Jets head coach Aaron Glenn is significantly changing his coaching staff.
Glenn has fired quarterbacks coach Charles London, pass game coordinator Scott Turner, linebackers coach Aaron Curry, defensive line coach Eric Washington, assistant defensive backs coach Dre Bly, defensive assistant Alonso Escalante and defensive assistant Roosevelt Williams, according to multiple reports.
The Jets hired Glenn a year ago, and his first year was so bad that some wondered if he’d be one-and-done. Glenn was retained, but he’s going to have a very different coaching staff, especially on defense, where he has already fired defensive coordinator Steve Wilks and is in the process of interviewing replacements.
The departures of London and Turner will mean significant changes to the passing offense, although that was to be expected anyway given that the Jets will certainly bring in a new quarterback after a disappointing 2025 season from Justin Fields.
Whatever other changes are coming, Glenn needs the Jets to be a much better team in Year Two, or else he won’t get a Year Three.
The Jets met virtually with eight candidates in the first round of interviews for their vacant defensive coordinator job, the team announced Friday.
They have completed interviews with Wink Martindale, Jim Leonhard, Chris Harris, Jim O’Neil, DeMarcus Covington, Daronte Jones, Mathieu Araujob and Ephraim Banda.
Martindale, 65, has the most play-calling experience of the group. He has spent the past two seasons as defensive coordinator at the University of Michigan after two seasons (2022-23) as the Giants’ defensive coordinator, six seasons as the Ravens’ defensive coordinator (2012-17) and one season as the Broncos’ defensive coordinator (2010).
Leonhard, who started 40 games over three seasons as a safety for the Jets, has served as the Broncos’ defensive backs coach/pass game coordinator for the past two seasons. He added assistant head coach to his title this season.
Harris joined Aaron Glenn’s staff as defensive backs coach/passing game coordinator last offseason and finished as interim defensive coordinator after Steve Wilks’ firing.
O’Neil coached with Glenn in Detroit, where O’Neil worked as a defensive assistant in 2024-25. He got his first NFL gig with the Jets in 2009 as a defensive quality control coach before serving as assistant defensive backs coach from 2010-12. He was the Browns’ defensive coordinator for two seasons (2014-15), along with NFL stops as an assistant in Buffalo (2013), San Francisco (2016) and Oakland/Las Vegas (2019-20).
Covington also has experience as a defensive coordinator in the NFL, holding that position with New England during the 2024 season. He first joined the Patriots in 2016 under Bill Belichick. In 2025, Covington was the defensive line coach/run game coordinator with Green Bay.
Jones was the passing game coordinator and defensive backs coach with the Vikings. He arrived in Minnesota in 2020, leaving for one season to be LSU’s defensive coordinator in 2021.
Araujo spent the past four seasons with the Dolphins, coaching the defensive backs.
Banda has been the Browns’ safeties coach since 2023 after spending several years coaching in college.
Dante Moore will not be entering the NFL in 2026.
The Oregon quarterback announced that he will be returning to school for another season. Moore led the Ducks to the college football semifinals, but they lost to Indiana last Friday.
Indiana’s quarterback Fernando Mendoza is the favorite to be the first player selected in April’s draft given the Raiders’ need for a long-term answer at quarterback. Moore was seen as a contender to be the next player drafted given the Jets’ need for the same, but Wednesday’s decision opens the field up to a number of possibilities at that spot.
With Moore staying in school, names like Ty Simpson and Trinidad Chambliss will now jockey to be the second quarterback off the board.
The Jets are heading into the offseason with serious questions about their quarterback position and they’re moving to add one option to the roster ahead of the new league year.
Tom Pelissero of NFL Media reports that the team is going to sign Bailey Zappe to a future contract. The pact will give Zappe a spot on the 90-man roster for the offseason.
Zappe spent the 2025 season on the Browns’ practice squad. He started for the Browns in Week 18 of the 2024 season and made eight starts for the Patriots over the previous two seasons. He is 208-of-335 for 2,223 yards, 11 touchdowns and 12 interceptions over his entire career.
Justin Fields, Tyrod Taylor, and Brady Cook all started games for the Jets in 2025. Fields and Cook remain under contract for 2026.
During his two-year detour with the Jets, quarterback Aaron Rodgers had plenty to say about the culture of the organization. On Thursday, he had something else to say about his most recent former team.
The comment was made while Rodgers was expressing appreciation for the leadership provided in Pittsburgh by coach Mike Tomlin.
“One thing I really love — and it’s kind of the antithesis of where I was — is there’s not really any leaks in the boat,” Rodgers told reporters. “Every year, you have difficulties and adversity, both on the field and off the field, and to go through a season like this, and to be able to focus on football and not have a lot of other little bullshit out there has been really nice.”
The “other little bullshit” wasn’t quite so little, as Rodgers saw it, in New York.
In December 2023, Rodgers (who was rehabbing his torn Achilles tendon at the time) sounded off on leaks that quarterback Zach Wilson was reluctant to resume playing after being benched during Rodgers’s absence.
“What is your impetus, what is your motivation to try and bury someone like that?” Rodgers told Pat McAfee. “And that’s a problem with the organization. You know, we need to get to the bottom of whatever this is coming from and put a stop to it privately, because there’s no place in a winning culture where — and this is not the only time. There’s been a bunch of other leaks.”
Added Rodgers at the time: “I think it’s chickenshit at its core, and I think it has no place in a winning organization.”
But the Jets aren’t a winning organization. For various reasons. Most of which trace to the very top of the pyramid.
The success in Pittsburgh has been about more than the absence of leaks. Rodgers himself has wisely avoided contributing to the “other little bullshit” by not appearing on McAfee’s show every Tuesday. Rodgers often got way too comfortable in that setting, saying things that became fodder for scrutiny and more reporting.
With the Steelers, Rodgers has kept his media appearances to the minimum. He has chosen to focus on football, fulfilling his weekly obligations to speak with reporters and nothing more.
The results speak for themselves, thanks in part to a missed 44-yard field goal that would have kept Rodgers and the Steelers out of the playoffs.
Regardless, they rebounded nicely from an embarrassing 26-7 home loss to the Bills. They’re back in the playoffs. And they have a chance to notch their first postseason win since January 2017.
At the time, none of the other 13 playoff coaches were coaching their current teams. (Sean McVay had been hired by the Rams three days earlier, and Kyle Shanahan would be hired by the 49ers three days later.) Only one of the other 2025 playoff quarterbacks was in the NFL (Matthew Stafford, with the Lions).
Now, the coach and the quarterback who were on the opposing sidelines in Super Bowl XLV will join forces in an effort to win their second career Lombardi Trophies. Can they pull it off?
Crazier things have happened. Especially since there’s a non-zero chance that Pittsburgh’s Flex Sealed boat is floating in an ocean of holy water.
