ESPN's Adam Schefter explains Jets' reasoning to fire head coach Robert Saleh

Robert Saleh was fired by the New York Jets Tuesday morning, in a move that stunned NFL circles. ESPN’s Adam Schefter had to explain why New York pulled the plug on its head coach in the middle of his fourth season.

Saleh went 20-36 during his time with the Jets and they are currently at 2-3. But in a year where the AFC East is winnable and the Jets have the talent to do so, it wasn’t working.

So, Schefter reported Saleh was first on the chopping block to get a spark.

“He’s got a year left on his contract after this season, but even this still is surprising,” Schefter said on First Take. “Now, this is a team I think that had looked a little off recently. They weren’t looking exactly the way they should, and the Jets felt like they needed to do something to try to get this team back, and they told Robert Saleh of this decision here minutes ago.”

As far as why now, Schefter explained the unprecedented decision by the organization to fire Saleh.

“I think that they believe that they have a really good team,” Schefter said. “I think that they think this team, especially in that division, can compete to win the division, and it wasn’t performing the way that everybody expected. If we watch this team, everybody would admit every Jet fan, it looked off. They lost at home to Denver. They lost to Minnesota. What’s odd is, in this day and age, in the National Football League, there are peaks and valleys to every team season.

“Everybody goes through them, but with the pressure in New York, I just feel like they felt like this is a team that should be performing better, winning more often, and Woody Johnson didn’t want to squander what could potentially be the last year of Aaron Rodgers career.”

With Rodgers maybe done after 2024, the Jets felt a move to part ways with Saleh was the logical step five games into the season.

“You don’t know if we’ll see Aaron Rodgers again,” Schefter said. “They went out and traded for him last year with the idea that he was going to bring back this franchise. And he got hurt last year against Buffalo on Monday Night Football. And oddly enough, he’ll be against Buffalo again this week, on Monday Night Football.

“They have the extra day to get ready for the Bills on Monday night. And they decided they felt like Jeff Ulbrich would bring a spark to this team that they didn’t have under Robert Saleh and made the decision to fire him.”