Shortly after the New York Jets fired Robert Saleh during the 2024 NFL season, he accepted a role as a consultant working under Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LaFleur.
Now serving as the defensive coordinator of the San Francisco 49ers for a second stint, Saleh spoke with reporters on Thursday about needing a reset with the Packers following his time with the Jets.
“Yeah, you know I joke with Matt,” Saleh explained, as shared by the 49ers.com, “I think it was more therapy for me than I was a help for him. But it was just trying to give him a defensive perspective regarding, looking from an offensive standpoint, watching the defense. Giving them thoughts on rules and what may or may not work. But I’m, again, forever grateful to Matty for opening the door to his building and allowing me the opportunity to work there just because of…from a mental space, it was, like I said, more therapeutic than anything for me.”
Saleh impressed working as defensive coordinator with the 49ers from 2017 until the Jets hired him as their head coach in January 2021. Gang Green went 4-13 in his first season, and the club then posted back-to-back 7-10 campaigns. Despite that lackluster record, Jets owner Woody Johnson retained Saleh due to quarterback Aaron Rodgers’ support of the coaching staff.
However, Johnson fired Saleh in October 2024 after the club lost three of its first five games, as Rodgers largely looked like a shell of his former self coming off the torn Achilles that cost him the entire 2023 season.
In January 2024, The Athletic spoke to sources who referred to Saleh as a “paranoid head coach” who threatened to take cell phones away from staffers during the 2023 season to prevent leaks from reaching reporters. In December, The Athletic reported that Johnson’s teenage sons allegedly had some influence regarding personnel decisions during Saleh’s tenure.
“You learn a lot,” Saleh added about his time with the Jets. “I’ve said it before. There is no handbook for a first-time head coach. There’s no handbook for your first time going through life, right? You learn a lot through the process. You figure out a lot about yourself. You understand and pick up, if you look inward and you look in the mirror, you can identify some of the things that you did wrong and some of the things that you’d like to do differently.”
Specifically, Saleh acknowledged in January 2024 that he regretted playing 2021 first-round draft pick Zach Wilson as a rookie. One can only wonder what could have been for Saleh and Wilson had the quarterback learned about life in the NFL as a backup for most of his debut season.
