The New York Jets have finished a round of interviews for their defensive coordinator job. Detroit Lions defensive assistant Jim O\u2019Neil is one of the eight candidates.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Neil has coached for 25 years in both college and the NFL. He joined Dan Campbell\u2019s staff in 2024, working under Aaron Glenn, who is now the Jets\u2019 coach. O\u2019Neil started his NFL career with the Jets, serving as a defensive quality control coach in 2009 and as assistant defensive backs coach from 2010 to 2012.<\/p>\n
During O\u2019Neil\u2019s four years with the Jets, their defense ranked first in the NFL in opponent passer rating (71.0), completion percentage (52.6), and passing yards allowed per game (186.3). They also gave up the second-fewest total yards per game (294.8).<\/p>\n
Because O\u2019Neil knows Glenn\u2019s defensive style well, he could be a strong candidate for the job. O\u2019Neil has also helped develop Lions safeties Kerby Joseph and Brian Branch, who earned First-Team AP All-Pro and Pro Bowl honors.<\/p>\n
\u201cCompatibility is just as important as coachability,\u201d Glenn said during his end-of-season press conference. \u201cSo, I want to make sure we see things the same way, and I want to make sure that we can vibe as far as sitting down and talking about how we see football.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Glenn\u2019s first year as coach, the Jets became the first team since interceptions were tracked to finish a season without one. The team\u2019s defensive struggles also led Glenn to fire Steven Wilks as defensive coordinator.<\/p>\n
If the Jets hire O\u2019Neil from the Lions, they would get a respected defensive coach with experience in several places. Before joining Campbell\u2019s staff, O\u2019Neil was the defensive coordinator at Northwestern for two seasons (2021-2022). He also held the same role with the Cleveland Browns (2014-2015) and the San Francisco 49ers (2016).<\/p>\n
Other candidates for the job are former Michigan defensive coordinator Wink Martindale, Dolphins cornerbacks coach Mathieu Araujo, Browns safeties coach Ephraim Banda, Packers defensive line coach Demarcus Covington, Jets DB coach and interim defensive coordinator Chris Harris, Vikings defensive pass game coordinator Daronte Jones, and Broncos assistant head coach and defensive pass game coordinator Jim Leonhard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New York Jets have finished a round of interviews for their defensive coordinator job. Detroit Lions defensive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":682949,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2071],"tags":[146,113,2506,7,16545,147,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-682948","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-lions","8":"tag-detroit","9":"tag-detroit-lions","10":"tag-detroitlions","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-headshot","13":"tag-lions","14":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115907525784864905","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=682948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/682949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=682948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=682948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=682948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}