There was a stretch during the 2024 calendar year when Jets brass, namely owner Woody Johnson and team president Hymie Elhai, often found themselves sitting across from the leaders of the Detroit Lions at league meetings. Those meetings can go on for hours -- discussions about rule changes and league issues and often multiple votes. By the end of 2024, the Jets were set to hire a new head coach, and Lions owner Sheila Ford Hamp would find a way to work Aaron Glenn into the conversation.
She'd rave about him, especially the work he was doing as Lions defensive coordinator with a unit decimated by injuries but still performing at a high level anyway. That was something on their mind as the Jets embarked on their coaching search. By the time they officially interviewed Glenn in January, they had witnessed an impressive coaching performance in difficult circumstances. That resonated -- as did the way he talked about how he did it during his first virtual interview with the Jets, winning over the room.
"I just think he was a guy that always got the most out of his players," said Mike Tannenbaum, a former Jets general manager and a co-leader of the Jets' head coach and general manager search committees in 2025. "That side of the ball was very banged up and he was unyielding in: These are our standards and if player X or Y gets hurt, I don't care. This is how the Detroit Lions defense is going to do things."
It was something the Jets were sorely missing at times during the Robert Saleh era, never more so than when Aaron Rodgers tore his Achilles four plays into the 2023 season and the collective response was to throw their hands up and dream about what could've been. Glenn will not rest on his laurels. There's no time to mope.
During a 3-14 season, with a roster severely lacking for talent by the midway point, that wasn't necessarily on display yet. As star players were sold off for draft picks, the defense only got worse. Though Glenn wasn't calling plays; that was Steve Wilks, who was eventually fired before the end of the season. The Jets had a roster full of players who largely didn't believe in the coach who was calling the plays and it showed. The way Glenn rectified that was to take back the play-calling himself, his "superpower," as he put it.
The Jets are only through one game with Glenn as head coach and play-caller, but there's already signs that his players -- many of them veterans added this offseason -- are buying into his plan in the same way that the Lions players did by the end of his tenure. Fittingly, this next stretch of three games will test that belief, a trip down memory lane through the NFC North starting with the Packers at home on Sunday, the Lions on the road in Week 3 and the Bears on the road in Week 4.
Linebacker Demario Davis said Glenn's practices are the hardest in-season he's experienced in 15 years of playing in the NFL. Davis adds that it's that intensity that helps set them up in a way to overcome anything unexpected that might happen, such as safety Minkah Fitzpatrick succumbing to a groin injury early in the first quarter after the Jets spent an offseason building their secondary around his skill set.
"Some of our practices feel like we're still in training camp," Davis said. "That's the strain that's going on and the mindset to make sure we're preparing for every situation … That's just our process."
Fitzpatrick lasted six defensive plays before going down with a groin injury in Sunday's opener, and he'll miss the next two-to-three weeks on top of that. When he went down, Dane Belton slid over into Fitzpatrick's role and Andre Cisco was elevated from the bench. Late in the second quarter, nickel corner Jarvis Brownlee left the game with an injury, forcing Glenn to play three safeties at once, with Belton occasionally sliding over to play the nickel.
Belton was in a role that he hadn't practiced at length, really, since the spring. In between plays, he often ran over to the sideline for a quick chat with Glenn, to make sure they were on the same page.
"It was just making sure I'm comfortable with everything -- and I told him I'm comfortable with any call, it wasn't something where he had to change the game plan," Belton said. "It was just making sure I was in a good spot, and I was, and I was able to go out there and do what I had to do."
All told, Belton played 40 coverage snaps and only allowed one catch on one target for six yards, according to Pro Football Focus. Nine of his snaps came in the slot.
Glenn raved about the job Belton did filling in on the fly, as did defensive coordinator Brian Duker. "I think it shows just how smart of a player he is -- that's probably a little bit underrated," Duker said. "He knows multiple positions on the defense and could easily plug and play with a limited number of reps at a position, which is really impressive."
At the root of that is the way Glenn teaches his players; it's what he did in Detroit too. The goal is to make sure each player knows exactly what their role is and does everything in their power to perform that specific role to the best of their ability, nothing more and nothing less. Sometimes more is asked of them, like with Belton on Sunday, but even in those situations Glenn, in-game, is doing the same thing -- giving the player specific responsibilities to get them to focus on the job they need to do.
"In the moment it was strictly: What's my job and how do I need to accomplish it?" Belton says. "Especially in the moment you can't get too frantic on what-ifs, this and that. If it happened on a Tuesday maybe there's more thinking -- not to say I wouldn't be comfortable, but there'd be more thinking involved. But during a game it's like, how do I accomplish my job?
"There's no time to think about it, I'm here," Belton adds as he snaps his fingers. "How do I need to do my job to win?"
Adds cornerback Brandon Stephens: "When a person has to go in at any position the expectation is to do the job at the highest level. The ship still has to sail."
It worked with flying colors during a 23-10 win over the Titans. Tennessee had the second-fewest offensive yards of any team in the NFL (195) in Week 1, and one-third of those came on a fourth-quarter drive with the game already out of hand. It will only get harder from here, starting with the Packers' coach Matt LaFleur and quarterback Jordan Love, a potent duo that Glenn is familiar with. Though, for the most part, Glenn usually got the better of them. From 2022 to 2024, the Lions went 5-1 against LaFleur with Glenn as defensive coordinator, holding Green Bay under 20 points per game (19.8) and forcing nine takeaways in the six games.
Glenn downplayed the idea of a history of success against one singular opponent or coach, saying "we play week-to-week, and we go out there and try to win each time we go out. However those numbers stack up, it is what it is. I think I heard a stat the other day with Dak (Prescott), and the Giants and I think he was like 12-3 (he was 18-3), but what happened? It's all about going week-to-week and trying to win your battles. That's all we try to do."
LaFleur has an idea of what he's walking into.
"One thing you know you're going to get: You're going to get a team that plays extremely hard," LaFleur told reporters this week. "They're going to be very physical. They take on his mentality."
The last time they faced off was perhaps the best example of what Glenn does best. In Week 14 of the 2024 season, the Lions were without five key starters (including Aidan Hutchinson) and three key backups on defense. Two former Jets had been signed off the street less than a week prior -- linebacker Kwon Alexander and safety Jamal Adams -- and both started that Thursday night against the Packers. The defense did just enough to win that night, and the Lions clinched a playoff spot.
"We just kind of expect our style of play continues no matter who's in there," Duker said. "If you're wearing our jersey, man, our style of play is going to show up on tape."
Belton called it a "standard."
"He has a standard he sets, how he sees his defense being run," Belton said. "Whoever is on this team is guys that he chose that he knows (are) gonna get the job done how he sees fit, so I feel like when anyone comes out and someone else has to come in -- everyone has that same standard and plays that same way.
"Nobody is going to miss a beat."
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
