Tom Rock: Former Jets coach Robert Saleh isn't losing sleep over Week 1 opener against old team
Tennessee Titans head coach Robert Saleh gestures for a two-point conversion play against the Chicago Bears during the second half of an NFL preseason game, Aug. 29 in Nashville, Tenn. Credit: AP/George Walker IV
It’s comical how much time and effort has been spent around here trying to crawl inside Robert Saleh’s gloriously bald head to figure out what’s rattling around in there.
Ever since he was named head coach of the Titans in January and we knew he would have to play the Jets this season — and then more so after the schedule was released in the spring and it was announced that this contest would take place in Week 1 — the narrative has been all about his motivations in facing the team that canned him.
Even during the summer, headlines were generated from second- and third-hand tales of Saleh playfully trash-talking the Jets at golf events that somehow became etched in lore.
Once Saleh made public remarks about the game in training camp, downplaying any personal significance other than wanting to win for the sake of winning, his words were parsed, along with that familiar Cheshire grin he flashes every time he transitions from honesty to coachspeak.
“Our desire to win Week 1 and beat the Jets is because it’s Week 1 and nothing more,” Saleh told reporters in Tennessee last week. “I’m forever grateful for all the opportunity they gave me. I don’t hold grudges.”
He even complimented the Jets and said they have “a chance to be pretty good.”
We do know that tone and that look on his face well. It’s the same one he had every time he had to choke through the excruciation of saying nice things about the play of Zach Wilson. It’s his tell.
Clearly there is a psychological complex at work here. It just isn’t Saleh’s, though.
He may have been the dumpee when Woody Johnson and the Jets fired him on Oct 8, 2024, upon the team’s return from a 23-17 loss to the Vikings in front of the owner’s international pals and political associates in London, but ever since then, it’s obvious that Saleh has won the breakup.
He landed a job the following year as defensive coordinator for the 49ers and helped them win 12 regular-season games and another in the playoffs. He was hired by the Titans the next offseason and now has the run of an organization that boasts last year’s first overall draft pick at quarterback and the bones of what could be a solid defense.
The Jets? They are in no better position 22 months after the divorce than they were the day after it.
They’ve won six of their 29 games since. They have no long-term answers at head coach or quarterback at this point. They traded away or parted with many of the cornerstone pieces — young and old — that seemingly were in place when Saleh had them poised on the cusp of a turnaround at the start of a 2023 season scuttled by Aaron Rodgers’ Achilles injury.
They’re so uninteresting that for the second year in a row, the league has had to rig a rivalry with manufactured drama for them in their opening game of the season just so people will watch before they become unbearably bad. Last year the Jets opened against Rodgers and the Steelers. This time it’s Saleh and the Titans.
And Jets fans? They seem more obsessed with projecting onto Saleh the idea that it is he who has something to prove on Sunday more than anyone else.
It’s the Jets who need this game much more than the Titans do. Regardless of the outcome in Nashville, no one is going to be calling them the Same Old Titans. Can the same be said for the visiting team?
No wonder Saleh is smiling. It’s not a mask to hide misinformation. It’s a genuine grin.
He’s still the best coach the Jets have had since Rex Ryan had his run to a second consecutive conference championship game 15 years ago. No, that’s not saying much. But it means Saleh doesn’t have to say much either.
Certainly there is a spark of competitiveness that flickers inside Saleh. He may run a few extra steps before the game. But that’s there in a lot of the players and other coaches who will be facing their former team in this game, too, from current Jets Jarvis Brownlee Jr. and T’Vondre Sweat to current Titans Jermaine Johnson, John Franklin-Myers and Tony Adams.
“There are going to be a lot of emotions involved,” said Brownlee, the cornerback traded to the Jets last season. “But more than anything, we have to go there and know what we are going there for: a victory.”
Added running back Braelon Allen on facing the Titans’ defense: “A lot of familiar faces. A lot of guys that we’ve gotten a number of reps against for a number of years. It’ll be fun for sure.”
But this idea that Saleh is consciously or subconsciously pouring any amount of fuel on this very tiny fire with his words or thoughts is absurd. The way it’s become an indisputable fact that he sees this as some kind of referendum on his tenure here or a chance to seek revenge is just as ridiculous.
Saleh has been better off without the Jets. The Jets have not been better without Saleh. End of discussion.
This storyline is all gas. Gimme a break.
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.
