There is too much to like about Robert Saleh to obsess over the fact he has never been a head coach in the NFL.
What the Jets needed, more than anything, was a leader of men, and anyone who has coached with him or played for him, most recently during his time as 49ers defensive coordinator, will vouch for that.
Think of it this way: He is the anti-Adam Gase.
Saleh will be more Joe Judge than Gase in this regard: He can command a room, and be the football CEO the Jets crave.
He will infuse the entire building with belief and hope, a chip off the old Pete Carroll block from his time in Seattle with him.
Saleh, signed to a five-year deal, was not hired to fix Sam Darnold or whomever the Jets quarterback will be, and delegate the defense to someone else.
Joe Douglas was looking for a coach of the entire team.
He has one now.
Joe Douglas got it right.
Robert Saleh and Joe Douglas: The Gang’s Bald Here.
Saleh is expected to bring highly regarded Mike LaFleur, younger brother of Packers head coach Matt, as his OC.
One of the main reasons Christopher Johnson and former GM Mike Maccagnan hired Gase was his previous head-coaching experience — three tumultuous years with the Dolphins, Peyton Manning’s glowing recommendation, etcetera, etcetera. The Jets had cast their lot with a string of defensive head coaches and first-time head coaches since Al Groh in 2000.
The Giants weren’t expecting to hire Joe Judge. Then he blew them away in the interview.
If you have the courage of your convictions that this is the man for you, whether or not he has been a head coach, whether he coaches offense or defense or even special teams, you pounce if he shares your vision of what your team can and should be.
It was the wrong time and the wrong place for Doug Pederson, even with that Super Bowl championship on his résumé.
His deteriorated relationship with Carson Wentz is enough of a red flag. Then add in the fact that Jets fans watched him tank — some of them would have applauded him if it meant Trevor Lawrence — in that NFC Least-deciding regular-season finale against the Washington Football Team.
Douglas need only look down in Miami to Brian Flores for how a man with no head-coaching experience can flourish. Or Mike Vrabel in Tennessee. Or John Harbaugh in Baltimore. Or Mike Tomlin in Pittsburgh. Or Sean McVay with the Rams. Or Frank Reich in Indianapolis. Or Kevin Stefanski in Cleveland. Or Pederson in Philadelphia.
Or Kyle Shanahan in San Francisco.
The other side of the coin, of course, is Ray Handley. If the late George Young could make a mistake, anyone can. Ben McAdoo looked like the real deal as a rookie head coach, came with a recommendation from Aaron Rodgers, before it all collapsed around him.
Douglas wanted and needed a collaborative partner and would not have hired Saleh if he didn’t check that box. He is known as a teacher. Another box checked.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with people if they don’t hire him,” Shanahan said recently. “I mean, he’s as good as you can get, and he knows more about football, all three phases, and he’s going to hire the best staff, knows about players, he knows what they’re talking about, who doesn’t know what they’re talking about, and he also knows how to deal with people.”
The Browns might have hired him if they hadn’t already zeroed in on Stefanski last season.
“He’s super-optimistic,” Richard Sherman was quoted as saying. “He’s positive. Not a lot of yelling. Not a lot of negative criticism. There is criticism. When you’re wrong, you’re wrong, and he’ll get on you when you make a mistake, but he won’t say, ‘You suck.’ He will say, ‘I see what you saw, but we need to play this a little better.’ It’s honest criticism that anybody can accept.”
They called him Mr. Clean — cue the photos — and his wild-eyed passion and sideline intensity were always impossible to miss. He plays chess but his alter-ego preaches “extreme violence,” and his players wore wristbands with the phrase.
Sherman tweeted on Thursday night: “The @nyjets got a great one! Congrats to them!”
Saleh at Super Bowl 2020: “When you look at these guys, they’re all men, and they all want to be treated with respect. … You expect them to treat you with respect as a coach. Well, you should be able to reciprocate that to the player. They deserve it. They earned it.”
He is the son of Lebanese parents, and proud of it.
“I go about my business the best I can,” Saleh told NFL.com. “Judge me for who I am, not what my ethnicity tells me I am or what the media might portray Middle Easterners as. When you look at my background and where I am from — Dearborn, Michigan, which has the largest Middle Eastern population outside of the Middle East — we’re Arab Americans trying to assimilate within the culture of this country while, at the same time, maintaining the values that make up Middle Easterners. In Dearborn, that includes football. That’s a huge part of our lives.”
Now he is a huge part of Jets lives.
In Joe Douglas You Trust. He nailed his first coaching hire.