Most of the negative attention for the New York Jets’ 2024 collapse was directed toward the offense. The defense was next in line.
An overlooked aspect of the team’s fall-off was its special teams. After having the league’s fifth-best special teams unit in 2023 (based on FTN Fantasy’s DVOA metric), New York’s special teams dropped to 24th on the leaderboard in 2024.
New special teams coordinator Chris Banjo has been tabbed by Aaron Glenn to rejuvenate the once-proud unit. And as he embarks on his quest to do so, Banjo brings with him an incredibly promising statistic that suggests he is the perfect man for the job.
Following a 10-year career as an NFL player, Banjo began his coaching career in 2023, one year after his final season. He was hired by the Denver Broncos as a special teams assistant, coming at a time when Denver badly needed help on special teams. The Broncos ranked 29th in special teams DVOA in 2022, marking their seventh consecutive season placing 24th or worse.
Upon Banjo’s arrival, Denver’s special teams immediately found new life. Denver rose to ninth in special teams DVOA in 2023, the franchise’s best ranking since 2001. The following year, they jumped again to fourth, their best since 1997.
Across 2023-24, the Broncos had the best special teams DVOA in the NFL, tying them with the Dallas Cowboys. This followed Denver having the NFL’s worst average ranking in special teams DVOA from 2016-22.
Denver’s overnight leap from worst-to-first is a tremendous statistic for Banjo to take with him into his first season as a special teams coordinator.
The night-and-day difference attached to Banjo’s arrival is downright staggering. Denver had gone seven consecutive seasons without finishing better than 24th in special teams DVOA. Perhaps even more damning, they had gone 21 consecutive seasons without placing top 10. Then, Banjo comes into town, and they immediately log back-to-back top-10 finishes, establishing themselves as one of the best special teams units in the NFL across the last two seasons.
Obviously, it is unrealistic to fully credit an assistant coach with the unit’s resurgence. Denver hired a new special teams coordinator ahead of the 2023 season, Ben Kotwica. It is Kotwica who deserves the most credit, along with legendary special teams coach Mike Westhoff, who was hired by Denver as an assistant head coach in 2023. For Banjo, though, it is a major advantage that he received the chance to learn under these two special teams gurus before taking the reins of his own special teams unit.
Denver also made some key additions to the roster in 2023. Most notably, the Broncos picked up future two-time All-Pro returner Marvin Mims (2023 second-round pick) and kicker Wil Lutz, who’s made 89.7% of his field goals since coming to Denver as a free agent in 2023.
Nonetheless, Banjo’s role in a historic turnaround cannot be overlooked. After all, the downtrodden Jets are looking for coaches with experience in that very department. It is a significant part of what makes Aaron Glenn such an appealing fit for the franchise. Glenn has ample experience inheriting teams or units with league-worst standards and taking them to the elite ranks of the NFL. Banjo partook in such a turnaround with the Broncos’ special teams, even if he was not the primary facilitator.
Though it may be easy for skeptics to write off Banjo’s impact on Denver’s special teams success, Broncos head coach Sean Payton (who coached Banjo in New Orleans for three years) foresaw Banjo’s potential to help Denver turn things around. In February 2023, only months after Banjo was playing over 80% of the Cardinals’ special teams snaps, Payton called Banjo and made a persistent push to add him to Denver’s coaching staff.
“I answered the call and he goes, ‘I’m in Denver right now building my coaching staff and you’re one of the guys that comes to mind in terms of me wanting to build this thing going forward,'” Banjo said, recalling answering a call from Payton while out for dinner.
“I was kind of in shock. Coaching was nothing that ever crossed my mind at the time.”
Banjo was mulling retirement, although he wasn’t certain about it quite yet. Coaching, though, was nowhere close to entering his mind – until Payton came calling.
“Anybody that knows Coach Payton knows he’s extremely persistent, no matter what it is, when he has a goal,” Banjo said. “So 9:41 on Saturday night, and I get a call the next morning about 11:30, like, ‘What do you think?’ Then we got into more depth and detail about what the opportunity may look like, how he saw me as a player and what he saw as my potential as a coach.”
Banjo was an impressive special teams player in the NFL for 10 seasons, racking up 60 career special teams tackles, per Pro Football Focus. In the meantime, he only had 16 missed tackles on special teams, a strong ratio of 3.75-to-1; for reference, the 2024 league average on special teams was 2.98-to-1, per PFF.
Broncos fullback Michael Burton spoke about the value of having a former “special teams demon” on the coaching staff.
“I didn’t know that [Banjo was on the staff] until I got here for my visit and I was like, ‘Oh, this is awesome,’” Burton said. “To have a special teams guy who made a living in this league on special teams is amazing. … He’s been a special teams demon in this league for a decade, so he’s another great resource to have. Not only is he great as a coach and in coaching it, but he has that experience as a player. He’s been a really great resource.”
Banjo is one of multiple new additions to the Jets who bestow the Sean Payton stamp of approval, joining Glenn and general manager Darren Mougey. It is quite the overnight shift for a Jets franchise that was chastised by Payton in 2023 for hiring who he believed was “one of the worst” coaches of all time.
Coaching for the New York Jets is a challenge like no other. This is the place where many a career has gone to die. To make it here, you must be capable of reaching the top from the absolute bottom of the barrel. Nothing is handed to you around these parts.
Between Glenn and many of the hires alongside him, the Jets are building a group of men who have done everything they possibly could to prove they are ready for the NFL’s most daunting challenge. Banjo contributed to taking a Broncos team that hadn’t seen elite special teams play in two decades on an immediate rise to league-best performance.
This Jets coaching staff isn’t made up of people who are merely “used to” winning cultures; rather, it is made up of people who are used to creating winning cultures where one previously did not exist.