New York Jets fans and alumni loved the hire of Aaron Glenn as the franchise’s new head coach. People around the NFL continue to rave about it, too.
Thursday was an eventful day for the Aaron Glenn hype train. Glenn finished second in the voting for the NFL’s 2024 Assistant Coach of the Year award, trailing only his former colleague Ben Johnson. Additionally, one of Glenn’s best players in Detroit, Aidan Hutchinson, provided quite the laudatory pitch for his former coach.
Hutchinson appeared on the Pat McAfee Show for a live interview in New Orleans ahead of Super Bowl LIX. Asked by A.J. Hawk about Glenn’s coaching style and what the Jets have to look forward to, Hutchinson went into great detail about why he thinks so highly of the Jets’ new head coach.
“He’s so great. Me and AG, our relationship has developed so much over the three years that I was with him,” said Hutchinson.
“I feel like with AG, he knew what to say at the right time, every time. Every message whether it was a win or whether it was a loss, he was on point, and I feel like there was never anything he said that I was like, ‘Ugh, maybe you shouldn’t have said that.’ Sometimes coaches say things and you’re like, ‘Eh, I don’t know if that was the message.’ But I feel like every time he said something, it was right. And then so him being a head coach, I think he’s going to be a really good head coach.”
Hutchinson’s comments are particularly noteworthy because they back up one of the most common praises sent Glenn’s way: his authenticity.
It is a quality that Mike Tannenbaum, who helped lead the Jets’ head coaching search, highlighted when discussing Glenn at the Senior Bowl.
“I think he’ll be very authentic with the players,” Tannenbaum said of Glenn. “And I think he’ll be a guy who’s game-plan specific and will give the team the best chance to win. I’ve been very fortunate to have known him for a long time, going back to, gosh I feel old, going back to the late ’90s. He deserves the job, he’s paid his dues, and I think the players – and I think you saw from the opening press conference – he was very authentic, very direct and I think that will resonate really well with the players.”
Glenn is widely lauded for presenting a genuine version of himself at all times. It is a highly respectable quality for a leader in any field. As Glenn himself said at his introductory press conference: “That’s [Bill] Parcells. I’m Aaron Glenn.”
Many things about Glenn’s coaching chops will remain unknown until we see him don the headset for multiple seasons. One thing seems certain, though: Glenn isn’t going to fake anything. Players, media members, and fans will see the real Aaron Glenn on a daily basis. That mentality will earn him immense respect from his players, and in a market like New York, it will take him a long way when it comes to standing tall amidst the scrutiny.
