Longtime assistant coach Wink Martindale interviewed twice in January for the Jets’ defensive coordinator position, and a new report says that Martindale heard two different things from head coach Aaron Glenn at those two interviews — perhaps because Jets owner Woody Johnson told Glenn to change his plans for the defense.
Rich Cimini of ESPN reports that Martindale came away from the second interview under the impression that Glenn had changed the parameters of the defensive coordinator job. After the first interview, Martindale believed he’d be able to run his own defense if he took the job. After the second interview, Martindale believed it was Glenn who would be calling the defense.
So what changed? The report says Glenn attended meetings at Johnson’s home in Florida, and there’s “speculation that Johnson, who has a reputation for meddling, had instructed Glenn to run the defense himself.”
Ultimately, Glenn gave the defensive coordinator job to Brian Duker, just a day after he first interviewed for the job — and long after Glenn had interviewed eight other candidates. It’s unclear why Duker emerged as a candidate so late in the process and then got the job so quickly, but it could suggest that something fundamentally changed about the Jets’ defensive coordinator job along the way.
Glenn is expected to call the defense himself in a year when he’s going to have to convince Johnson that he’s making progress in turning the Jets around — or else next year, Johnson will be looking for a new head coach.
