PALM BEACH, Fla. — Jets coach Aaron Glenn knows something about playing cornerback.
Glenn was a first-round pick of the Jets in 1994 and played the position for 15 years in the NFL and made three Pro Bowls.
Now, he’ll coach the latest Jets great at the position — Sauce Gardner.
Glenn expressed confidence in Gardner, who is coming off a disappointing third season.
“He can be the best in the league,” Glenn said.
Gardner was All-Pro in his first two seasons in the NFL but did not play as well in 2024.
Glenn is not worried.
“That’s just part of this league. This is a grown man’s league,” Glenn said at the NFL’s annual meeting. “Every year you’re not going to be at the top of your game every year. You thrive and you bust your ass to try to do that. The thing is he has it in him. You just said it, two years straight he was a damn good player. It’s not like that’s gone. It’s just he didn’t have the year that you guys wanted him to have. He’s going to have that again. That’s who he is as a player.
“I’m not worried about what happened last year with him. The only thing I know is the conversations we’ve had and who he is as a man. I know for a fact that he’s going to get back to where he needs to be.”
Glenn said he’s had good conversations with Garrett Wilson and that the wide receiver is in a “good place.”
Both Gardner and Wilson are eligible for contract extensions for the first time and Glenn sounds supportive of the idea of extending them.
“They’re two young players and you’re going to hear me say this consistently: I’m in the business of keeping good players. That’s our plan,” Glenn said. “That’s for anybody, just like [Jamien] Sherwood, just like any player we draft on this team. I want to make it a trend that our guys that we draft we try to keep them here. I don’t know if that had happened before, but I know when I was a player we tried to do that as much as possible.
“To me, that’s the best form of free agency, signing your own guys. As much as we can do that, we’re going to try to. It’s something that we want to look at. We want to keep those guys. They’re good players. I’m in the business of keeping good players.”
