Several Jets players met with the media on Zoom’s phone calls the day after the team’s season ended. Everyone was asked what the Jets, who had just finished 2-14 in their fifth straight losing streak and tenth in the playoffs, were losing.
Each gave a similar answer about Jets without a winning identity and culture.
The Jets hope to have solved that problem by signing Robert Saleh as their new head coach. Saleh arrives at the Jets after stints at successful organizations like 49ers and Seahawks. He has a Super Bowl ring and went for another one.
Saleh impressed Jets’ decision makers that he can be an extremely necessary change agent for the organization. He seems to have personality and makeup to inspire and push the team in the right direction. It is something that the Jets have been fighting against the head coach of Adam Gase and Todd Bowles.
“Attack, defense, special teams, it doesn’t matter,” Saleh said this season about his philosophy. “It is the mindset of the responsible person that creates an atmosphere in which players compete and fight for each other, and the players have a genuine love for each other.”
Saleh served as a defensive quality control coach for the 2011-13 Seahawks. This is a lower level position, but Saleh had to watch coach Pete Carroll work every day. Culture is a word widely used in sports, but Carroll created a culture in Seattle.
“The only thing in Seattle they really encouraged was just culture,” said Jets offensive striker George Fant, who played for the 2016-19 Seahawks. “We have to change the culture. We have to bring culture here. I think this is what they are committed to doing ”.
Fant pointed to Carroll as the one who sets the tone in Seattle.
“Every place is different. In Seattle, Pete is the culture, ”said Fant. “The way he arrives at work every day with enthusiasm makes it look like you’re not working. You are having fun playing football and relating as teammates and coaches every day. “
Bowles and Gase tried to establish a culture, but failed. None of them had an outsized personality to establish change immediately. They both thought they could do this over time, bringing in certain types of players and winning. Rex Ryan changed the culture of the Jets when he entered the door, the players entered the game when the team started to win and that led to two games for the AFC title. The Jets then allowed some key team leaders to walk out the door and the team to feel separate. The Jets have been trying to regroup ever since.
For a long time, there was no identity to be a Jet.
“Just a real identity,” said linebacker Tarell Basham at the end of the season about what the team lacked, “in terms of what you see when you look at line D, what you see when you look at the secondary, the what you see when you look at the offensive line, what you see when you look at our receiving body, an identity. It is something that I feel we are losing. “
Players come and go and there is no tradition, as with teams like Ravens, Steelers or Patriots. Saleh won’t be able to change that overnight. It will take time, and General Manager Joe Douglas must stock up on players who will remain here for more than two years.
Still, Saleh feels he can change the conversation about the Jets when he walks in the door. In a way, he already did, when you look at the reaction of the fans to the Thursday night announcement. Jet fans have not been so happy with a decision in a long time.
Saleh spoke in 2017 about how Carroll influenced him.
“The biggest influence I had on Coach Carroll was from the point of view of philosophy,” Saleh said, according to ESPN. “Understanding 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 get across. Understand that everyone has a style and that every style is the right style, as long as you apply it in the right way. So, just from a philosophy standpoint, talking to people, dealing with people is where I have my biggest growth with Coach Carroll. “