These are the times that try the souls of NFL coaches, players and fans, when a franchise is involved in a rough start to a restructuring project that hasn't risen to the sky as fast as everyone would like.
Aaron Glenn found himself taking some familiar questions about the Jets' 2-9 start as they gear up to play back-to-back home games, against Atlanta on Sunday followed by Miami a week later.
For instance, does Glenn see similarities in the Jets' slow progress compared to where the Lions were when he joined them as defensive coordinator in 2021? AG feels strongly both ways.
"I respect the question, but man, I have turned the page from that a while ago," Glenn said before Thursday's next-to-last practice for the Falcons. "And I understand how there are some comparisons, because I've made comparisons. But I am so locked in on what we're doing now to where, listen, I understand that it's where we're at as far as taking the time to get to where we want to get, and I've been saying this for the longest: The foundation is what I'm worried about."
Glenn of course wasn't the Detroit head coach in 2021. But he and HC Dan Campbell and those coaches and players built a platform that the Jets aspire to. Those Lions began that season 0-10-1. And ever since, Detroit has been a darling of a franchise. From Game 12 that season through the end of Glenn's tenure before coming to the Green & White, the Lions went 39-18 with three winning seasons and two playoff berths.
Is that the kind of turnaround that the Jets envision in their crystal ball? That, as NFL head coaches like to say, is a hypothetical. But Glenn still likes the sights and sounds in his locker room as his first season at the helm heads toward the home stretch.
"I'm trying to create as many winning situations as I can for this team," he said. "They have bought into everything that I've talked about, and I'm proud of how these guys have operated. There's no quit in them. We know the wins haven't been a result of what we've been wanting. But I do know this: I can clearly see it, and we just have to continue to do the things that we're doing now to try to get those wins."
Speaking of W's in the final month and a half, the age-old sports question of whether a team should tank the remaining schedule or not arose again. Glenn paraphrased a former Jets head coach, Herm Edwards from more than two decades earlier, in explaining why that approach is NFL nonsense.
"I'm going to give you a line that you guys have heard before: You play the game to win," AG said. "Listen, it's just not in a coach or player's mentality to go out there and lose games. We're not built that way. We're built to go out there and play as hard as we can to try and get as many wins as we can. And then we let everything else take care of itself as far as draft and all that.
"But anytime we step on the grass, we're trying to improve, and anytime we go into games, we're trying to see what we did in practice, can we make sure that transitions out on the field, and hopefully that creates wins for us."
Long-term goals may compete with that approach, Glenn said, but not for long and not in reality.
"We have to have a vision of where we're going," he said. "But we're trying to get things done now, so never get that mixed up with how we're doing. I know I talk about foundation a lot, I know I talk about vision a lot, but man, the now is what we're trying to make sure we create, as long as we can see that vision."
