The Jets landed their head coach with the hiring of Robert Saleh on Thursday night.
Now what?
Saleh has a big task ahead of him, along with general manager Joe Douglas. There’s a lot of good feeling around the Jets after Saleh’s hire, but this one is still a team that just went from 2 to 14, has a big question mark on the quarterback and a list with more needs than a newborn.
It won’t be news for Saleh, who did homework for the Jets just as they did with him. He knows what he’s getting into and clearly believes the Jets ’job is good, because he probably would have had other offers if he had waited.
The to-do list is long for Saleh and Douglas. The following are the areas to be worked on first:
Hire staff
The technical staff is not underestimated. The media and fans focus on the head coach on these hires and usually on a coordinator, but it’s much deeper than that. A bad coaching body can sink a good head coach. One of Todd Bowles’ biggest problems when he was in the Jets was his coaching staff. Rex Ryan had a great coaching staff at the start of his tenure and then started losing key pieces and substitutes didn’t work out.
We know Saleh wants to take Mike LaFleur with him from San Francisco to be his offensive coordinator. LaFleur is very thoughtful in the NFL and will lead Kyle Shanahan’s offense, so this move should get high scores. Beyond LaFleur, however, there has been no whisper about who else will come with him.
My key contract after the offensive coordinator is the offensive line coach. The Jets desperately need a good one. Douglas has said he wants to build the offensive line and that young players will need good training. Bill Callahan did wonders with Eric Mangini and Ryan with the Jets line. Recently, the training in this room has not been good.
It is not yet known if Saleh will be the defender of the game. Even if he isn’t, he will surely have a big help in the weekly defensive plan. The Jets want him to coach the whole team and not focus on one side of the ball, but his defensive experience helped him get that job.
One of the things the Jets liked about Saleh is that he’s been in the NFL for 16 years. Some of the other candidates have much less experience in the NFL. Saleh knows people. He should be able to train good staff.
What to do with Sam?
With the decision to train at the helm, Sam Darnold’s decision now sinks into the organization. Do the Jets stay with Darnold one more year or take a quarterback with pick # 2 on the draft?
Sure, Saleh has given the team some opinions on this issue during the interview process, but the Jets have yet to make a decision. Douglas and Saleh will weigh the options and figure out which direction to go. The Jets need to evaluate the college quarterbacks, find out what they could get in a trade for Darnold, and weigh all the factors before making a decision on modifying the franchise.
Evaluate your own
Saleh needs to delve deeper into the list before team leadership starts thinking about free agency and the draft. The decisions on the list will ultimately be Douglas ’, but GM has said it wants the head coach to be its partner, so the two will work closely on them.
The problems on the Jets list are well documented and will not be resolved overnight. The team is expected to have $ 70 million in salary cap by Over the Cap. They have 19 players scheduled to be unrestricted free agents.
His top free agent is security Marcus Maye. Douglas said after the season that getting Maye back is a priority. It should be. He was the MVP of the team and is one of the few good players who drafted the previous regime. After Maye, the Jets have to decide if players like Jordan Jenkins, Brian Poole, Neville Hewitt, Tarell Basham and Breshad Perriman are worth re-signing.
Saleh got the job. Now, it has to get to work.