that we expect to see a player have to a head coach at the NFL level or any level of football. It just wasn't there. So why should we be surprised when he finds out Hackett's going to be demoted and basically in a position where what do I, what am I doing here now? Yeah, Rogers activates the bat phone and coincidentally saw us out minutes later. Mike, it's, he was on notice. Robert Sallow was on notice as soon as he find him, which was the right thing to do. By the way, you miss a mandatory mini camp and you're the quarterback and you're the same quarterback who said, before the season was over, before the seven and ten, 2023 season was over, you're the, you're the one who said, Hey, the Jets have to cut out all the crap. All the stuff that hasn't, that doesn't have anything to do with football and prevents us from getting focused and aligned with winning. If you're the guy who said that and then you miss a mandatory mini camp, then you should be fined by going to Egypt. But Rogers bristled at it and he never forgot it. And I think with those guys we mentioned earlier, you know, Brady and Manning, they bristled too. To be honest, to be fair about it, they would bristle at any type of pushback when they feel like they've reached a certain point in their careers where they could do what they wanted. Neither one of them would miss a mandatory camp though at that stage. They wouldn't. And the second thing, this is the difference between what Brady had in Tampa and what Manning had in Denver, a buffer, a competent buffer. So I think that's where the breakdown was, where Brady could go to Byron left which or Christensen, one of those guys, and that would kind of be a buffer from Bruce Arians at times. And we know Manning brought his whole operation and he had people and Adam Gates was one of them, a low level employee at that point. We wouldn't really have to talk to Gary Kubiak, he could just do his own thing or John Fox, he wouldn't have to talk to those guys, I got my own offense. But we all know Nathaniel Hackett wasn't a competent buffer, so it was worse for Salah. I'm going to turn it over to Nathaniel Hackett and Rogers. I can't do that. I can't do that and hold on to my job. And ultimately, he didn't hold on to his job. When he tried to make a switch from Hackett, he couldn't hold on to it anymore. Well, and I think Rogers wanted Hackett to be the buffer because Rogers knew he could dominate that relationship and control that relationship. We've seen plenty of clips of the sideline interactions where Hackett's talking to Rogers and Rogers is just like disinterested, not paying attention, not showing him the respect that he should have within this broader structure of player and coach. And, you know, when we think about the fine that was imposed on Rogers for missing the mandatory minicamp, I remember thinking, "Oh, this is going to be good the next time he talks to the media because Aaron, Aaron's going to be upset and it's going to be fun. It's going to be good for business. It's going to give us content." And he was fine with it. Like, he almost didn't care. It's almost like, and we had the Sean Payton reference to Ferris Bueller as an attempt to characterize Bonix, which I still don't understand. But Rogers reacted a little bit like John Bender to get in fine. Like, you know, you got to come back for detention next weekend. Fine, I don't care. I'll do it twice. I'll do it every week. I don't care. Like, that was his attitude. Are you going to find me? I don't care. And, and again, it just speaks to whether or not that relationship that you fundamentally need to have between player and coach was in existence and was that relationship completely thrown out the window yesterday when it was time for ambassador to call the delicate genius. That's my unofficial title for him and let him know what was going on or vice versa. Oh, right. One more sound bite because we haven't mentioned 41 minutes into the program that Jeff Albrecht, the defensive coordinator, will now be the head coach, which of course, for this team with a great defense, you take out the guy who was so good of a defensive coordinator that he got a head coaching job. He's gone. And now the guy who was coordinating the defense under the guy who was the great defensive coordinator is now the interim head coach. So he's got less time. You have a a net drain significant on your defensive coaching expertise. Good luck with that. Here's Jeff Albrecht, the new interim head coach on making changes to the team and the team's struggling offense. When it comes to the team underperforming the last that this season, do you think there has to be radical changes or do you think you guys have to do what you've been doing but do it better. I think everything's on the table right now. We're not playing to our potential. We're not, you know, we're too talented to be putting the product we put out there the last couple weeks, especially so we have to take a hard look at everything and be honest with ourselves. And do you know who's going to call plays for you? I've got tremendous respect for this offensive staff. I do. Every single guy on it. In the next couple days, you know, like, in my opinion, these guys are going to be here on Monday night football for us. And they're going to they're going to do an amazing job saying that in the next, I mean, this has been four hours fresh for me to take this role on everything will be assessed, the process, the responsibilities, et cetera. But I do not foresee any changes in the staff. Yeah, in other words, you know, Salah was right about what he was doing with Hackett, but I just got this job. I don't want to get fired in five minutes. So, yeah, we're not changing anything. But what it'll be is it won't be a cosmetic change. It'll be something that we don't really observe or notice unless we're watching very carefully to the interactions and is taught down and calling the plays. Remember the mystery in 2022 who's actually calling little players for the Patriots? Oh, is it Joe judge? Oh, is it Mapitricia? Who's got the headset, that kind of stuff? I think that's something that Jets reporters should be watching going forward. If the titles don't change, monitor the behaviors during the game to see who it really is that might be running the show offensively. Mike, I'm asking you, do you think Aaron Rodgers will allow his new