As the Jets keep losing games, perhaps interim head coach Jeff Ulbrich is losing more
New York Jets head coach Jeff Ulbrich against the Miami Dolphins on Sunday. Credit: AP/Lynne Sladky
It’s hard to feel bad for any of these Jets on a personal level. As offensive lineman Morgan Moses repeatedly has said throughout this swoon, the guys on the field get paid “a king’s ransom” to play “a child’s game.” We’ll add that is the case even when they perform like the jesters they have been.
Yes, there have been two high-profile firings of the head coach and general manager, some demotions on the staff, a couple of all-time great players whose legacies are being smudged and more than a few young, underachieving players who will have to bounce back as their careers progress. Once this organization is disassembled in the coming weeks and months, the loose parts will go their separate ways and the ones that stick around will try to find a role in the next rebuild.
But there is one person bearing more of the brunt of this losing than he expected to or should, someone who never asked to be put into his role but was thrust there with limitations and parameters and handicaps that no one could have overcome.
Jeff Ulbrich is the biggest victim of this debacle of a Jets season.
A year ago, his name was being circulated as a head-coaching candidate after he led the Jets’ defense to back-to-back top-five rankings and helped to keep the team in contention despite an inept offense. Had this season gone anything close to plan, he would have been near the top of the list of candidates for the openings to be filled in January.
Now? He’s tarnished. He’s branded a failure. He’ll be the fall guy exposed as an in-over-his-head substitute teacher who may never again get a chance to fulfill his professional dream of becoming a full-fledged NFL head coach.
Other coaches have turned interim roles into future opportunities. Dan Campbell may be the best example. After he filled that role with energy and vigor for the Dolphins in 2015, he spent the next several years as Sean Payton’s assistant head coach in New Orleans before landing the big job in Detroit in 2021. This year he has the Lions as a legitimate Super Bowl contender. Bruce Arians got his first opportunity as an interim, too. Other recent fill-ins such as Rich Bisaccia, Antonio Pierce — and maybe after this year Darren Rizzi in New Orleans — have turned their interim runs into stepping stones that lead to other jobs and interviews.
These Jets have all but made sure Ulbrich will not.
“Ultimately, we’re graded upon wins and losses,” Ulbrich said, “and we’re not getting it done.”
The shame of it is that he was never really given a chance to show what he can do. He had no say in the roster and no opportunity to assemble his own staff and was up against nearly a decade and a half of losing culture and mismanagement that has trickled down from the very top of the organization.
When Jets owner Woody Johnson tapped Ulbrich to replace the fired Robert Saleh in October, he said he was looking for “new energy” and a spark . . . then handed Ulbrich this soggy matchbook of a team and expected a playoff conflagration.
The Jets have gone 1-7 since then. They’ve been in position to win many more games, but they’ve won once. Some of that is on Ulbrich for certain; his game management and play-calling on defense have not been as sharp as expected. But most of it is on his surrounding environment.
Ulbrich himself has not flinched from his unexpected responsibilities. Even on Sunday, when the Jets were eliminated from postseason contention, he was praising the locker room.
“I think there’s some teams that might relent a little bit, that might relax a little bit, might start thinking about their offseason,” he said. “I haven’t felt that from that locker room at all. They have absolutely stayed together. They continue to fight. They continue to stay together and it’s a great testament to them.”
Actually, it’s a testament to Ulbrich.
Offensive lineman Alijah Vera-Tucker knew Ulbrich as the defensive coordinator.
“But him stepping into the head-coaching role, knowing more about him and having him opening up more to the team, I have a different level of respect for him,” he said, “a level that he has for us and everybody in the building. He is always trying to get the most out of us, which I really appreciate, and I think he does a good job with that. He always keeps high energy.”
Vera-Tucker added that with Ulbrich as the interim coach: “I’ve learned a different type of love for the game.”
On Monday, Ulbrich gave the players their space to mourn their dashed playoff aspirations. But he also took time to look at the job he has done since ascending to this flimsy throne.
“These are all amazing learning moments for everybody concerned,” Ulbrich said on Monday. “I’ll take a lot from this. I learned a lot about coaching, but I learned a lot about myself as well. And I’ve got a lot to learn with the remaining four games that we have.”
He said he wants to keep many of those lessons private. Perhaps he will get to share them in a head-coaching interview one day. But he did say:
“There are some things about my approach with the players and the staff that I can improve on for sure. I have lots of kryptonites, don’t get me wrong, but one of my superpowers is having honesty with myself and reflecting on what I have done well and, more importantly, what I haven’t done well. I’ll definitely reflect on all of that and grow from it for sure.”
When he did speak to the team after Sunday’s game, his message was one of obvious frustration . . . but also appreciation.
“They work the right way,” he said. “The process is intact and that’s what makes this so much more frustrating and maddening, because the process is right. The guys are working hard during the week. Walk-throughs, meetings, the whole thing. Detail is high, energy is high, execution is high, and it’s not translating to the field on Sundays well enough.
“If I had that answer [why], I’d hopefully save this organization from any more losses.”
He can’t. And he won’t be back with the Jets next year. The best he probably can hope for at this point is another job somewhere else as a defensive coordinator. He may even have to go back to being a position coach. Then he can try to climb the coaching ladder again, this time with the stigma of this Jets experiment he never asked for clinging to him.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.