Woody Johnson vows ‘to be a better owner’ for Jets

Aaron Glenn interviewed the Jets, too. 

After a season in which multiple reports painted owner Woody Johnson and his two teenage sons as meddling in football decision-making, Glenn said Monday that his two interviews before he was hired as head coach involved a back-and-forth despite the sides’ preexisting familiarity. 

“We had questions for each other,” Glenn said. “I was here [as a player in 2000] when Woody bought the team. My conversations with him back then were really, really positive. 

“Coming back here, sitting and talking with him, there is no better person to work for than when they sit and tell you — and you strategize about — a winning commitment. He has that. And that’s all I need to know.” 

Johnson scoffed at The Athletic’s reports without refuting specific claims like his 2024 in-season suggestion to bench quarterback Aaron Rodgers, pressing to trade for receiver Davante Adams or asking for safety Tony Adams to be benched. 

“It was a lot of exaggeration, hyperbole,” Johnson said. “You really have to take all that stuff with a grain of salt. Nobody knows how involved I was. I want Aaron Glenn to coach the team. I want the general manager [Darren Mougey] to manage the assets and the players. And I’ll take the owner’s position. That’s what I’d like to do.” 

Glenn was requested for interview by five of the six teams with vacancies, but said he always had his eye on returning home to where he was a first-round draft pick in 1994.

He also worked as a Jets scout in 2012-13. 

That preference suggests a level of confidence in Johnson’s management style. 

“We’re going to continue to have conversations and continue to look at that,” Glenn said. “I trust him with everything I have, and I look forward to working with him.” 

Johnson also vowed to take a different approach with the eighth head coach and sixth general manager of his 25-year tenure. 

“I have to look in the mirror and I have to be a better owner — and I’ve tried to be better,” Johnson said. “I have to have patience. I have to let them evolve in these positions, which I think they will. I think it’ll be quick, but I think they’ll evolve.” 

Johnson hired Mougey from the Broncos over the Bengals’ Trey Brown despite Brown’s experience with a family-run organization where the owner is the general manager and his family is involved in other aspects of the front office. 

“It’s clear that the Jets ownership is fiercely competitive, cares deeply about the players and the fans, and is committed to winning,” Mougey said. “I felt that in the interview process each time that we met.” 

The Jets have the longest playoff drought in the four major North American pro sports (since 2010), but just completed one of the most extensive searches for new leadership in NFL history. 

“It’s going to be really, really fun going forward,” Johnson said. “I hope. And I expect.”