While the New York Jets have their sights set on the playoffs, even they can agree that a Super Bowl title is not in the cards in 2026.
With that being said, the 2026 season will still be a crucial one in the Jets’ long-term quest for a championship. What they learn this year will play a pivotal role in determining their next steps as they look to open a legitimate title window at some point in the back half of the decade.
The Jets will answer a plethora of burning questions this year. None, though, is more scorching than the one that looms over head coach Aaron Glenn…
Can the Jets envision Aaron Glenn as a championship head coach?
Notice the wording there.
It isn’t “Can Aaron Glenn improve over 2025?”, nor is it “Can Aaron Glenn have a solid season?”.
It’s “Can you envision Aaron Glenn as a championship head coach?”
That’s the bar. And, no, it doesn’t mean the Jets have to come out of 2026 feeling as if it is a guarantee that Glenn will bring them a title—no coach can guarantee a title short of actually winning one. But the Jets do have to feel enough confidence in Glenn to the point where they can at least envision him reaching that mountaintop.
Right now, they cannot. They would be kidding themselves if they said so.
If Glenn were to go on to even lead the Jets to the playoffs, he would be a historic outlier. The last defensive-minded head coach to start 0-6 with a new team and lead that same franchise to the playoffs was Jimmy Johnson of the Dallas Cowboys, who joined the team in 1989. Four other coaches have met these criteria since then: Raheem Morris, Steve Spagnuolo, Gus Bradley, and Brian Flores.
Only one of those three coaches has received a second chance as a head coach, Morris, who went 16-28 with the Atlanta Falcons and failed to make the playoffs over two seasons.
Simply put, Glenn has already shown enough red flags to suggest that his odds of being a championship-level head coach are slim to none.
After a 3-14 season in which his team was outscored by 203 points, had the third-worst combined offensive/defensive efficiency of all time (per DVOA), and his game management was consistently egregious, Glenn is entering the 2026 season with his stock in the cellar. A “solid” 2026 season won’t be enough to bring his long-term outlook up to “championship-caliber” when considering the entire two-year body of work.
Glenn needs to show significant growth as a coach to convince the Jets that a third season is warranted. For instance, even if the Jets double their win total, it would only bring Glenn’s career record to 9-25. Unless the 2026 Jets play noticeably better than their win total indicates, that type of record doesn’t scream “future championship coach”.
The Jets are expected to draft their franchise quarterback in 2027. Do they want a 9-25 or 10-24 coach choosing that quarterback and setting the foundation for his development? Do they want to risk that coach being fired midway through or after the QB’s rookie year, forcing him to learn another system in Year 2?
New York cannot mess around with the Glenn decision. The stakes in 2027 are too high for them to settle for mediocrity at head coach. It’s either he proves himself as a legitimate up-and-comer with championship potential, or the Jets cut their losses and hit the reset button. Otherwise, the Jets would probably be doing little more than delaying the inevitable by one season.
If Glenn can lead the Jets to their first playoff season in 16 years, or, at the very least, their first winning season in 11 years, he would undoubtedly earn a second season. That’s the type of meteoric leap that high-level coaches facilitate after inheriting a rebuilding team.
A season of fewer than nine wins, though, would require a nuanced evaluation to determine whether Glenn deserves a third year. The win total itself cannot be the sole determination, either for or against Glenn.
There is a world where an 8-9 season could be enough to justify a return. What if the Jets start 8-5 with Geno Smith and lose out after Smith is injured, simply because Cade Klubnik does not cut it as a backup? That would probably clear the bar.
Or, even if Smith starts all 17 games, what if the Jets are 8-9 with multiple wins over great teams, plenty of blowout wins, and plenty of close losses? Again, that would be more than enough.
Once you get below 8-9, though, things get murky.
At 7-10, there could still be a scenario similar to the two we just raised. The Jets could play well with Smith under center and falter after his injury, or they could be a better team than their record indicates when considering the quality of their wins and losses. Still, you’d be talking about a 10-24 coach overall, and remember, the stakes are high in 2027. Would that be enough to hand Glenn a franchise quarterback in a potential lame-duck season, even if the 7-10 record is on the higher-quality end?
There are also ways for the Jets to go 8-9 or 7-10 in a fashion that should make it obvious that Glenn must go. Don’t forget about Adam Gase’s 2019 season.
Halfway through the year, the Jets were 1-7, getting blown out left and right, while Sam Darnold’s development was circling the drain. Gase’s fate was obvious; he was not the guy to bring a Vince Lombardi Trophy to New York, full stop.
Then, the Jets managed a 6-2 second half, bringing them to a 7-9 finish, which represented a three-win jump over the 2018 season. Since it looked like a successful season on paper, especially since the Jets were 7-5 with Darnold, the team decided to run it back with Gase.
If you looked closely, though, the 6-2 second half was fool’s gold all along. None of the six wins were against winning teams, and four of them were by narrow margins. Both of the losses were blowouts, and one came against a team that entered with an 0-11 record.
If Glenn manages a 7-10 or 8-9 record in a misleading fashion—winning games once the team is out of the race, barely scraping by bad teams, getting blown out in losses—the Jets have to be smart and avoid taking the bait. As nice as it would look on paper to jump by four or five wins compared to 2025, as well as beat their 5.5 win total, it just isn’t enough.
The long-term goal is “Win The Super Bowl”, not “Be A Lot Better Than The 2025 Jets”. If Glenn cannot put together a 2026 season that suggests he is capable of the former, then it would be a grave risk for the Jets to commit a third season to him, given how important that 2027 season is poised to be.
More than anything, the Jets’ 2026 season is about evaluating Aaron Glenn in a brutally honest fashion. He should be judged not merely by wins and losses, but by the quality of his coaching and the quality of the product he puts on the field.
If, in those two areas, he shows the stuff of a vastly improved coach who one could legitimately envision developing into a championship-level coach, then he should earn a third season.
If not, the Jets should probably quit while they’re ahead, even if it means parting with a coach whose team experiences one of the largest win-total jumps in the NFL.
After all, it’s not hard to jump over a pebble. The Jets were 3-14 last year. Then, they drastically overhauled the roster. Improving to mediocrity is the expectation, not an accomplishment.
What would be a head-turning accomplishment is leading the Jets to their first playoff appearance in 16 years.
Pull that off, and there won’t be a single article about Glenn’s job security when January rolls around.
Glenn will have shown that he is a coach who can move the needle, not one who only goes as far as his roster takes him. That needle-moving impact is what separates championship-winning coaches from those who come and go.
Starting tomorrow, the next 17 games will tell us whether Glenn is a needle-mover worth building around.
