Jeff Ulbrich too busy being Jets' interim coach to worry about what it means for his own future

It’s likely that zillions of thoughts have blitzed through Jeff Ulbrich’s head since Tuesday morning, when he was tapped to become the interim head coach of the Jets.

Everything had to be ideated, processed and decided upon, from who would be calling the plays on Monday night to scheduling when the team should have its lunch break during the day.

Oh, yeah, there also was the not insignificant matter of getting the team ready to face the Bills in a game that will determine who sits atop the AFC East standings.

The one thing that hasn’t entered his thinkosphere, apparently, is what this means for him.

Asked on Thursday if he has taken any time to reflect on the scope of this opportunity and his first chance at being a head coach in the NFL (even if it comes with that “interim” tag), he smiled.

“No,” he said. “Not yet. Bit of a whirlwind, bit of a tornado. But it’s exciting at the same time.”

The answer may have been short, but it belies the enormity of this audition and the rare chance that Ulbrich has to show the Jets — and the rest of the league — what he is capable of.

Since 2000, there have been 48 interim head coaches in the NFL. Most of them were just cleaning up messes at the ends of forgettable seasons. Only nine were in place for as long as Ulbrich figures to be, with 12 games left on this Jets schedule. Only one, Dick LeBeau with the 2000 Bengals, had a longer shot with 13 games in charge.

What’s more, hardly any of them stepped into functioning situations. That’s usually the nature of a firing, that things are so bad that a drastic change has to be made. It’s why no team that has axed its head coach in the Super Bowl era has made it to the playoffs.

The only two times an interim head coach did make the postseason came when Bruce Arians replaced Chuck Pagano after his leukemia diagnosis with the 2012 Colts and when Rich Bisaccia filled in for Jon Gruden after he resigned from the 2021 Raiders.

Now here comes Ulbrich, taking over a Jets team that is 2-3 but has been competitive in its last two losses, a team that has All-Pro talent at multiple levels of the roster and a team that still has Aaron Rodgers at quarterback (even if Rodgers has looked washed up the last few games).

It’s a team that looks as if it can use a nudge, and that’s what Ulbrich intends to give it.

As he said on Thursday: “It is time we get this thing going and start playing the brand of football we know we are capable of.”

If he somehow can lead these Jets to end their 13-year playoff drought, he’ll either have the interim stripped from his title here or be quickly snapped up by some other organization looking to make a hire.

That wasn’t always Ulbrich’s ambition. He grew up wanting to be a football player, not a football coach. But once he achieved that and played nine seasons for the 49ers, he quickly transitioned into this career path.

After stops in Seattle and Atlanta, he came to the Jets with Robert Saleh in 2021 and helped the team develop a perennial top-five defense. It was toward the end of last season when he started to wonder about what might be next on his career ladder. In January, he was one of the head coaches at the Senior Bowl.

“I think it’s a chance for me to look at it from a different perspective, from a global perspective,” Ulbrich told reporters of that experience at the time. “It’s just amazing how many little things that I never really thought of as a position coach and a coordinator that a head coach has to deal with, so many non-football things. It’s been interesting from that standpoint. It’s a great opportunity from that standpoint, to look at it through that lens.”

Now he gets to do it for real. In the NFL. With the Jets.

Owner Woody Johnson said one of the reasons why he made the change from Robert Saleh when he did was his belief in the roster, and he did not want to squander this window. That faith hasn’t changed.

“I wanted to give this team the most opportunity to win this season,” Johnson said. “I feel that we had to go in a different direction . . . Taking Jeff Ulbrich and making him the interim head coach, I thought that would get the most out of this team and give us the best chance at what we all want to have, which is going to the playoffs.”

That puts a lot of pressure on Ulbrich to deliver.

“In all honesty, regardless of what the roster looks like on paper, it doesn’t change the way I approach it,” Ulbrich said. “I approach every day the same regardless of circumstance. The same human being every single day. Commit to a process and let the process take care of the results.”

There won’t be any easing into things, any acclimation period. There is no long offseason to get situated both on a personal and professional level. Coaches love to say this is a next-man-up league. Now Ulbrich knows that goes for coaches themselves, too.

There still is plenty for Ulbrich to learn about his new gig. He walked into his first live news conference on Thursday and seemed genuinely surprised by the number of reporters and cameras in the room, roughly twice as many as usually attended his media sessions as a coordinator.

When a cellphone went off during one of his answers, he flinched and reached for his pocket, thinking it might be his own device interrupting things. He said he had a flashback to when he was a player and would get fined for such an indiscretion. Now he’s the one who sets the fines.

But this is about the Jets getting to learn a little more about Ulbrich, too. To see how he handles the successes and failures of the coming weeks.

It’s a 3 1⁄2-month job interview, whether Ulbrich acknowledges it or not. Right now, he is opting for the not.

“Ultimately, I want the best for this group of men,” he said. “It’s rare you find the character of this locker room and the human beings we have in there. They deserve to have success. That is my singular focus right now, helping them have the most success both individually and collectively.”

If he can do that, he probably won’t have to worry much more about his own future than he says he isn’t now.

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

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.