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Several Jets players met the media on Zoom calls the day after the team’s season ended. They were all asked what the Jets were missing, who had just finished 2-14 for their fifth consecutive losing season and 10th in the playoffs.
Each gave a similar answer about the Jets lacking in identity and winning culture.
The Jets hope they have solved that problem with the hiring of Robert Saleh as their new head coach. Saleh comes to the Jets after stints with successful organizations like the 49ers and Seahawks. He has one Super Bowl ring and went to another.
Saleh has made Jets decision-makers believe that he can be a desperately needed agent of change for the organization. He seems to have the personality and the makeup to inspire and push the team in the right direction. It’s something the Jets struggled with at head coach under Adam Gase and Todd Bowles.
“Offense, defense, special teams, whatever,” Saleh said this season of his philosophy. “It’s the manager’s mindset that creates an atmosphere where players compete and players fight for each other, and the players have genuine love for each other.
Saleh was the Seahawks’ defensive quality control coach from 2011-13. It’s a low-level job, but Saleh got to watch Seattle head coach Pete Carroll work every day. Culture is an overused word in sports, but Carroll created culture in Seattle.
“The only thing they pushed a lot in Seattle was just the culture,” said Jets offensive tackle George Fant, who played for the Seahawks from 2016-19. “We have to change the culture. We have to bring culture here. I think that is what they are committed to doing.
Fant has named Carroll as the one who sets the tone in Seattle.
“Everywhere is different. In Seattle, Pete is culture, ”Fant said. “The way he enthusiastically comes to work every day makes it seem like you’re not at work. You have fun playing football and bonding as teammates and coaches every day. “
Bowles and Gase both attempted to establish a culture, but failed. None of them had the disproportionate personality to effect change immediately. They both thought they could do it over time by bringing in certain types of players and winning. Rex Ryan changed the culture of the Jets when he walked through the door, the players joined when the team started winning, and that led to two AFC title games. The Jets then let some key team managers out and the team felt separated. The Jets have been trying to regroup ever since.
For too long there has been no identity to be a Jet.
“Just a real identity,” linebacker Tarell Basham said at the end of the season of what the team was lacking, “in terms of what you see when you look at the D-line, what you see when you look at high school, what you see when you look at the offensive line, what you see when you look at our receiving body, an identity. That’s one thing I miss. “
Players come and go and there is no handed down tradition, as is the case with teams like the Ravens, Steelers or Patriots. Saleh will not be able to change this overnight. It will take time, and general manager Joe Douglas needs to store the roster with players who will stay here for more than two years.
Still, Saleh feels like he can change the conversation around the Jets when he walks through the door. In a way, he already has, when you look at the fan reaction to Thursday night’s announcement. Jets fans haven’t been so universally happy with a decision in a long time.
Saleh explained in 2017 how Carroll influenced him.
“The biggest influence I’ve taken from Coach Carroll is from a philosophical standpoint,” Saleh said, according to ESPN. “Understand who you are as a person. Understand what is important to you as a person. And how to apply it to the message you’re trying to convey. Understanding that everyone has a style and that each style is the right style as long as it is applied in the right way. So just philosophically speaking to people, managing people is where I had my greatest growth with Coach Carroll.
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