With Jets at 0-6, coach Aaron Glenn turns to Bill Parcells and others who became winning coaches

Aaron Glenn has to say something in his increasingly depressing Jets news conferences, so it is difficult to blame him for repeating himself on some topics.

For example, one of his go-to talking points, as anyone who has listened to him knows, is his extensive experience with terrible starts to seasons.

You know, like the one he is presiding over in his first year as the Jets’ coach. He is 0-6, tied in career head coaching victories with Fireman Ed.

By the time he was 24, Glenn had experienced 3-13 and 1-15 seasons as a Jets cornerback.

In his first season as a Saints assistant coach in 2016, they started 0-3.

In his first season as the Lions’ defensive coordinator in 2021, they started 0-8, 0-10-1 and 1-11-1 under first-year coach Dan Campbell. Then they started 1-6 in ’22.

“You have to go through these times,” Glenn said on Monday. “You have to figure out exactly how you're going to end up winning games and continue to press forward on that. I'm not wavering from that. I've been through that with Detroit. I've been through that in New Orleans.

“I understand how it looks on the outside, and the thing is, I told you [reporters], and I told the fans, do not let go of the rope."

Glenn has name-dropped friends in the coaching world who can relate, including Bill Parcells, whom he said he spoke to Monday morning.

Parcells started 1-11 in his first season with the Patriots in 1993, including a 45-7 loss to the Jets, before finishing with four victories in a row.

These are all things one would expect a coach in Glenn’s position to say, and he has said them not only to fans and journalists but to his players, too.

“He made sure to let us all know it’s not easy to do that; to turn an organization around, it’s hard,” center Josh Myers said. “So we know that, and he’s talked to us about it. He’s also showed us that it can be done.”

There’s the rub.

It obviously can be done. The Lions went from 3-13-1 to 12-5 to 15-2 last season.

We could do this rookie head coach roll call all day.

Tom Landry was 0-11-1 with the 1960 Cowboys and later won two Super Bowls.

Chuck Noll was 1-13 with the 1969 Steelers and later won four Super Bowls.

Bill Walsh was 2-14 with the 1979 49ers and later won three Super Bowls.

Parcells was 3-12-1 with the 1983 Giants and later won two Super Bowls.

Jimmy Johnson was 1-15 with the 1989 Cowboys and later won two Super Bowls.

Bill Belichick was 6-10 as a rookie head coach with the 1991 Browns and 5-11 in his first season with the Patriots. He later won six Super Bowls.

But there are many more examples of bad starts that portended nothing but bad outcomes.

So it is 100% fair for fans to wonder and worry about Glenn, especially after his bizarre game management decisions in a 13-11 loss to the Broncos on Sunday in London.

Like most coaches who struggle, Glenn does not have a reliable quarterback. Until the Jets find an improvement over Justin Fields for 2026 and beyond, it is difficult to fairly assess Glenn.

In the meantime, all Jets fans can hope is that he learns on the job and is prepared to take advantage when (if?) general manager Darren Mougey gives him more to work with.

At the moment, the Jets look like a bad team and Glenn looks like a bad coach. But as he has told us, repeatedly and correctly, stuff happens in the NFL.

Six games into the 1983 season, the Giants were 2-4 and Newsday’s Joe Gergen wrote, “The new man in charge, Bill Parcells, apparently cannot reach his office without walking under a ladder.”

The Giants went 1-8-1 from there. The next year they were 9-7, then 10-6, then 14-2 and Super Bowl champions. Rather than walking under a ladder, Parcells’ players served as a ladder to carry him off the field at the Rose Bowl.

Can Glenn coach? It’s a fair question. There is no answer yet.

By Neil Best

neil.best@newsday.com@sportswatch

Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.