ORLANDO – When a team misses the playoffs for 13 straight years, it’s more than just a run of bad luck. Tensions run high, and pressure mounts for players, coaches and executives.
The Jets and coach Robert Saleh aren’t any different.
Saleh has had his feet held to the fire since the conclusion of the 2023 campaign.
First, an article in The Athletic detailed how the Jets’ season fell apart. Then, Jets owner Woody Johnson put Saleh and Joe Douglas on notice after another disappointing 7-10 season.
Yet at the NFL Annual Meetings on Monday morning, Saleh told reporters, he didn’t feel any more pressure to succeed despite having had three consecutive losing seasons.
“Pressure is already max elevated from Year 1 to whatever,” Saleh said. “There’s always pressure to win. Obviously, we’re all disappointed with the way things worked out a year ago, but I don’t think anyone’s confidence is shook.
“I think our players are confident that we’d be able to achieve the things that we need to achieve. We just gotta go to work and, keep our heads down and find a way to get some W’s.
Saleh was hired as Jets coach in 2021, and the team finished 4-13 after many called it a total rebuilding job. Gang Green improved to 7-10 in 2022 but lost six consecutive games to send that season.
That’s when the Jets decided to go all in and acquire Aaron Rodgers in a trade with the Packers. With Rodgers under center, many considered the Jets potential Super Bowl contenders.
The Jets, with Rodgers under center, also became a media darling. HBO’s ‘Hard Knocks’ was filmed there over the summer, and other television networks spoke about the Jets daily.
But the entire season fell apart after Rodgers tore his Achilles four plays into the Jets season opener against the Bills and missed the rest of last season. Saleh and Jets general manager Joe Douglas were both criticized because Zach Wilson was the starting quarterback despite his struggles.
Wilson was benched and became the Jets’ starter before suffering a season-ending concussion. Because of their offensive issues without Rodgers and having the 31st-worst offense in the league, Saleh finished with another losing season as coach. He has an 18-33 record during his three seasons with the Jets.
“When you lose, you’re a loser,” Saleh said. “I suck, Joe D [Jets general manager Joe Douglas], sucks, we all suck. It goes with the territory.
“The best thing we can do is put our heads down and go to work. All the feel-good stuff for the offseason doesn’t matter. We got to win football games and when we win football games, all the narratives will change.”
The Jets currently have the longest playoff drought in North American sports. They haven’t made the postseason since 2010, when the Jets lost in the AFC Championship against the Steelers.
That led to Johnson saying he was as “mad” as he could be about the offense, in particular. This offseason, the Jets have made a few free-agent acquisitions to protect Rodgers and make a playoff run and potential championship run in the AFC.
Last week, the Jets signed wide receiver Mike Williams to a one-year contract that could be worth up to $15 million. Gang Green also added left tackle Tyron Smith, left guard John Simpson and right tackle Morgan Moses.
A year ago, the Jets appeared to be enjoy both the positive and negative attention with Rodgers on the team. Some of the negative attention even led to Saleh saying, “If you ain’t got no haters, you ain’t popping,” after critical comments by Broncos coach Sean Payton in USA Today.
“A lot of lessons, a lot of lessons for me,” Saleh said about what he learned last season. “I think if you’re a player, I think there’s a lot of lessons n terms of how to deal with adversity and how to deal with the different things that happened.
“You know, I’m always going to try and find the silver linings of things that happened, and you know, obviously, we didn’t accomplish what we wanted to. But I do feel like we found out a lot about ourselves and about the guys who came in and fought every single day and tried to find a way to finish stronger.
“We won three of our last five and got a little bit better towards the end of the year. Not saying much obviously, but there’s a lot of things we can take from last year especially from my end.”
