Jets star hints at Woody Johnson’s costly miscalculation: ‘I have noticed that’

Woody Johnson was confident that his move to fire coach Robert Saleh and replace him with interim coach Jeff Ulbrich would spark the team.

Well, that turned out to be quite a miscalculation with the Jets losing five of six games since Johnson made the switch and the strength of the team, its defense, getting worse by the week with Ulbrich juggling head coaching responsibilities while remaining the defensive play caller.

And everyone can see the drop-off on the defensive side of the ball since Johnson fired Saleh and changing Ulbrich’s workload, including one of the team’s best defensive players.

“I have noticed that,” cornerback D.J. Reed said of the defensive decline. “The last couple games we haven’t played to our standard on defense. We’ve given up touchdowns. We’re giving up explosive plays. I can’t really account to what it is. Coach Ulbrich does have a lot on his plate, but he’s a grown man and he can handle it. I think it just comes down to executing and playing our role.”

Ulbrich is clearly a good coordinator. It wasn’t an accident in 2022 and 2023 when the Jets became one of the NFL’s best defenses with Ulbrich calling the plays. But it was silly to think that the defense, which was already showing signs of slippage before Saleh got fired thanks to some questionable decisions on the defensive line this offseason and the injury to edge rusher Jermaine Johnson, would maintain the same level of play after Woody Johnson fired Saleh.

The Jets weren’t good enough with Saleh at coach, his 20-36 record speaks for itself, so no one is disputing the notion that he shouldn’t have been fired. But the timing was puzzling; if Johnson wasn’t willing to fire him after 2023, why would he fire him just five games into 2024 with the Jets at 2-3? It was a move that screamed of dysfunction and ultimately threw the Jets into turmoil.

Of course Saleh, a former defensive coordinator, was providing weekly input to his players and coaching staff that was still benefiting the defense. Of course the defense was going to suffer to some extent without that input. And to ask Ulbrich, with zero warning, to take on all the responsibilities of managing the head coaching role, while still having full responsibility for running the defense, was not fair to the interim head coach, the defense or the rest of the team.

And we saw the results with the game on the line, all the defense had to do was make a stop. And they didn’t.

“We can’t give that up,” Reed said, spotlighting the 39-yard pass, where a receiver got lost in coverage between cornerback Sauce Gardner and safety Jalen Mills, that led to the Colts game-winning touchdown. “We can’t give that up. Point blank. Period. There’s no one to blame other than everybody has to know we can’t give that up.”

The Jets were already far from perfect, and Johnson’s decision set them up for further failure, and while Ulbrich is clearly over his head facing the unenviable daily responsibility of answering the unanswerable questions about this massive disappointment, it’s remember that he’s only in this position because of the epic miscalculation of his owner.