What to Expect in Jeff Ulbrich’s Head Coaching Debut

I have made it no secret that I strongly disapproved of Woody Johnson’s decision to fire Robert Saleh. I will spare you the opinions and all that editorial stuff on that but the fact remains that no team in the history of the NFL has made the playoffs in the same year they fired their coach midseason. There are 100 years of data telling us that our season is over, which is a bummer because I was absolutely certain that the Jets were winning this game under their previous progression.

Woody did it to help “bring a new energy” to a team he claimed is the greatest roster assembled in his 25 years as New York Jets Owner. Again, I will spare you my arguments to strongly disagree about how this roster compares to previous iterations, but from a factual perspective Woody is right – he dramatically

By all accounts, Jeff Ulbrich is a wonderful human being. A former linebacker who played 10 years in the NFL before getting into coaching and climbing the ranks to get to this point. He is a mere 10 months younger than Dan Campbell, who played tight end at the same time Ulbrich was in the league and similarly climbed the ranks until becoming the Detroit Lions Head Coach in 2021. Today, Campbell is considered one of the best coaches in the league, and his Lions are strong favorites to win the Super Bowl this year.

Like Saleh, Ulbrich spent his formative coaching years in the NFL as a linebackers coach who would eventually work opposite the great Kyle Shanahan. They got to hone their craft while battling one of the most successful offensive schemes in the NFL each and every day in practice. Saleh and Ulbrich obviously have very similar philosophies regarding defense and scheme, but Ulbrich has the extra nod of being a former player who can truly relate to those guys in the locker room.

He was a candidate to become a Head Coach before the season but he honorably remained dedicated to the mission at One Jets Drive. Now, fate has given him the opportunity of a lifetime where he can continue the mission at One Jets Drive and assume his dream of becoming an NFL Head Coach at the same time. He could join Antonio Pierce as another former player turned interim coach to then be awarded the job at the end of the season.

What will it take?

The main way to do that is to win, right? Winning cures all, and his predecessor unfortunately had one of the worst winning percentages in franchise history. But what will we see tonight? How will we get there? Well, in his first message to the media as Interim Coach, Ulbrich spoke a lot about accountability and what that standard means to players and coaches. To us, we largely view the penalty issues as a matter of discipline that falls on coaching.

The Jets are currently 4th in the NFL with most penalty yards lost per game. When you consider that in Week 1 they only had 3 penalties for 10 yards, this stat becomes even crazier because that means throughout the next 4 games they averaged 85.5 penalty yards lost per game (most in the league during that span). If there is any tangible numerical value that should have a direct correlation to the effect of the different coaches – this is probably it.  I was very confident the Jets were winning this game with Saleh so a win wouldn’t necessarily prove much. When you consider interim coaches since 2010 are 17-14 in their first game, then it makes the win itself even less of a true indicator of the Ulbrich way vs. Saleh way.

Looking at penalties, first-quarter points, and first-half point differential are all numerical data points that Saleh struggled with throughout his entire tenure. You can immediately look at these numbers with Ulbrich and compare the results. My guess is we will see the first game since Week 1 where the Jets have less than 70 yards lost in penalties and I wouldn’t be surprised to score a first-quarter touchdown for the first time in three games. I do believe in Ulbrich, and seeing these things would be tangible proof that our belief isn’t unwarranted. Let’s go Jets