Relationships are everything in most walks of life, and especially in the NFL. Players recommend players, coaches endorse players and coaches, scouts tout scouts, and on and on.
Aaron Glenn has had several coaching mentors of note on his way from being a first-round Jets draft choice in 1994 to returning to the Green & White as their first-year head coach this offseason. Bill Parcells, among his contributions, convinced Glenn to get his start in scouting before heading down the coaching pathway. Sean Payton, now Denver’s head coach, was the Saints head coach who brought Glenn to New Orleans to guide his DBs for five seasons.
AG also has had words of praise for Detroit HC Dan Campbell, which he reprised in his remarks after the second practice of his first rookie minicamp as Jets HC this past weekend.
“From being DBs coach to coordinator to head coach, I give a lot of credit, man, to Dan Campbell,” Glenn said, “for putting me in positions to be head coach for the Lions in certain situations and for him putting me in the front of the room. for him asking my advice on how practice should go. So it was a really a seamless transition for me to script practice, for me to be in front of the team.”
Talk about intertwining storylines. Glenn has ties with all three aforementioned coaches — in fact, all four were together on the same 2005 Dallas team, Parcells as HC, Payton as assistant HC, Campbell as a TE and Glenn as a CB. Then Glenn and Campbell served together on Payton’s New Orleans staff.
And when Campbell took the Lions’ coaching reins in 2021, he brought Glenn with him as his defensive coordinator. And Glenn pondered whether Campbell, in providing AG those different platforms to address and coach the Detroit players, was doing it for the good of the Lions or to help Glenn personally polish his coaching skills.
“I think in the back of his mind, he was prepping me to be in this position,” Glenn said. “But also, I think he knew I had the ear of the team, not just the defense, because I vibed with those guys on offense quite a bit. Every morning at 7:30, J-Mo [WR Jameson Williams] was in my office and we would sit and talk. I think it was a little of both now that I actually look back and think about the positions he put me in.”