head coach to make a switch? Well, Aaron Rodgers, I'm serious. Well, Aaron Rodgers allow Albrecht to go from Nathaniel Hackett to Downey. You make the switch? Hey, I have tremendous respect for your guy. I'm not going to embarrass him. I'm not going to strip away his title, but very subtly, I'm going to shift most of the play calling responsibilities to somebody else. Because it seems like when that was about to happen, Saleh got fired. So why would Rodgers, and I'm saying it this way, why would Rodgers allow Albrecht to do it, but wouldn't allow Saleh to do it? Here's the way to do it, Michael. And I hadn't really thought of this. So as I articulate my thoughts and turn them into words, I might get it wrong, but which makes it no different than any other day, frankly. I think that the right way for Albrecht to do it is to have a conversation with Rodgers about the offense and to gently lay out the seeds of an idea and hope that Rodgers on his own comes to the conclusion that Albrecht wants him to come to. Because I think that's the only way you pull it off is if you sprinkle just enough so Rodgers decides this is what we need to do and takes ownership of the decision and feels like he's the one who, in exchange for the 35 million that he gave to the Jets, is deciding things. That's the only way to do it. So he's basically got to manipulate Rodgers. He's got to be able to get him to think he's coming to the decision on his own that Albrecht needs him to come to. I think that's the only way it works. Yeah, it's one of those things of, hey, I've got an idea. We've done this as parents. I've got an idea, but talk to the kids about it and make it think it's their idea. Or I don't know how things happen in your house. My wife does that to me all the time. Okay, she wants me to do something. She'll tell me. She's a smarter person by far. So she's able to just say it in a way. I'm like, you know what, I think we should do this, which is what she wanted to do in the first place. But I finally got on board with it. And so I think the problem here is that Rodgers is used to doing things a certain way. So if Todd Downing comes in and says, hey, we need to have more pre snap motions. That's a deal breaker because Aaron Rodgers doesn't do that. He doesn't like that. So you can have somebody calling different place, but can they change? Can they tweak the office? Are they allowed to tweak it? I don't think so. So you might as well, you might as well stay with Hackett because I don't think you're going to be restricted to what you can do. And it's too bad. So this is back to dysfunctional organizations. Because you think about some of the great organizations, great organizations have made some changes and it's led to Super Bowl runs. Think about what John Harbaugh did in Baltimore. And I think it was 2012 and it won a championship. They switch. They switch to Jim Caldwell late in the season. And they figure it out. And that's when you got Super Joe Flacco and Anquam Bolden coming down with every big catch seemingly. They made us change. And then more recently, they have won a Super Bowl, but when the Lions switched to Ben Johnson, it had unlocked one of the great offenses we've seen in the NFL in the last, you know, four to five years. So it can work if the players are on board. It all seems ridiculously premature until we consider the Aaron Rodgers angle. One of the things Tony Dungy texted yesterday in 1999. My Tampa Bay Buccaneers were two and three and we went on to the NFC Championship game. I'm glad I didn't get fired after week five that year. On the surface, it makes no sense. And I said this yesterday when it was fresh. You beat the bills on Monday night. You're tied for first place in the division. You got another primetime game against the Steelers on Sunday night football six days later. You're four and three through seven games if you win the next two and the Jets have shown me enough that they could. Now, now, I think it's going to be harder. They could still win, but it's going to be harder. I think it all points back to what you said early on. And the circumstantial evidence is there. The snow is on the car. We went to bed and there was no snow on the car. We wake up the snows on the car. This was Hackett is about to be completely neutered and/or put in a position where his only face saving option is to walk away. So Rogers activates bat phone and out goes solid. And by the way, Michael, Michael, we have put the crew to work here with hidden cameras and diligence and shoe leather and maybe slipping a 20 to the right person, but we have obtained exclusive. You will see it only here, folks. You better be ready for this. Sit down. Sit down. If you're standing up. Sit down. Exclusive video of the things that went down yesterday. There it is. There's exactly. There's exactly how it went down yesterday. You thought the room was empty. You know, when I saw the rough cut of this yesterday, the room was empty. But no, there's someone waiting. There's someone waiting for Tommy. There's someone waiting inside. So that takes a lot of skill, journalistically, to get to the video. Oh, that's great. What actually happened yesterday. All right. Well done. That's the award winner there. Now, here's what we're going to do. That's Emmy. That's Emmy. You're going to, not only going to win a Pulitzer, you're going to win an Emmy. The show will win an Emmy for that illustration. Beautiful. Well, the best chance of any prize to be won would be something like that where I had absolutely nothing to do with it. So, well done, EJ and the rest of the crew that put that together. Now, let's take a break because here's what we're going to do. We're going to do something that I doubt that you're going to hear or see elsewhere today. But I don't know because I don't pay attention. We're going to spin it forward. Who will be the coach of the Jets after the 2024 season? We'll do that after our first break of the program. We'll be right back. [music] What does access mean? Access means "a quinceanera for Lupita, and knows to come." Access means an extra room for Labuela. Access means going from dreaming to achieving. No matter your goals, U.S. Bank Access Commitment Programs provide the tools to help you reach your financial aspirations. Access your financial goals at usbank.com/accesso. 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