The Confusing Timeline of the Jets New Defensive Coordinator Hire
The New York Jets have been an open and active disaster over the last few weeks. From an outside perspective, the team has seemingly pivoted from their supposed plan multiple times. From Wink Martindale, to Aaron Glenn wanting to call plays, to the eventual hire of Brian Duker, how we got here can be a bit confusing to the average Jets fan. The Duker hire wasn’t exactly maligned for the hire itself, but the process of the hiring. To understand exactly how this happened, we need to go back to the beginning.
The defensive coordinator search started the moment that Steve Wilks was fired in December, and there was a clear favorite for the replacement: Wink Martindale. There are reports that Glenn had reached out to Martindale before the season ended. Once the season ended, the team began an earnest defensive coordinator search, releasing a list of defensive coordinators they had interviewed that included some veterans like Jim O’Neil and Wink Martindale, but also some young up-and-comers like Ephraim Banda and Jim Leonhard. The team was clearly casting a large net for their search, looking at a wide variety of candidates. It also came up that a few high-profile names had turned the Jets’ requests to interview them down, which was unfortunate, but to be expected with the situation the Jets were in.
Soon in the process, it was being reported that Wink Martindale was an early frontrunner, which was incredibly controversial among Jets fans. Some liked the idea of a veteran, experienced playcaller heading the defense, while others saw it as a retread of Wilks, someone who hasn’t had success in a few years in the NFL getting another shot at calling plays. Regardless of what the fans felt, it certainly seemed like this would be the inevitable resolution, as the team brought Martindale in for a second, in person interview, which felt like a formality to work out contract details and things like that. After Wink left, however, that’s when things got a bit confusing.
When Martindale reportedly left the building without a deal, many fans were slightly confused, but assumed that it would be done in the coming days. That was, until Connor Hughes of SNY reported that Martindale was no longer as much of a lock for the job as previously thought. This made fans more hopeful than anything, as some thought the team would be opting for someone like Jim Leonhard. However, a couple of days later, the team would announce a new coaching candidate: Brian Duker. This sent the fanbase into a frenzy. The interview of Brian Duker essentially announced that the deal with Wink had fallen through, and the team was starting their search over in late January. The next day, it would be announced that Duker would be the next defensive coordinator for the team, and that Aaron Glenn would be calling plays.
This obviously was met with heavy criticism, not because of the candidate himself, but because of chaos that led to him being hired. Duker had one virtual interview, and the team decided to hire him. Not exactly the best optics, but there may be a legitimate reason for all of this, and it stems from Glenn’s desire to call plays. Wink was likely coming into the process assuming that he would be the playcaller on the defense, and Glenn wanting to run that side of the ball likely threw a wrench in the whole hiring process. That’s why Wink left without a deal, and that’s why they had to quickly pivot to a different candidate in Duker. Glenn wanting to call plays isn’t a problem in itself, but it not getting revealed this was the plan until late in the process can be interpreted as a lack of sense of direction, something that has been an issue with the team for a long time at this point. It’s yet to be seen whether the hire will be successful or not, but the process itself seems flawed, and that’s a deeper rooted issue.
