When Aaron Glenn took over as head coach of the New York Jets in January, he knew the necessary improvements wouldn’t take only a single year to implement.
Even so, his team’s performance in Week 2 against the Buffalo Bills wasn’t what he had in mind for incremental improvement.
Glenn’s Jets were routed by the AFC East rival Buffalo Bills by a 30-10 score last week. Every facet of the team struggled mightily against the class of their division.
From a passing offense that mustered just eight yards going into the fourth quarter, a defense that gave up over 220 yards rushing, or the kind of head-scratching coaching decisions that come from an inexperienced staff, Sunday was a brutal reminder of just how far the Jets are from truly competing.
For Glenn, though, he isn’t going to throw the towel on the team in 2025. He has a message for Jets fans, and a reminder for analysts around the NFL when talking about Gang Green moving forward.
Aaron Glenn pushes for patience
The chances are small that the 0-2 Jets will be able to turn their season around and fight for a playoff spot. Just 15% of teams that start 0-2 have ever made the playoffs in the same year.
Making the playoffs was never the goal, though.
From the very beginning, Glenn has talked about instilling a system that the team and fanbase could be proud of. While that messaging certainly took a step back on Sunday, the former Pro Bowl cornerback turned head coach continued to preach that patience is needed for a young team like the Jets.
“I think internally, we understand that, and there’s patience, no matter if you’re a good team or a bad team, there has to be patience no matter what because [in] this league … the ebbs and flows of this league, it’s funny sometimes,” Glenn explained.
There are many examples of teams that struggled to begin the year with a new coaching staff but later found their identity during the season. In 2021, the Philadelphia Eagles started 2-5 under Nick Sirianni.
A quote about players, a commitment to the run game later, and the organization was in the playoffs during that same year.
Glenn has been a part of the kind of turnaround that the Eagles went through. Back when he was calling the Detroit Lions defense, Glenn saw a team that was one of the worst teams in football during 2021, and grew into one of the most feared rosters in the league.
It was those same Lions that Glenn talked about on Monday to show parallels to his current team.
“Detroit was counted out, and then they came back [to develop] a really good game,” Glenn said. “You look at the Chiefs right now, they are 0-2, but the thing is, we know they have championship-quality players and staff over there. So, I don’t think they’re going to tank at all. Man, this League is really a week-to-week League, and we look forward to every week going out there showing our brand of football, and we have to do it.”
Jets fans don’t want to hear any talk of patience. They have had to sit and watch a bad football team for 14 years now.
But in order to give Glenn the time he needs to develop his team and the culture he wants them to play with, the fans will need to wait a little longer to finally become a winner.
The best way for Glenn to get some momentum, though, would be to play a lot better than they did against Buffalo in Week 2.