Is Jets’ Glenn toast? Here’s how NFL HCs fare after starting 0-6

Aaron Glenn is 0-6.

Some New York Jets fans believe the first-time head coach deserves time to figure things out. After all, Glenn’s former boss in Detroit, Dan Campbell, started off 0-10-1 before leading his franchise to success it had never seen before.

Other Jets fans are already through with the former Pro Bowl cornerback, claiming they have seen enough to know Glenn will never be the guy.

Which side is closer to the truth?

We won’t be able to answer that question for another few years. Still, we can use NFL history to get an idea of which side has a better chance of ending up correct.

The history of 0-6 head coaches

Very few coaches in modern football history have started their tenures this poorly.

Dating back to 1980, Glenn is just the 18th NFL head coach to start off 0-6 with a new team.

Here is a list of those 18 head coaches, along with whether or not they eventually led that same franchise to the playoffs.

There are sources of hope for Glenn, including Campbell and two other recent examples, Zac Taylor and Kyle Shanahan. Legendary Dallas Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson also got off to an 0-8 start, winning just one game in his debut season.

These four coaches are exceptions, though.

Of the previous 17 coaches to start 0-6 with a new team since 1980, 13 of them never led that team to the playoffs. That’s a 76% rate.

History suggests that Glenn’s start indicates he is more likely to be the Jets’ latest flop than the man to end their playoff drought. But he’s still got a fighting chance to beat the odds.

Recovering from this type of start has become much more common in recent years. Of the last four coaches to overcome an 0-6 start and eventually make the playoffs, three were hired in the last decade. In fact, three of the last five head coaches to start 0-6 went on to lead playoff teams.

Campbell, Taylor, and Shanahan recovered from their respective starts in much different ways.

How Campbell, Taylor, and Shanahan rebounded from 0-6

Campbell inherited a long-downtrodden Lions franchise coming off one of its absolute worst three-year runs under Matt Patricia. In Campbell’s first season, the Lions had an over-under of 4.5 wins, so expectations were incredibly low for the rebuilding, young team.

After an 0-8 start (with an average point differential of -13.8), the Lions finished 3-5-1 coming out of their Week 9 bye; their average point differential improved mightily to -3.9 over this span, and three of the five losses were by one score. It’s over this post-bye stretch that Campbell’s potential began to show; up to the point of the season Glenn is currently at, Campbell was just as maligned as Glenn right now.

With slightly higher expectations in Campbell’s second season (6.5 over-under), the Lions started 1-6, sparking calls for Campbell’s job after a 4-19-1 start. But they surged to an 8-2 finish, comfortably exceeding their over-under at 9-8.

The Lions broke through in Campbell’s third season, going 12-5, and they took another leap in his fourth season, peaking at 15-2.

Taylor was the Bengals’ first new head coach since 2003, as the team had finally parted ways with Marvin Lewis after a 16-year run. The team had an over-under of 6.0 wins after winning six games the previous year, but the Bengals fell well short of those expectations, going 2-14 (the first of those wins coming over Adam Gase’s Jets in game 12).

That futile season led to the gift of Joe Burrow, who has single-handedly kept the franchise afloat since he was drafted. The Bengals went 4-11-1 in Burrow’s rookie year before making the playoffs in the following two seasons.

Cincinnati is just 6-12 without Burrow since he was drafted, including 0-4 this season, so it is tough to pinpoint many ways in which Taylor has turned the team around besides successfully tanking for Burrow. Perhaps the only lesson to be taken from Taylor’s turnaround is that struggling in your first season might cause you to luck into a franchise-saving quarterback.

However, Glenn can’t really follow this model, since Taylor is at least an offensive-minded coach with a background in quarterback coaching, which has probably helped him develop and maximize Burrow. There’s no guarantee that Glenn would be similarly successful with a prospect like Burrow; Taylor deserves at least some credit for Burrow’s success, especially considering the recent inconsistencies from quarterbacks chosen first overall.

Shanahan took over the 49ers after their embarrassing two-year run from 2015-16, which featured a 7-25 record across one-year stints from Jim Tomsula and Chip Kelly. Expectations were low for Shanahan in 2017 (5.0 over-under), and early on, the 49ers fell below even that lowly bar, starting out 0-9 with a -10.7 point differential. The Jets’ point differential is currently -7.8 through six games.

But Shanahan used the end of the season to flex his potential as an offensive-minded head coach. San Francisco finished 6-1 with a +6.3 point differential, averaging 26.9 points per game over that span. That included a 5-0 finish under quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo.

The 49ers carried an over-under of 8.5 into 2018, but Garoppolo went down for the season after three games, and San Francisco stumbled to a 4-12 finish. With Garoppolo back on the field for a full season in 2019, the 49ers went 13-3 and came close to winning the Super Bowl.

These three coaches provide hope for Glenn in New York. Their stories prove that it is possible to eventually build a Super Bowl contender after a horrendous start like the one New York is mired in.

However, for every Campbell, Taylor, or Shanahan, there are three coaches who started similarly and never figured things out. Glenn must use the next 11 games to prove why he should be viewed as the next Campbell or Shanahan instead of the next Frank Reich or Hue Jackson.