Gang Green Nation
The Jets are searching for a new defensive coordinator. The team announced candidates for the job a week ago. One of those candidates, Mathieu Araujo, is off the market. He was hired as the defensive coordinator of the Jacksonville Jaguars this week.
How do the other seven candidates rate? Here are my thoughts.
Jim Leonhard, Denver Broncos, Assistant Head Coach/Defensive Pass Game Coordinator
Leonhard was a fan favorite as a player manning the Jets secondary and is viewed as a rising star in the coaching industry.
Ok, maybe that isn’t all that meaningful. The same was said about Aaron Glenn a year ago.
Still, Leonhard checks a lot of boxes. He rose through the coaching ranks at his alma mater, the University of Wisconsin. Eventually he became a highly regarded defensive coordinator and had a brief stint as interim head coach in 2022. After being bypassed for the full-time job, he spent a year at Illinois as an analyst before joining Sean Payton’s staff in Denver a year ago.
It isn’t clear whether the defense he would run with the Jets would closer resemble the scheme he installed in Wisconsin or the one Vance Joseph runs in Denver. It could be a combination of the two.
A number of his Wisconsin principles strike me as a good fit for Aaron Glenn and the Jets. Leonhard particularly liked to utilize simulated pressures. He would walk a potential blitzer down to the line of scrimmage. The blocking scheme would have to account for him as a pass rusher. Frequently the defender would drop into coverage. The offensive lineman assigned to block the potential blitzer still couldn’t provide double team help to the man next to him until the drop into coverage was complete. Meanwhile, the back of the defense had sound coverage principles. This could be a nice balance between the stress Aaron Glenn wants to put on the offense and the modern principles that eluded the Jets defense under Steve Wilks.
My biggest question is why Leonhard would want the Jets defensive coordinator job. He is in a cushy situation in Denver, widely respected in both the college and NFL worlds. He is a likely replacement for Joseph in the event the Broncos defensive coordinator gets a second chance at a head coaching job and could be on the fast track to head job himself.
The monumental task of rebuilding the Jets defense with shaky personnel on a coaching staff that could be on the hot seat sooner rather than later doesn’t strike me as a great career move. I guess we can hope Leonhard really loved his time with the Jets.
Daronte Jones, Minnesota Vikings, Defensive Backs Coach/Pass Game Coordinator
Ephraim Banda, Cleveland Browns, Safeties Coach
Both of these coaches have a decent profile for a potential first-time coordinator. They have coached relatively successful units and worked under good defensive minds, Brian Flores for Jones and Jim Schwartz for Banda. (For whatever it’s...
