After hearing about CB Kris Boyd being admitted to a Manhattan hospital after he was shot in the abdomen early Sunday morning, Jets HC Aaron Glenn got on the phone to the special teams stalwart who joined the Green & White in free agency last spring.
"You know, I think it was that Sunday when I spoke to him," Glenn said early Wednesday afternoon. "But it was really shortly after it happened, well after he had a chance to get in the hospital and all that. But again, I was just ... I was happy to talk to him. I was happy the way he felt, the way he sounded in that conversation."
Even though Boyd, who signed with the Jets in March after two seasons with Houston, sustained a shoulder injury in practice early in August and was placed on injured reserve, Glenn said he's been present throughout at the Atlantic Health Jets Training Center.
"He's been a part of what we're doing," Glenn said. "I mean, he comes to the games all the time. He's fully engaged. To be one of the top special team players in this league he's done a really good job of helping the other guys we have. And he's been a huge part of Stig's [Qwan'tez Stiggers] development as far as a gunner and things like that. So I'm very appreciative of what he brought to the table."
According to the NYPD, Boyd, 29, was shot around 2 a.m. Sunday morning on West 38th St. near Seventh Ave. in Midtown Manhattan as he was leaving a restaurant.
Boyd, a Texas native, who stayed in the state for college and played for the Longhorns, was drafted by the Vikings in the seventh round (No. 217 overall) in 2019. He spent time with Arizona and Houston in 2023, and was with the Texans during the 2024 season, playing mostly on special teams. Since the 2022 season, Boyd has not played fewer than 75% of special teams snaps in three of the four seasons for Minnesota, Arizona and Houston. (He split the 2023 season between the Vikings and the Cardinals.)
Glenn said that he's met with the team to discuss the situation, also for him and the players to share information, discuss their feelings and collectively support their teammate.
"The perils, and here's the thing, being a part of this league for so long, as a player and as a coach, there's a number of things that I've had an opportunity to witness, be a part of, experience, seek advice, and the one thing that I do know is, man, when things like this happen, it's easy for me to have conversations with a team," Glenn said. "It's easy for me to have a conversation with a player. But it's always hard to figure out that guys have either put themselves in the situation or in this situation that I could talk to those guys about. But yes, you absolutely have to address this with the team, because you don't want anything like this to ever happen to anybody on your team, to anybody outside of the building, in other teams, but it's something that you have to address with the players."
Asked if he's thought about Boyd's on-the-field future, Glenn said: "That's something that I didn't even talk to him about, and that's something I don't think needed to be talked about at that time. It was more or less: 'Man, how are you doing? How's your family doing?' And there's a ton of time to talk about football after this incident."
