It didn’t take long after Robert Saleh’s stunning Jets firing Tuesday for the finger-pointing to begin.
As Jets and NFL fans digested Saleh’s ouster after just five games, some speculated if quarterback Aaron Rodgers was behind the head coach’s demise, pointing to a curious interaction between the two on the sideline in Week 3.
“Maybe this was more telling than we thought,” Hailey Sutton of CBS Sports HQ wrote on X of Saleh gripping Rodgers’ shoulders as the quarterback pushed off and seemed to glare at the coach in response.
“Guarantee Aaron Rodgers got Robert Saleh fired,” the @SavageSports_ account commented on X.
Although Saleh, 45, and Rodgers, 40, brushed off speculation of discord following the viral moment, several sports media personalities said Tuesday they are convinced all was not well in Florham Park.
“Then you saw the relationship between him and Aaron Rodgers on the sideline and people speculating about that. The coach says one thing, Aaron Rodgers says another. You just say to yourself, ‘Something is not right with this picture.’ Something has to be done and sure enough, you saw what happened…. This doesn’t surprise me one bit,” Stephen A. Smith said on “First Take.”
Shannon Sharpe then looked back to this summer’s edition of “Where’s Aaron?” when the four-time league MVP was believed to be in Egypt after skipping mandatory minicamp.
“Aaron Rodgers undercut this man by not coming to mandatory minicamp. We heard the rumbles… The moment Aaron Rodgers did that, Robert Saleh had no control… Boy, this is a bad look for Aaron Rodgers. He doesn’t realize how bad this looks. Can you imagine Tom Brady later in his career getting a coach fired?… That bad man has become more problems than he’s worth. And people need to acknowledge that he hasn’t played well,” Sharpe said.
WFAN’s Brandon Tierney also suggested “that behind the scenes the Rodgers-Saleh dynamic was even worse than presented.”
The Jets (2-3) dropped their second straight game on Sunday, a 23-17 loss to the Vikings in London, in which Rodgers threw three interceptions.
That followed a sloppy 10-9 loss to the Bo Nix-led Broncos the week before at home, where the offense failed to find the end zone.
In separate postgame press conferences, Saleh and Rodgers offered separate theories on how to deal with a number of pre-snap penalties on offense.
Saleh suggested they look at Rodgers’ cadence to fix the issue.
“That’s one way to do it,” Rodgers said. “The other way is to hold them accountable.”
Jets owner Woody Johnson confirmed Saleh’s firing in a statement Tuesday and revealed defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich will serve as the interim head coach.
“This was not an easy decision, but we are not where we should be given our expectations, and I believe now is the best time for us to move in a different direction,” Johnson said.
The Jets will host the Bills in primetime next Monday.
