Four Verts: Be patient with Jets’ hiring of Aaron Glenn, while the Jaguars finally did it

We’re only a few days away from Championship Sunday! We’ll get to two teams and one incredible rookie quarterback who are actually still playing in a minute. First, we’ll start with two teams who feel like they’re trending in opposite directions.

Aaron Glenn is a quality hire, but the same questions loom for the Jets

The Jets found their newest head coach this week in Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn, who was drafted by the team in the first round in 1994. Glenn made two Pro Bowls and was named to the Jets’ all-time team in 2003. The ties to the franchise and the community will make this a feel-good story as he’s introduced and begins to put his imprint on the team. Glenn is a qualified hire who led the Lions’ defense to a high level of play and he deserves this opportunity beyond being a Jets legend.

This team still has many questions that may make the start of Glenn’s regime slow to get off the ground.

The good news: The Jets do not have a bare cupboard in terms of talent, especially on defense. Quinnen Williams is one of the best overall defensive linemen in the league, Will McDonald turned into a strong pass rusher and there’s big-time potential in the secondary, with Sauce Gardner still possessing All-Pro talent, even after a down season. Glenn just coached a Lions defense that finished seventh in success rate despite a slew of injuries that would have tanked most defenses.

His tutelage on the defensive side should get that side of the ball up and running rather quickly. The offense is its own beast.

Aaron Rodgers, shockingly, is extremely undecided on his future and may not return to the Jets for what could be the final season of his career. Even if he does, the Jets need some insurance via a draft pick or another veteran just in case his play really falls off a cliff. Finding a rookie may be difficult this year considering New York owns the seventh overall pick, but the Jets have time to figure that part out.

They’ll also need to get better along the offensive line. They at least appear to have a franchise tackle in Olu Fashanu, who was sensational as a rookie. Depth will be important here as the Jets may have to move on from veteran tackles who are on the downswing of their careers. They have young stars at skill positions in running back Breece Hall and wide receiver Garrett Wilson, but those guys need some help as well — especially as the Jets decide what to do with veteran wide receiver Davante Adams.

Next up for the Jets is finding a general manager and getting started on free agency, the draft and some big-time roster decisions. Those were going to be true no matter who took this job, but it feels similar to where they were last year with Robert Saleh. A strong defensive mind to lead this group of players sounds good in theory, but the Jets have already seen what a strong defense with flimsy offensive support looks like: 7-10.

Give this one time because the Jets probably can’t fix all of their issues in one offseason.

Jaguars finally made the move everyone was waiting for

It seemed impossible, but Jaguars owner Shad Khan finally put on his big boy pants and made the sensible decision to “respectfully separate” from general manager Trent Baalke.

Baalke’s position on the team seemed entrenched considering he made it all the way to this point in the offseason, but after offensive coordinators Ben Johnson and Liam Coen reportedly turned down Jacksonville’s head coaching job (in Coen’s case, to remain an offensive coordinator!), it was too clear that the Jags had to breakup with Baalke — and it’s a move that frankly should’ve been done a while ago.

Baalke hasn’t really had much success as an NFL general manager when Jim Harbaugh is not his head coach. They had some glory years together in San Francisco in the early 2010s, including back-to-back-to-back NFC championship appearances and a Super Bowl berth. Outside of those Harbaugh years, Baalke boasts a 38-78 record overseeing the Jaguars and 49ers, with one playoff appearance following the 2022 NFL season.

It’s baffling as to why this move didn’t happen sooner and how Khan could be so unaware of Baalke’s reputation, but the move has finally been made after multiple candidates turned Jacksonville down. The Jaguars have a prized possession in quarterback Trevor Lawrence, who should still be considered a good player, but starting over from scratch in terms of a front-office search at the end of January isn’t a good look for anyone involved.

We’ll have to see what happens from here on, but the Jaguars, once again, appear to be in disarray.

Jayden Daniels and the Commanders might have the juice to get to New Orleans

Wow, was I wrong about this Commanders team.

I thought that it was going to end up as one of the worst teams in the league in Year 1 of the Dan Quinn and Kliff Kingsbury regime. Instead the Commanders have been one of the hottest teams in the NFL and find themselves one win away from the Super Bowl. Jayden Daniels has emerged as an early star, the defense has quietly improved throughout the season and they’ve managed an impossibly fast turnaround from owning the second overall pick to potentially being NFC champions. After their incredibly impressive showing in Detroit to take out the Lions, it’s officially time to recognize what they’ve built already — a Super Bowl contender.

