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There is too much to love about Robert Saleh to obsess over the fact that he’s never been a head coach in the NFL.
What the Jets needed, more than anything, was a male leader, and anyone who coached with him or played for him, most recently during his tenure as the 49ers’ defensive coordinator, will attest to that.
Think of it this way: he’s the anti-Adam Gase.
Saleh will be more Joe Judge than Gase in that regard: he can command a room and be the football CEO the Jets want.
He will infuse the whole building with belief and hope, a chip from former Pete Carroll block from his time in Seattle with him.
Saleh, who signed a five-year deal, was not hired to fix Sam Darnold or any Jets quarterback, and delegate the defense to someone else.
Joe Douglas was looking for a coach for the whole team.
He has one now.
Joe Douglas got it right.
Robert Saleh and Joe Douglas: the gang is bald here.
Saleh is expected to bring Mike LaFleur, the younger brother of Packers head coach Matt, as his CO.
One of the main reasons Christopher Johnson and former GM Mike Maccagnan hired Gase was his previous experience as a head coach – three tumultuous years with the Dolphins, the commendation from Peyton Manning, etc. The Jets had cast their spell with a series of defensive head coaches and head coaches for the first time since Al Groh in 2000.
The Giants weren’t expecting to hire Joe Judge. Then he blew them away during the interview.
If you have the courage of your convictions that this is the man for you, whether or not he was a head coach or not, whether he was an offensive or defensive coach or even special teams, you are bound to leapfrog. it shares your vision of what your team can and should be.
It wasn’t the right time and the wrong place for Doug Pederson, even with that Super Bowl Championship on his resume.
His deteriorated relationship with Carson Wentz is enough of a red flag. Then add the fact that Jets fans watched him tank – some would have applauded him if that meant Trevor Lawrence – in that NFC’s least decisive regular season finale against the Washington soccer team.
Douglas only has to look in Miami to Brian Flores to find out how a man with no head coaching experience can thrive. Or Mike Vrabel in Tennessee. Or John Harbaugh in Baltimore. Or Mike Tomlin in Pittsburgh. Or Sean McVay with the Rams. Or Frank Reich in Indianapolis. Or Kevin Stefanski in Cleveland. Or Pederson in Philadelphia.
Or Kyle Shanahan in San Francisco.
The flip side, of course, is Ray Handley. If the late George Young could make a mistake, anyone could. Ben McAdoo looked like the real deal as a rookie head coach, with a recommendation from Aaron Rodgers, before everything around him fell apart.
Douglas wanted and needed a collaborative partner and wouldn’t have hired Saleh if he hadn’t checked that box. He is known as a teacher. Another box checked.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with people if they don’t hire him,” Shanahan said recently. “I mean, he’s as good as you can get, and he knows more about football, the three phases, and he’s going to hire the best staff, knows the players, he knows what they’re talking about, who doesn’t not know what they are talking about, and he also knows how to deal with people.
The Browns might have hired him if they hadn’t already focused on Stefanski last season.
“He’s super optimistic,” said Richard Sherman. “He’s positive. Not a lot of screaming. Not a lot of negative reviews. There are criticisms. When you make a mistake, you make a mistake, and he lashes out at you when you make a mistake, but he doesn’t say, “You suck.” He will say, “I see what you saw, but we have to play a little better. It’s an honest review that anyone can accept.
They called him Mr. Clean – see the photos – and his wild-eyed passion and sidelong intensity was always impossible to miss. He plays chess but his alter ego preaches “extreme violence”, and his players wore bracelets with the phrase.
Sherman tweeted Thursday night: “The @nyjets had a great one! Congratulations to them! “
Saleh at Super Bowl 2020: “When you look at these guys, they’re all men, and they all want to be treated with respect. … You expect them to treat you with respect as a coach. Well, you should be able to reciprocate the player. They deserve it. They deserved it.
He is the son of Lebanese parents and is proud of it.
“I’m going about my business as best I can,” Saleh told NFL.com. “Judge me for who I am, not what my ethnicity tells me or what the media might describe as Middle Easterners. When you look at my background and where I’m from – Dearborn, Michigan, which has the largest population in the Middle East outside of the Middle East – we are American Arabs trying to assimilate into the culture of this whole country. at the same time, maintaining the values that make up the Middle East. In Dearborn, that includes football. It’s a big part of our lives. “
Now he’s an integral part of Jets life.
In Joe Douglas You Trust. He landed his first coaching job.
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