Woody Johnson Should Learn a Lesson From Robert Kraft in His Handling of Aaron Glenn

Last season the Patriots were in the same situation the Jets face now. The owner seems unlikely to make the same move.

Aaron Glenn’s Jets lost each of the final five games by at least 23 points. / Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

A year ago around this time, Patriots owner Robert Kraft was watching a former player turned hand-selected head coach round out a season that was underwhelming at best and foreboding at worst. Jerod Mayo struggled at the podium with a handful of unforced verbal errors and, in the team’s second to last game of the season, was walloped 40–7 by the playoff-bound Chargers. The loss illustrated the gap between where New England was and where it needed to go. 

Kraft was willing to fall on the sword, an embarrassing proposition given that Mayo was chief among Kraft’s reasons to move on from the legendary Bill Belichick. A year later, his team is back atop the AFC East and will host a playoff game next weekend. 

The parallels between Kraft and Jets owner Woody Johnson—at least in this very specific case—are startling. 

Johnson has just watched his team, coached by a former Jet, hired by a search firm led by Johnson’s former hand-selected general manager, get absolutely wiped off the field by the Bills. The Jets closed out the season on a five-game losing streak, featuring a 24-point loss to the Dolphins, a 28-point loss to the Jaguars that looked more like a controlled scrimmage, a 23-point loss to the Saints and a 32-point loss to the Patriots. The Bills, piloted by Mitch Trubisky, cleared the Jets with minimal effort in the season finale, 35–8. 

Will Johnson have the same ability Kraft did to admit fault and fall on his sword? It’s highly, highly unlikely. Aaron Glenn survived on finesse during the 2025 season by drawing parallels to the build he accompanied Dan Campbell on in Detroit and the one he undertook this season (despite the fact that this Jets team was 2–3 in early October last year when Johnson fired head coach Robert Saleh for narrowly losing in London to a Vikings team that went on to win 14 games). However, the difference in play style between Campbell’s Lions and Glenn’s Jets has been notable. 

Certainly, Glenn deserves some grace given how his handmade mess at the quarterback position shook out. His two best defensive players were also traded at the deadline. 

But the defense is setting records for futility, now officially the only team in NFL history to have gone an entire season without an interception. Glenn fired his defensive coordinator in December. He benched his starting quarterback after just a few weeks. He scapegoated various players in the name of toughness and perfectionism, yet continues to play others who exhibit an unsettling mix of sloppiness and hubris on a down-to-down basis. He has had several high-profile instances of game mismanagement. 

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Ask around the league and the theories as to why the Jets won’t fire Glenn seem to be twofold. 

One: That would be a lot of money for Johnson to swallow. Glenn got a generous head coaching contract, as he was among the more popular candidates of the 2025 cycle and had active interest from multiple teams. This means he gets paid commensurate with that disposition.  

Two: The Patriots fired Mayo because they could swoop in and hire Mike Vrabel. And, at least to those observing the coaching world at large, there is no Vrabel to be had on this market. The Jets also had Vrabel in for an interview last year and weren’t able to land him. 

And while I don’t have any commentary on the first part—a team’s willingness to swallow money and not double down on bad decisions is often tied hand in hand with success—the second part makes me scratch my head a little bit. 

To retain Glenn because someone as certain to be successful as Vrabel isn’t on the market would be the ultimate waving of a white flag and an admission that you’re not actively following the sport. This year’s should-be Coach of the Year, Mike Macdonald, was not causing any fan base to do backflips but was noticed by Seattle general manager John Schneider when Macdonald flummoxed his team as the defensive coordinator of the Ravens. Schneider got curious. He did his homework. He single-handedly changed the way teams are approaching this coming cycle. 

The same can be said about the year the Steelers hired Mike Tomlin. Or when the Eagles hired Nick Sirianni. Or when the Panthers hired Dave Canales. Or when the Rams hired Sean McVay. Or when Campbell promoted Ben Johnson to offensive coordinator. 

The Jets’ situation is also reminiscent in a different way of what happened in Jacksonville last year. The Jaguars were determined to go into the cycle with Trent Baalke as general manager—a woefully unpopular decision that cost Jacksonville the chance to interview with a handful of top candidates. At some point, the Jaguars decided that having access to a good coach was more important than being right about another organizational decision that had already succumbed to sunken cost. The reward was Liam Coen and a 13-win season.

There are tap-in hires, like when Andy Reid walks onto a tarmac in Philadelphia and boards a plane for Kansas City, leaving you to simply pray that the plane lands. Then, there is the product of doing the work. Of seeing. Of noticing. Of taking into account global league trends and identifying the right person to lead you through that slog. 

The Jets’ process led them to the No. 2 pick in the 2026 draft and an action plan that I’m not sure we’ve gotten to the bottom of yet. Saleh was fired for underperforming with a roster that Glenn is about to get excused for. That same playoffs-or-bust roster was deemed hopeless enough to get pillaged for draft capital months later. 

And within that mind-numbing spin cycle, the Jets and owner Woody Johnson will have to ask themselves what he honestly believes to be true. Kraft had to stand up and admit his own personal hiring process was flawed, which led to one of the most pivotal moments in recent franchise history. Jacksonville’s Shad Khan did, too.  

Johnson appears ready to up the ante on his own. In the process, maybe the next Macdonald, or Sirianni, or Tomlin, or Canales will take a gig with a team more ready and willing to admit when something doesn’t look right. 

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