Two things are clear about the future of the New York Jets after the 2025 season:
- Aaron Glenn has a very low chance of taking the Jets to the playoffs at any point in his tenure
- Moving on from Glenn after one season would have a very high chance of pushing the Jets into the playoffs in the near future
Glenn’s Jets just put together one of the worst seasons in franchise history, and one of the worst seasons by an NFL team, period. Pick a stat that describes their ineptitude, and the 2025 Jets are at or near the bottom of the NFL’s all-time list in it.
Whether it’s their schedule-adjusted point differential (second-worst in Jets history), their all-time-bad efficiency between offense and defense, or their zero interceptions, Glenn oversaw one of the worst teams to grace a professional football field. Regardless of how porous his roster is, Glenn’s inability to field a remotely competitive team leaves him with extremely low odds of becoming a playoff coach for the Jets in the future.
Glenn’s coaching grave was already dug after he started 0-7 (this being when he still had Sauce Gardner and Quinnen Williams on the roster, so that excuse is off the table).
Only four of the 17 head coaches to start 0-6 or worse with a new team since 1980 went on to make the playoffs. Two of those (Dan Campbell and Kyle Shanahan) displayed significant progress in the latter halves of their debut seasons. Glenn’s team only got immensely worse: the Jets’ -134 point differential over their final five games of the season ranks as the sixth-worst point differential over any five-game span since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger.
Another one of those four coaches, Zac Taylor, is an offensive coach who landed an elite quarterback prospect in Joe Burrow, so, that comparison barely applies to the defensive-minded Glenn. The fourth is Hall-of-Famer Jimmy Johnson, the lone defensive coach of the four.
It feels comfortable to say that Glenn does not have the makings of a Hall-of-Fame coach, but you could have said the same about Johnson when his 1989 Cowboys went 1-15, so we can give Glenn the Johnson comparison.
That’s really it, though.
Besides a Hall-of-Fame coach who debuted 36 seasons ago, what realistic comparison is there for New York to go off of as evidence that a coach with Glenn’s current profile is likely to become a playoff-caliber coach?
There isn’t one. An outlier in Johnson is about all we have, and given that it occurred in a much different era, when the league was far less driven by offense, strategy, and analytics, it hardly applies at all. That leaves Glenn in a spot where, if he goes on to succeed, he would essentially be the first coach of his ilk to do so in the modern game.
Are those the type of odds you want to play if you’re the Jets?
I wouldn’t say so.
Luckily for the Jets, they actually have an available option with a proven track record of success: Moving on from Glenn after one season.
Contrary to the popular opinion that firing a coach after one season is reckless and dysfunctional, going one-and-done with a struggling head coach is a move that has worked out far more often than not in recent NFL history.
On Sunday, the Panthers clinched the NFC South. It marks their first playoff appearance under second-year head coach Dave Canales, who was brought in after the Panthers fired Frank Reich during his first season with the team.
With Carolina’s division title, eight of the 10 head coaches to go one-and-done since 2016 have given way to a coach who led that same team to the playoffs.
The top two seeds in the AFC this year, the Denver Broncos and the New England Patriots, are led by coaches who were brought in after the franchise one-and-done’d a clearly inept head coach.
Take your pick, Jets: Bet on Aaron Glenn to become perhaps the most shocking success story for a head coach in NFL history? Or take your shot on a decision that has yielded a playoff appearance 80% of the time over the last 10 years?
If the Jets have the guts to do something that would be considered “unfair” and “rash” in the public eye, it’s obvious which choice they should make.
The only question then would be who to replace Glenn with.
The easy answer would be “anybody,” as it is hard to be much worse than what Glenn showed this year. But “anybody” isn’t appealing enough to part ways with someone to whom you handed the keys to the franchise just one year ago.
Fortunately, good options are already springing up around the league.
The best of them may have just emerged: former Cleveland Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski.
On Monday, the Browns fired Stefanski after six years with the team. His 45-56 record does not jump off the screen, but Stefanski led the Browns to two playoff appearances, an impressive achievement with a franchise that saw its previous seven head coaches fail to make the dance.
The former Vikings quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator, aged 43, is the type of offensive mind that New York should want leading the franchise as it prepares to welcome a young quarterback with a top-two draft pick. Stefanski’s offensive acumen is not in question.
If the Jets were a proactive organization, they’d cut their losses with Glenn and make an all-out push for Stefanski. Not only is it a smart move in a vacuum, given Glenn’s weak odds of success and the strong odds of a one-and-done firing working out, but Stefanski is the exact type of target New York should want to replace a coach like Glenn.
Whereas Glenn is stuck in his ways, preaching archaic strategies, Stefanski would allow the Jets to catch up with the modern game, while finally giving them a proper coach to develop a franchise quarterback.
Of course, though, this is the New York Jets we’re talking about. Having the guts to do something bold and forward-thinking is not what this franchise is known for.
Jets fans are stuck with Glenn. They’ll just have to hope that he becomes the outlier of all outliers.
Good luck.
