Citing personal experience, Robert Saleh to show patience with Jets offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur
Robert Saleh said it would have been easy for 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan to fire him as a “scapegoat” after the 2018 season, when Saleh was a second-year defensive coordinator and the team finished 4-12.
But Shanahan stuck with him, “and the rest is history,” Saleh said.
The following year, the 49ers went 13-3 and won the NFC championship. Two years after that, Saleh was named the Jets’ head coach.
Now here Saleh was Monday, being asked about second-year offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur amid a five-game losing streak during which the Jets have scored four touchdowns, with some fans calling for LaFleur’s head.
Saleh suggested he will show the same patience with LaFleur that Shanahan showed with him.
He said that in moments such as these “it's so important to take a deep breath, keep the main thing the main thing and make sure we do a great job with regards to self-scout and evaluation and make sure that we're telling ourselves the truth, rather than allowing narrative and panic to set in.”
Saleh said all of that will happen after Sunday’s season finale against the Dolphins.
“It’s not basketball where you can point out one person or golf where you can look inward,” he said. “There are 11 guys on the field and each of those guys has a football coach. There's a lot of moving parts.
“To try to pinpoint one person just to make people feel good about giving a reason why something's failing, it's not fair to anybody. But finding the truth is what is fair and that's something that takes time.”
Asked about LaFleur, center Connor McGovern said, “There were stretches where we had one of the more prolific offenses in the league for a couple of games in a row here and there. It's just a consistency thing.
“It's a whole team effort. It's not just on LaFleur. It's not just on the players. It’s an entire New York Jets building to be able to get that consistency and learn how to grow and mature in that way.”
Asked whether he still has faith in LaFleur, Saleh said he does and added, “You’ve got to have the discipline to be able to go back and make sure that you're telling the truth about what's happening in the building and not coming away with knee-jerk reactions that could derail what could be a pretty damn good football coach.”
Notes & quotes: S Lamarcus Joyner (hip) will not play on Sunday . . . LB CJ Mosley said he missed some snaps against the Seahawks – a rarity for him – because of a “burner,” but he expects to play against the Dolphins. Saleh said Mosley has earned the right to decide whether to play in the finale.
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.
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