New York Jets head coach Aaron Glenn has only been at the helm for the last few months, but his impact on the roster is one of the more significant across the league.
After a five-win season in 2024, New York completely revamped their front office, coaching staff, and philosophy.
The Jets failed miserably in 2024 and over the last 14 years for plenty of reasons. Poor coaching, a lack of discipline, bad roster moves, and inconsistent play are some of the main culprits.
Major changes are underway under Glenn, though. His arrival has brought forth a level of toughness, physicality, and intelligence that has been missing for years.
Only one current coach in the NFL has seen that level of turnaround in just a single training camp, and he happens to be the longest tenured coach in the league.
Jets’ Camp Mirrors Super Bowl Champion Coach
When Mike Tomlin was first hired as head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2007, he was under far more pressure than Glenn currently is with the Jets. Pittsburgh was just two years removed from a Super Bowl win and celebrated the retirement of a Hall-of-Fame coach in Bill Cowher.
What Tomlin did to differentiate himself from the hard-nosed Cowher is something that Glenn also instilled within his first week.
“Our first training camp was brutal,” former Steelers defensive lineman Brett Keisel said on Cameron Heyward’s podcast in 2024. “We had a ton of padded practices. But he got it out of us to the point where he is like, ‘These guys are gonna respect me. They’re going to respect how I do my thing.'”
Tomlin held an extremely physical and difficult training camp during his first year in Pittsburgh. He did that to show that Cowher no longer led the Steelers – he was the new sheriff in town.
“He had to,” Casey Hampton, Pittsburgh’s former nose tackle, said. “He gained all our respect…The second year he learned, and he dialed it back a little bit.”
That physicality came back to bite Pittsburgh in 2007. The organization finished 10-6 and made the playoffs, but suffered many injuries, leading to late-season struggles. Despite that, Tomlin’s first camp laid the foundation for a Super Bowl championship the following year.
It is clear that Glenn is trying to do the same with the Jets in 2025.
New York held physical tackling drills during Monday’s practice, a sign that the Jets are focusing on the sport’s basic fundamentals.
While drills like that should increase the team’s consistency and discipline, the chance of injuries should also increase.
That isn’t something Glenn is too concerned over, though.
“I think injuries are a part of this game and there is no way to hide from it,” Glenn said. “Usually, when you do try to hide from it, that’s when they usually pop up. The principles of this game will never change.
“This game is about running, blocking, and tackling, and if you don’t practice that, me as a head coach, how am I giving our guys a chance to win?”
The harsh reality is that the Jets have struggled mightily over the last half-decade, so an infusion of physicality should be a welcome sight for fans. It’s a sign that the organization will promote discipline.
Even if the Jets were to potentially break down with injuries this season due to the heightened physicality, that shouldn’t deter fans.
Glenn has consistently explained that he took the job as a multi-year project to build the Jets into a consistent winner. Things will not magically get fixed after one season, but the foundation could be set positively.
He may not have the kind of success Tomlin enjoyed in his first season with the Steelers, but Glenn is establishing some of the same rules that the longest-tenured coach pushed back in the day.
This is Glenn’s team. Get in line, or get out.
