Aaron Glenn hasn’t exactly won over many people around the NFL since his debut as an NFL head coach, both inside and outside of the New York Jets’ fanbase.

He oversaw a 3-14 season that included a -203 point differential, the worst in the NFL and the third-worst in Jets history.

As a result, Glenn is under immense pressure from the media going into his second season. Pro Football Focus recently listed Glenn first among six NFL head coaches on the hot seat entering 2026.

  • Aaron Glenn, Jets
  • Todd Bowles, Buccaneers
  • Zac Taylor, Bengals
  • Shane Steichen, Colts
  • Matt LaFleur, Packers (“Worth monitoring in January”)
  • Nick Sirianni, Eagles (“Worth monitoring in January”)

“Glenn wasn’t necessarily expected to complete an about-face in his first year with the Jets, a team that was clearly one of the most flawed in the league in 2025. But the results were far worse than imagined to start his era. … if New York doesn’t get off the ground well, Glenn’s leash figures to be short considering that he looked rather in over his head.”

Is this a realistic assessment for Glenn?

Criticisms of Glenn’s 2025 season are fair. As low as the Jets’ expectations were, Glenn still fell well short of them. New York fielded one of the least efficient teams on plays from scrimmage in the history of pro football. While much of that had to do with talent deficiencies within the roster, Glenn struggled in areas he could control, including many egregious game-management blunders.

Considering how poor his first season went, it would seem reasonable to suggest that Glenn needs to show significant improvement in 2026 to justify a third season. The question, though, is whether the Jets’ ownership is viewing this season in the same way.

Glenn inherited a Jets team that was kickstarting a major transitional period after the failed Aaron Rodgers era, in which the team sacrificed its future to go all-in on a two-year window with Rodgers. It was always expected to be a long-term process that would get worse before it got better, even if nobody expected things to get that much worse.

The Jets doubled down on this timeline at the 2025 trade deadline, when they traded arguably their two best players, Sauce Gardner and Quinnen Williams, for a haul of future draft picks. That haul included three first-round picks, two of which are not due to be utilized until 2027. Only one of the three has been used so far, the 16th choice of this year’s draft, which turned into Kenyon Sadiq.

Would the Jets really make those trades without allowing Glenn to see the picks through?

Perhaps. After all, Glenn’s first season was so disastrous that he may become a clear-cut lost cause by midseason if he does not show substantial progress as a coach, translating to substantial progress for the team as a whole.

But it is also fair to wonder if Glenn will be given another free pass regardless of the Jets’ on-field results, simply due to the timeline that was put into place when New York obliterated their present talent core for the sake of a long-term timeline that would take at least two more years to play out.

Glenn is certainly on the hot seat in the eyes of fans and analysts, and rightfully so, given how his first season went. The question is whether the Jets’ ownership is in the same boat.

As of right now, the Jets will preach patience and safety regarding Glenn’s job, but as we saw in 2024 with the in-season firing of Robert Saleh, things could change quickly if the losses start piling up in September and October.

Ironically, Glenn’s quest to not repeat Saleh’s fate will begin with a contest against Saleh himself. As per usual, the NFL’s script writers knew what they were doing when they mapped out the Week 1 schedule.