One in a series of articles that will also appear in the New York Jets 2026 Yearbook, which will be published this summer.
If there was any question about how Jets HC Aaron Glenn was feeling entering his second season as head coach, he delivered an emphatic answer at the NFL Annual Meeting in late March.
"I am doing well," he said. "I'm actually outstanding, to be honest with you."
As a kid playing peewee football, he was known as "Goodbye Glenn" because the speedster would take the ball and simply outrun overmatched defenders to the end zone. And while Glenn knows NFL builds don't often come together in a New York minute, he is bullish on the future of his team and organization.
"We're still a long ways away," he said. "When you finish a season 3-14 and you go into this year and you feel good about some of the things that you've done, you want to see how all those things come together, like from OTAs and training camp and going into the season. So that's a hard question to answer, really.
"But I do know this: Everything we wanted to do as an organization, you're starting to see it come together. And again, we still have a long way to go, but I do like the direction that we're going right now."
Glenn, embarking on his 30th year in the NFL, gained plenty of experience his rookie season as a head coach.
"There are things that I know I have to improve on," he said. "There are mistakes that I made that I won't replicate going into this season and I feel really good about that. I feel really good about my growth process."
Glenn made multiple changes to his coaching staff and appointed two new coordinators in OC Frank Reich and DC Brian Duker. Glenn will take over play-calling duties for the defense that added the best pass rusher in the draft in Texas Tech edge David Bailey and versatile Indiana CB D'Angelo Ponds, who drew comparisons to a young Glenn.
"Doing it for four years in Detroit, and man, just look at the maturation of those four years, of how we improved every year and how I improved as a play-caller," Glenn said of his stint with the Lions from 2021-24. "I really miss doing that. I think it's a huge part of helping us become the team that I see us becoming, the team that I know me and Mouge [GM Darren Mougey] see us becoming, the team that Woody [Johnson] sees us becoming."
The Jets also brought in accomplished veterans — including QB Geno Smith, LB Demario Davis and S Minkah Fitzpatrick — plus intriguing offensive playmakers in first-round picks TE Kenyon Sadiq and WR Omar Cooper Jr.
"I want to leave a legacy, I do," Glenn said. "When I'm gone, I'm looking at this team being a team that consistently puts itself in a place to win. But there's not a day, not an hour, not a minute goes by that I don't think about that. And I look forward to trying to make that happen."
