Adam Schefter explains Aaron Rodgers’ role in New York Jets firing Robert Saleh

Surprising news hit the NFL on Tuesday morning when reports surfaced that the New York Jets fired head coach Robert Saleh five games into his third season with the franchise. Abruptly ending his time with the team following a 2-3 start to the season and a 20-36 overall record during his time at the helm for New York.

After missing all of his first season in New York with an injury, Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers has been under center this season during the team’s struggles. A veteran superstar player with plenty of influence on the franchise. Which has led to many questioning what role, if any, he had in Saleh’s firing.

“I don’t know that Aaron Rodgers was involved in it and I don’t know that they consulted with him before they made the decision,” NFL insider Adam Schefter said on First Take. “I think ultimately the owner makes the call that he believes is best, and as you said, I can’t remember the last time they fired a coach in season. It certainly hasn’t been in recent history.”

The last time the Jets made an in-season coaching change was in 1976 when Lou Holtz resigned before the team’s final game of the season. Further exaggerating the strange timing of Saleh’s recent firing in a choice that Schefter believes was not the decision of Rodgers or any other players.

“But I just come back to this, I can’t say that they went to the players and told the players, or they spoke to Aaron Rodgers and Aaron Rogers said, ‘I want a new head coach.’ I believe that those two men did get along well,” Schefter said. “I believe there was a healthy respect there, despite the fact that people have been analyzing the relationship the last couple of weeks since the sideline hugs and whatever has happened or not happened.”

There’s no question that the relationship between Rogers and Saleh was under a huge microscope during his tenure. Highlighted by HBO’s Hard Knocks featuring the Jets in 2023, Rodgers being fined for missing mandatory minicamp in June while on a trip to Egypt, and the infamous aforementioned hug on the sideline in Week 3.

Some may be hard set on the idea that Rodgers had some level of involvement in Saleh’s firing. But Schefter made it clear that New York’s disappointing performance this season was likely the biggest reason for the early termination.

“I think, in a nutshell, the team was not performing the way that Woody Johnson expected them to. And with them not performing the way they expected to before the season slipped away, before it got too late, they made the dramatic move to make Robert Saleh the first head coach fired this season five games into the season, as they begin to get ready for a key Monday night game against the Buffalo Bills,” Schefter concluded.