Gang Green Nation
It’s easy to overreact to one game, but let’s not.
On November 9, 2014 the then 1-7 Jets shocked the Pittsburgh Steelers 20-13 at MetLife Stadium.
The surprising game had a surprising star. Safety Jaiquawn Jarrett had ten tackles, two interceptions, two quarterback hits, two passes defensed, a sack, and a fumble recovery. On practically every play, Jarrett was making an impact.
After that game, it would have been ridiculous to declare Jarrett a budding star. He was excellent on that particular Sunday, but one game just doesn’t mean that much in the grand scheme of things. The history of the NFL is full of players who were superstar for a week.
Sure enough, Jarrett only lasted another year in the NFL as a backup.
Still, every NFL season after Week 1, there is a joke (which isn’t really a joke) about it being Overreaction Week. People take the results of the opening weekend and draw sweeping conclusions from them.
For fans of teams searching for a new head coach, the NFL Playoffs frequently becomes Overreaction Season. A coordinator who comes up with a brilliant gameplan to spark an upset can become a hot candidate overnight. And a coordinator of a team who comes up short loses his luster quickly.
And so it went on Saturday night for Aaron Glenn. The former Jets cornerback and scout and current Lions defensive coordinator was in the spotlight for the wrong reasons as his defense was shredded. The Commanders put up 45 points (7 of which came from an interception so we can say 38) and 481 yards of offense in a convincing victory.
Glenn is viewed as one of the top candidates for the Jets’ open head coaching job. At this point he is arguably the favorite. What can we take from this game? Should this change everything?
I honestly can’t tell you for certain whether Aaron Glenn is going to turn out to be a successful NFL head coach. Nobody can. What I do know is the display Saturday night is not meaningful in making such an evaluation.
Just as nobody should have said that Jarrett was destined for stardom based on that one afternoon against the Steelers, nobody should draw sweeping conclusions about Glenn over one ugly night against the Commanders.
The Jarrett-Glenn comparison actually falls flat in one area. While Jarrett was displaying skills at his position, Glenn was working in a completely different job from the one he would land with the Jets.
The difference between being a head coach and a coordinator should be obvious, but it seems to fall between the cracks frequently in these discussions. When people discuss candidates, you hear talk about what they did with their unit in that particular season. That only has so much relevance, though.
A coordinator is focused exclusively on developing gameplans and developing talent on his side of the ball. A head coach is responsible for the entire picture, hiring and supervising a coaching staff, working with the...
