The next Jets coach has to bring more than a scheme

While there already has been plenty of discussion about who the Jets should hire as their next head coach, it’s about to ramp up even more once the final two games of the 2024 season are complete. 

There will be debate about whether they should hire an offensive coach, whether it should be someone who has already been a head coach. The term “leader of men” will be thrown around even though no one really knows what that exactly means. 

But with all the focus on who the head man in charge is going to be, there is an extremely important element of this hire that is often overlooked — who is he going to bring with him. 

Robert Saleh had Mike LaFleur as his first Jets offensive coordinator. Bill Kostroun/New York Post

One of the major issues for Jets head coaches has been the coaching staffs they have hired to work for them. Too often when a coach gets hired he turns to his friends and familiar faces to fill out his staff. That leads to mistakes, and those mistakes are not easy to fix. You can be a year or two into your time as head coach before you realize that the coaches you hired are not that good and then replacing them gets tricky because finding good coaches who want to join a staff that may be coaching for its job in Year 3 is tricky.