The Jets are coming off one of the most tumultuous weeks in franchise history.
Now, they have to play a football game against the Bills on Monday night.
Team owner Woody Johnson fired coach Robert Saleh on Tuesday and named defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich as the interim coach.
Ulbrich stripped play-calling duties from offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett and made passing game coordinator Todd Downing the new play-caller.
We’ll get the first glimpse at those changes in prime time against the Bills.
Oh yeah, first place in the AFC East is also on the line with the 3-2 Bills and 2-3 Jets squaring off.
“I think everybody has tried to process it their way as much as they can,” linebacker C.J. Mosley said of the changes. “Maybe some coaches and some players are still processing it, but if you look out on the football field, you look at practice, you wouldn’t notice that. Obviously that sucks, but that’s just what we have to do. We have to keep focused on the field, and we can deal with the rest when we get off the field. I think we’ve done a good job of not letting the outside noise of things affect us on the football field.”
Ulbrich, 47, has been running the defense under Saleh since 2021.
Now, he gets his shot at the big seat.
The team entered this season with playoff aspirations but have looked terrible the past two weeks.
That was the final straw for Johnson, who saw a chance to save the season by making the change now.
“Now it’s just turning the page,” Ulbrich said. “There definitely is an element of mourning, and ultimately Robert’s firing is on all of us. We have a collective group of players and coaches that are pointing the fingers at ourselves. We’re a part of that. We fell short in whatever way we fell short, and we got to remedy that and we got to remedy that now.”
The Jets get to see if they can snap this two-game skid of putrid play against the division rival Bills, who have lost their past two games, too.
“We’ve been playing against this team for a long time with this group,” Mosley said. “We understand how they’re going to come at us. They understand how we’re going to attack them. As always, it’s about execution and getting the ball off [Josh] Allen.”
