Robert Saleh is Lebanese American. The NFL let him wear the Lebanese flag sometimes as part of some NFL Heritage blah blah something or other program. Hell, maybe they even made him wear it, who knows. Anyway, that threat thing was weird. If you threaten someone's life you're either a loose cannon or you have a screw loose.
I think that the true mystery of Robert Saleh is about why one guy here has taken to calling him "Bob".
Yep, you either can him in the off season before or you can him at the end of the season. What Woody did while the Jets were actually still in contention was absolutely stupid.
Contention? For what? You're not saying that Saleh could have gotten the team to the playoffs, are you?
yeah Woody screwed that whole thing up badly -if you are going to fire someone midseason you do so immediately after the game before a bye week. Gives the interim guy time to make changes, among other things. you dont do it on an essentially short week when the team just went to and from London -the interim coach needs to be someone that can inspire the team. Dan Campbell in Miami, Bisaccia with the Raiders, Arians with the Colts, etc. You dont choose a stooge like Ulbrich who talked about doing the same thing as Saleh anyway. Just goes to show how far removed Woody was from knowing about his team. -take advantage of the jumpstart on the next coach. by firing a coach midseason it gives you more time to make connections and perform quasi-interviews for months before the coaching carousel starts. Woody was way too weak or distracted to use that bump. He should've identified Vrabel as his man back in November and forged that relationship so he could seal the deal and not let the Pats take the rug out from under us like that. Coulda gave Saleh the entire season, fired him in February and still hired Glenn. lastly I'll never be not convinced he fired him for the lebanon thing
They had a better chance with him, than without him and we really don't know what would have happened if Woody didn't make that knee-jerk move. At 2-3 they were literally still in contention. The defense turned into complete dogshit after Saleh left and it's not debatable. You can look at the stats with and without him. It's not close. Firing him forced the DC to become head coach thus he couldn't focus well enough on both jobs at once. Woody also completely lost the team by doing that as Saleh was pretty well liked by most of the players. You don't make moves like that unless the team is a complete disaster. If Saleh was so horrible, it should have been obvious and they should have fired him in the off season before.
There was no chance. The NFL is a league of performance - not mathematical possibilities of contention. Saleh's time at the Jets had come and gone. There are no tangential arguments that make a difference today. Johnson is a slow learner but delaying the final decision any further would have served no useful purpose.
2025 may have been the payoff. NFL is wide open this year.No dominant team. Miami is having a down year, Buffalo has come back to the pack a bit. Saleh's defense, Rodgers at QB, Adams-Wilson-Taylor. *sigh* The Jets could've been right there with all the contenders right now. Woody is a impatient fool.
It appears Miami's down year has taken a turn...just in time for my selection of Atlanta in my big purse survivor pool. But how would the future of the Jets franchise look any better if they managed to squeak one more semi successful season out of the has been? *sigh*
Hindsight is always 20/20. Woody is a piece of trash. Defending him on this is pretty silly and yes math matters. Many teams have made it after starting 2-3 and when you look at a team like that you can't pretend you know the outcome of the season before it happens. 2-3 is salvageable and you can't judge that by anything other than from that moment. Not saying they would have salvaged it, they'd have just had a better chance of doing it without all the added pressure on the DC to run the whole team. He could have at least waited until the bye week, but acting as if a move like that would have spark the team to do better is just flat out delusional thinking by Woody. Like I said, I'd have agreed if they did it prior to the season or after the season. The timing was just completely fucking stupid and it made the team objectively worse and alienated all the players.
I'm not defending Woody Johnson, I'm defending getting rid of a loser - Johnson was just the messenger - and the business owner. It had become abundantly clear that a loser is exactly what Saleh was as a head coach and it wasn't going to change, all the dopey slogans notwithstanding. The guy did not have what it takes to be successful. Saleh wasn't 2 - 3, he was 20 - 36 and the team was looking worse every week; he was given more than an adequate chance to be successful. Saleh and losing alienated the players, not getting rid of him while there was still a chance to salvage the season. They didn't, but that's a different argument.
