In the coming days, more details surely will emerge regarding the day Jets owner/Ambassador Woody Johnson fired coach Robert Saleh. Here’s one of which we’ve caught wind, based on communications with multiple sources.
At a meeting on Tuesday morning, Saleh informed the coaching staff that passing game coordinator Todd Downing would become the game-day play-caller, with offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett demoted. Hackett wasn’t being fired in the classic sense, but it was going to be his decision to whether he stayed.
Then, after the meeting, Saleh found out he was being fired in the classic sense.
It’s unclear whether the timing is coincidental or connected. Regardless, Hackett was out as play-caller — and then Saleh was out as coach.
If nothing else, the circumstances will make Wednesday’s appearance by quarterback Aaron Rodgers on Pat McAfee’s show even more compelling. What did he know? When did he know it? And did he find out Hackett (Rodgers’s good friend) was out as play-caller in the window between the staff meeting and Saleh’s firing?
