The New York Jets have fired head coach Robert Saleh, the club announced Tuesday. Defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich will be club's interim head coach.
The move comes two days after the club lost 24-17 to the Minnesota Vikings, dropping the team to 2-3 on the season. The club went 20-36 under Saleh's direction, peaking with 7-10 finishes in 2022 and '23.
The team acquired Aaron Rodgers ahead of the 2023 season, and this season has been marred by conflicts between the quarterback and the coaching staff.
"We got to figure it out," Saleh said after the offense was flagged for five false starts in a 10-9 loss to Denver last month. "Whether or not we're good enough to handle or ready enough to handle all the cadence. Cadence had not been an issue all camp. Felt like our operation had been operating pretty good. Obviously today took a major step back."
"That's one way to do it. The other way is to hold them accountable," Rodgers said postgame when told Saleh suggested dialing back the quarterback's hard count. "We haven't had an issue. We've only had one false start. [Right tackle] Morgan had one false start I believe until this. You know it's been a weapon. We use it every day in practice. We rarely have a false start. To have five today it seemed like, four or five. Yeah, it seems like an outlier. I don't know if we need to make mass changes based on kind of an outlier game."
Saleh preached patience to reporters just yesterday.
"There's so much football to be played. There's so much, so many things that we can get better at and there's so many things that we can continue to build on. I'm not panicked. Nobody in the building is panicked," he said. "There's always a sense of urgency. That's the most important thing, where there's always going to be a sense of urgency to go out there and find wins and find efficiency on offense and continue to play great defense and special teams. Monday night's a great opportunity to play football and do our best and try to get the result that we're seeking."
Now, the Jets will take the field Monday night versus Buffalo without Saleh.
Saleh now becomes the sixth consecutive full-time Jets head coach to exit the franchise with a losing record. Al Groh was the last coach to leave with a winning record, posting a 9-7 mark in 2000 before resigning to take the head coaching job at the University of Virginia.
In fact, since the club's 1960 founding, only two coaches have left the team with above .500 marks: Groh's 9-7 record in 2000, and Bill Parcells's 29-19 record from 1997-99. Even Weeb Ewbank, who led the Jets to their only Super Bowl victory in the 1968 season, finished under .500 in six of his 11 seasons and left the franchise in 1973 with a 71-77-6 record.
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