The next era of the New York Jets is officially in place with Aaron Glenn in place. The Jets settled on Aaron Glenn, and new General Manager in Darren Mougey. Mougey and Glenn have begun placing their coordinators in place with Steve Wilks taking over the defense, Steve Heiden taking over the offensive line, Chris Banjo as the new special teams head, and Tanner Engstrand now heading the offense, taking over Nathaniel Hackett’s job.
Perhaps the most influential new hiring could come in the new Jets’ head coach, Aaron Glenn. Glenn is a former All-Pro cornerback and has a history of running very successful defenses. Most recently, Glenn ran the Detroit Lions defense in 2024, as they had one of their most successful years yet. With this being said, can Aaron Glenn help the Jets’ former Defensive Rookie of the Year, Sauce Gardner, bounce back after a down year?
Can the Aaron Glenn hiring help Sauce Gardner bounce back after a rough year?
While both Glenn and Mougey have a lot of decisions to be made as they take over the Jets, they shouldn’t overlook helping to get players back on track after an all-around rough year for the team. While a lot of these issues could be on the offensive side of the ball (i.e. Aaron Rodgers’ decision, new weapons for the next quarterback, etc.) Glenn and his defensive staff have to get the Gang Green defense back to where it was in 2022 and 2023.
Truthfully, this all starts with Sauce Gardner. Gardner didn’t have a terrible year in the scheme of things, but to say it was a down year by his standards would be an understatement. Now with Glenn at the helm, the young, star cornerback could be primed for another great year, especially in one specific area of his game.
Aaron Glenn played with the Jets from 1994-2001. To this day, Glenn is still known as one of the franchise’s best cornerbacks in team history. Glenn was selected to two Pro Bowls in 1997 and 1998. Glenn finished 1997 with 65 total tackles, one interception, and 11 passes defended. The following year, Glenn picked up 48 total tackles, a whopping six interceptions, and once again 11 passes defended. He was truly a key piece to the Jets turnaround under their than head coach, Bill Parcells.
His big year in 1998 saw one of Glenn’s biggest strengths come to light, his ball-hawking ability. In his entirety with the Jets, Glenn finished with 24 interceptions. This is tied for fourth most in franchise history. Among his total interceptions in his entire NFL career, Glenn picked up six returned for a touchdown, which is 21st in NFL history. As you can see, Glenn had an eye for getting to the ball, and disrupting, and sometimes even catching passes.
You may be asking yourself, how does any of this effect Sauce Gardner? Well first, Sauce only has three interceptions in his three years so far in the NFL, two of which came in his rookie year. Perhaps the biggest problem with Gardner came back in 2023 when he finished with a goose egg in the interception column on the stat sheet. For a cornerback, that’s certainly less than ideal. While 2024 saw Gardner have another down year, Glenn could be just what the doctor ordered to help get Sauce back on track.
The hiring of Glenn will help Gardner immensely. Glenn has shown to run the type of defense which plays to Sauce’s strengths a great deal, man coverage. In 2024, the Lions used man coverage defense fifth-most in the league, as opposed to the Jets who finished the season using man coverage 17th-most in the entire NFL.
Overall, it seems like this could truly be a match made in heaven between Glenn and Gardner. Gardner is a tremendous cornerback, and even in a down year, still showed he’s an elite cornerback. Gardner ranks third-best in the league when it comes to passer rating allowed when it comes to man coverage. While interceptions aren’t end-all, be-all for an NFL cornerback, it certainly plays a big part in an elite corners game. Glenn and the coaching staff could help make this the most dangerous version of Sauce Gardner we’ve ever seen.
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