Despite some lackluster results at times, Detroit Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn has gotten multiple head coaching interviews in each of the last three hiring cycles. This year, with or without star defensive end Aidan Hutchinson, the results have come for the Detroit defense.
Entering Week 10, Detroit is tied for fifth in the league in scoring defense (18.5 points per game) and sixth in run defense (106.4 yards per game), Glenn already felt sure to head coaching interviews after this season, but it's a virtual lead-pipe lock now.
While we know Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson will be very selective with head coaching opportunities he considers, it's hard to know how selective Glenn will be. A place/organization he is familiar with may be important to him as a differentiator between potential opportunities.
Aaron Glenn may be wanted for a certain head coaching job, but he should easily stay away
The New York Jets got a proverbial head start on their search for a new head coach when they fired Robert Saleh just over a month into the season. There's a good bit of uncertainty about the future there (will Aaron Rodgers play in 2025? Will owner Woody Johnson have a place in the upcoming Trump administration as U.S. ambassador to the UK, again?).
Jason La Canfora of the Washington Post has taken an early look at the potential for a lot of head coaching turnover after the season. The Jets of course will have an opening, so they led his look at the situation around the league.
"Woody Johnson beat everyone to the punch, whacking Robert Saleh a mere five weeks into this season. Whether Aaron Rodgers stays or goes in 2025, a coaching search is about to begin. Former Jets stalwart defensive back Aaron Glenn would be an interesting hire, with his Lions defense quite stout and Detroit perhaps equipped to break a generational Super Bowl slump. Proven winners will stay away from this dead-end job, as they always do."
Glenn played cornerback in the NFL for 15 seasons. The Jets took him in the first round of 1994 NFL Draft and he spent the first eight seasons of his playing career there, earning three Pro Bowl selections as a Jet. So he is a familiar face to the Jets in a broad sense, and the organization that drafted him may hold a unique place in his heart.
But a big career move is not a good place for sentimentality. Glenn surely sees the lingering dysfunction the Jets have as head coaching opportunities are lined up to come his way.
If the Jets were able to poach a new general manager from the Lions (John Dorsey? Ray Agnew?), if they fire Joe Douglas, that might change the equation for Glenn (or Johnson, for that matter). But the Jets' head coaching job is not very appealing, as La Canfora reinforced to finish his analysis of their situation, and it should not appeal to Glenn all that much-if at all.