All of this starts with Daniels, who legitimately has had one of the more impressive rookie seasons in recent memory. Daniels completed almost 70% of his passes for over 3,500 yards and 25 touchdowns with nine interceptions and chipped in 891 rushing yards with six scores on the ground. He was one of the most efficient quarterbacks in the entire NFL this season, not just a good rookie quarterback. According to TruMedia, Daniels ranked sixth in expected points added per dropback and ninth in dropback success rate when factoring in his performance in the postseason as well. It’s just about as good of a start as any Commanders fan could have hoped for, and he immediately helped revive an offense that was among the worst in the league last season.

Washington’s defense also saw a strong turnaround, considering it was arguably the worst defense in the NFL last season. The Commanders’ run defense was leaky this season, but the unit ranked fifth in dropback success rate, compared to 29th a season ago. Quinn has been a mixed bag as a defensive play-caller since leaving Seattle following the 2014 season, but getting this group up and running in short order is undoubtedly a win for Washington. If the Commanders can get past their longtime rival in Philadelphia this weekend, they’ll have executed a turnaround that seemed unthinkable.

The Eagles’ defense has been the best unit in the league this season and gave Washington trouble in both prior matchups. They split those games following some Daniels late-game heroics in the second meeting, but the Eagles were one of the few teams that got the Commanders to play well below their averages in terms of expected points and success rates. If the Commanders can overcome the odds one more time, they’ll find themselves in New Orleans for the Super Bowl.

This is damn near unfathomable, but the Washington Commanders are here — one game away from the Super Bowl — and all the glory that comes with it. Most importantly, they’ll forever get to tell people like me how wrong they were.

Chiefs are impossible to figure out

The classic battle of heart versus head. All data and logic point to the Bills being a superior team to the Chiefs right now, but it’s impossible to count out the back-to-back defending Super Bowl champions in their seventh straight AFC championship game. It sounds ridiculous, but the Chiefs really did scratch and claw their way to a 16-2 record, especially down the stretch, where they went 8-1 and had a point differential of just plus-41 prior to benching all of their starters in Week 18. This is probably the worst iteration of the Chiefs since the Patrick Mahomes was entrenched as the starter in 2018 — but they’re still the damn Chiefs.

This is the hardest that offense has looked in the Mahomes and Andy Reid era. Star wide receiver Rashee Rice tore his ACL early in the season, leaving the Chiefs without a consistent explosive option as rookie wide receiver Xavier Worthy got used to life in the NFL. Poor play along the offensive line forced the Chiefs to shuffle those five spots all season, ending up with left guard Joe Thuney blocking Will Anderson Jr. in the divisional round last week. As a result, the Chiefs’ offense has entered the conference title game a shell of itself. Since Week 14, excluding the Week 18 game when starters sat, the Chiefs rank 30th in explosive play rate (7.9%) and 17th in overall success rate on offense (43%).

Their offense has steadily gotten worse throughout the season, but everyone knows that as long as Mahomes is under center, the Chiefs have a chance to beat any team. Hell, any team that is one win away from the Super Bowl has a chance, but having one of the greatest players to ever step foot in the NFL at QB is an incredible trump card. Even last week, when the Chiefs were getting pummeled by a strong Texans defense, Mahomes was able to rise above in some tough moments — including a touchdown pass to Travis Kelce while he was falling down in the pocket.

No. 15 will do whatever he can to keep the offense afloat, but the defense will have its hands full trying to keep Josh Allen and the Bills out of the end zone. The Chiefs’ defense has been better as of late, ranking fourth in expected points allowed per play since Week 14 (again excluding Week 18). However, KC has been about an average-to-above-average defense throughout the course of the season. In its last game against the Bills, one of the two games it lost this season, the Chiefs actually had some solid down-to-down defense against the Bills, but they were unable to stop them in the red zone, where the Bills scored a touchdown on 75% of their trips. That’s where Buffalo is incredibly dangerous right now and potentially where the Chiefs’ defense will win or lose the game.

Just looking at metrics, the Chiefs appear to be just a slightly above average team this season, but the high points of their roster are so damn high. They still have the best quarterback in the league and high-level players outside of him, like defensive tackle Chris Jones and cornerback Trent McDuffie, and the coaching staff will have a quality plan. If there’s any team that can continue to buck the trend of its overall performance and stack wins, it’s the Chiefs. They’ve earned the respect, even if it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what their chances are this weekend.