Jets' coordinators: Will all three be back next season?
Jets head coach Aaron Glenn, left, looking over at offensive coordinator Tanner Engstrand (top right), defensive coordinator Steve Wilks (right middle) and special teams coordinator Chris Banjo (bottom right). Credit: Jim McIsaac; Ed Quinn; Ed Murray
Around this time of year, during the kind of season the Jets are wrapping up, coaches like to remind players that they are constantly being evaluated. “Your tape is your resume,” they say over and over, a mantra to reinforce the idea of not taking any plays off. The league is always observing.
But it’s not just the players for whom that is true. The coaches themselves are being watched closely and having their actions appraised. Their careers can hang in the balance.
Aaron Glenn is certain to return as head coach of the Jets in 2026, barring some egregious misstep, but he made it clear that not all of his lieutenants are guaranteed to be joining him.
“I evaluate coaches at the end of the season,” Glenn said this past week.
Which means the three coordinators in particular have four games left to show him why they should stick around.
Each of the three — Steve Wilks on defense, Tanner Engstrand on offense and Chris Banjo on special teams — enters this last stretch with a different narrative.
Banjo’s unit has been a bright spot for the team; the Jets currently have a special teams DVOA (which stands for defense-adjusted value over average) of 12.4%, according to FTN Fantasy, and if they were to maintain that, it would be the highest by any team since 1978. So yeah, Banjo will be back.
Engstrand came to the Jets with Glenn from Detroit, they have a history with each other and the team certainly has suffered from enough disappointing quarterback play to buy him another go-round with a different pod of players at that position. He’ll probably stay, too. More on him later.
Wilks?
It’ll be tough for Glenn, who came in as a defensive-minded head coach, to maintain his faith in Wilks for another season. The Jets have one defensive takeaway all season (the same number as Banjo’s special teams group!), no interceptions and the 30th-ranked run defense and are 27th in points allowed. They did trade away two of their top players on that side of the ball in Sauce Gardner and Quinnen Williams in October, but even with those two All-Pros, the entire unit was underachieving.
Last week’s lackluster loss to the Dolphins made it hard to ignore the shortcomings on defense any longer.
On Thursday, Wilks said that effort “wasn’t good enough to our standards and I put all that on me in regards to making sure that our guys are prepared and ready to play.”
So too should Glenn.
He said he still has faith in Wilks and recalled times in his career as a coordinator when his job was in jeopardy.
“I was fortunate enough to have a coach [in Detroit’s Dan Campbell] who believed in me the same way I believe in Wilks,” Glenn said. “I just don’t look at one person and say this is all on him. No, this is a collective unit, even with myself...I’m looking at everything.”
Wilks’ career is filled with one-and-dones, including his last stop as a play-caller for the 49ers in 2023. He hasn’t held a job for longer than a year since his stint with the Panthers from 2012-17 before he became head coach of the Cardinals in 2018.
He seems to know this one probably won’t snap that streak. Teams don’t have the kind of season the Jets are going through — even when it is the first one for a new regime — without someone taking the fall in the days after the last game ends.
“We all know what we signed up for,” Wilks said.
Of the three, Engstrand’s fate is the most difficult to predict because like everything about the Jets’ offense, the present has very little to do with anything. Presuming the Jets swap out their quarterback room this offseason, Glenn and the Jets need to ask themselves if Engstrand is the coach to lead that group . . . especially if it includes a highly drafted rookie passer to develop.
That’s not something Engstrand has much experience with. During his time as an assistant with the Lions, he always worked with an established veteran, either Matthew Stafford or Jared Goff, as his starter. He has no real track record with any other kind of quarterback.
Interestingly enough, he might get an opportunity to demonstrate his grooming skills in these last four games with rookie Brady Cook scheduled to start on Sunday.
“In Detroit, we had a couple of younger guys as well who maybe didn’t play while you had Jared or Stafford going back to 2020,” Engstrand said. “You had the younger guys you were always trying to work with and develop in addition to the starter. I would rely on that experience. You put that to use here in this situation [with Cook].”
If Engstrand can turn Cook from a practice-squad pumpkin into a functional player in a month or so, that could demonstrate the kind of mentoring the Jets will need from him next year. It will go into the calculus that Glenn uses to decide what his 2026 staff will look like.
“When it comes to that evaluation, to me, that’s how I look at it: From myself, to the coach and to the players,” Glenn said.
All of them, at every tier, have four more games to make their case for staying.
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.
