Jets fire general manager Joe Douglas
The team Joe Douglas built has fallen very short of its lofty expectations. Now the Jets are looking for a new general manager and Douglas is looking for a job.
Douglas was fired on Tuesday by owner Woody Johnson. This move was expected at the end of the season, but Johnson decided to pull the trigger with the Jets in their bye week and get a jump start on the search for Douglas’ replacement.
Senior adviser Phil Savage will serve as interim general manager for the remainder of the season.
“Today I informed Joe Douglas he will no longer serve as the General Manager of the New York Jets,” Johnson said in a statement Tuesday. “I want to thank Joe for his commitment to the Jets over the last six years and wish him and his family the best moving forward.
“We will begin the process to identify a new General Manager immediately,” Johnson’s statement concluded.
Douglas had been the Jets’ general manager since June 2019. The Jets went 30-64 during Douglas’ tenure with no playoff appearances. He was in the final year of his contract.
Johnson is overhauling the football department. Douglas’ dismissal came exactly six weeks after Johnson fired coach Robert Saleh following a Week 5 loss in London.
Coming into the season, the Jets were considered a playoff contender — at the very least. Since starting 2-1, the Jets have underachieved and underperformed. They’re careening toward their 14th straight year of missing the playoffs.
The Jets have dropped seven of their last eight games and are 3-8 overall. They have a less than 3% chance of reaching the postseason.
Some candidates who could replace Douglas include Kansas City assistant general manager Mike Borganzi, Lions assistant GM Ray Agnew, Bills assistant GM Brian Gaine, Kansas City senior director of player personnel Mike Bradway, Tampa Bay assistant general manager Mike Greenberg, a Bellmore native, and Giants assistant general manager Brandon Brown.
It was evident that Douglas’ job was on very shaky ground as soon as Saleh was fired five weeks into the season. Douglas ran the coaching search that ultimately brought Saleh to the Jets and had no say in the decision to move on from him.
It was a risky move by Johnson and has backfired. The Jets have gone 1-5 since Saleh was axed and replaced by interim coach Jeff Ulbrich.
Last month, Douglas held a shorter than usual news conference after the trade deadline and sounded resigned to the fact that he was on borrowed time.
“I come in here every day, just wanting to do whatever I can to help this team reach its goals and get to its destination,” Douglas said. “Whatever happens, happens.”
Douglas also wouldn’t get into Saleh’s ouster and any conversations he had with Johnson regarding it.
“At the end of the day, I think Colin Powell said it but in a different arena: I serve at the pleasure of the owner,” Douglas said.
The next general manager will be tasked with hiring a new head coach and determining Aaron Rodgers’ future with the team, which could be nearing an end as well.
Rodgers said he is leaning toward playing another season. As great as Rodgers has been through his career, this has been a down season by his standards — both in performance and won-loss record. A new regime may want to tear everything down and build from scratch rather than have a 41-year-old placeholder running the offense.
Douglas was a part of Super Bowl teams while working in the scouting and personnel departments for the Ravens and Eagles. Douglas could return to his Baltimore roots.
That background led to Douglas trying to build the Jets up front. He spent a lot of resources on both lines. The offensive line proved a far bigger challenge for Douglas and the Jets.
Douglas’ biggest failure, though, was drafting Zach Wilson second overall in 2021. The Jets believed Wilson would be their franchise quarterback. That never panned out and Wilson became one of the worst draft picks in Jets’ history, if not the worst. Last offseason, the Jets traded Wilson to the Broncos, where he’s the third-string quarterback.
The Wilson pick may end up being Douglas’ legacy with the Jets, although the following season he had a terrific draft. Douglas selected four impactful players: cornerback Sauce Gardner, wide receiver Garrett Wilson, edge rusher Jermaine Johnson and running back Breece Hall.
Douglas spearheaded the trade for Rodgers in 2023 and built the team around him this past offseason that led to the Super Bowl hype. Things just have gone terribly wrong for the Jets — again — and now another overhaul begins.
Al Iannazzone covers the Jets for Newsday after spending nearly two decades on the NBA beat with Knicks and Nets.
