Although nearly impossible, it is important to divide the fallout from the New York Jets’ firing of coach Robert Saleh into two distinct categories.

The first and most obvious: This is a move that, according to people familiar with the situation, stunned Florham Park on Tuesday morning. Saleh was clearly under pressure to win, but the Jets will play for a chance to tie for first place in the AFC East in six days. Saleh came to work on Tuesday expecting to continue his preparation for the team matches Monday night football game against the Buffalo Bills. The Jets rank sixth in defensive EPA per play allowed this year and first in the league since Saleh took the job in 2021. The Jets have also allowed the fewest points per drive during that span. Saleh was tasked with cleaning up the organizational toxicity that had built up since the decline of the Rex Ryan regime, and he led the development of the team’s best young defensive players since Darrelle Revis. The staff won seven games last season with a combination of Zach Wilson, Trevor Siemian and Tim Boyle, and is now just five games into a campaign with Aaron Rodgers, a quarterback who tried to hold Saleh accountable despite his free agency and clear stranglehold on the organization.

The second and perhaps less obvious: Jets general manager Joe Douglas is entering the final year of his contract. Interim head coach Jeff Ulbrich is a legitimate head coaching candidate and if the team had defeated the Denver Broncos in Week 4, he would be discussed as one of the most sought-after head coaches in this year’s carousel (Ulbrich was in our future head coaches list in 2023). On the defensive side of the ball, he would be considered neck-and-neck with someone like Minnesota Vikings DC Brian Flores. Ulbrich is also, like DeMeco Ryans, Dan Campbell, Antonio Pierce and some other trendy collaborators of late, a card-carrying member of the former player’s club, who tends to hold weight, especially in restless locker rooms and at teams that employ experienced quarterbacks. . Ulbrich is also, according to people familiar with the coaching industry, highly recommended by the same Shanahan tree from which Saleh was plucked. Combine the political benefits, job preservation, and the need to satisfy Jets owner Woody Johnson’s bizarre and premature desire to fire a coach (coincidentally after the Jets lost on British soil, where Johnson recently served as U.S. ambassador and , just to guess, surrounded by some of his former colleagues) and you have the recipe for a complete blast. It should not be lost on anyone that Johnson was not the one who hired Saleh, as that took place while Johnson was abroad and his son Christopher was acting owner.

Johnson is making an aggressive bet that the eventual tailwind of a coaching change will replace the prevailing emotions in the building on Tuesday, which were of shock, confusion and some notes of disbelief as the organization prepared for a crucial divisional matchup against a talented opponent. also loss-making.

During his time as Jets owner, Johnson has continually shifted between the types of coaches and executives he considers appropriate leaders. He fired the understated Eric Mangini for Rex Ryan, the ultimate wild card. He allowed Ryan general manager Mike Tannenbaum to spend money aggressively and then fired Tannenbaum, after two trips to the AFC title game, for John Idzik Jr., who appealed to Johnson because of his salary cap background and fiscal conservatism. Then Johnson fired Idzik to hire Mike Maccagnan, allowing Maccagnan to re-sign Revis and Antonio Cromartie, sign Le’Veon Bell to a top deal and erase much of the digging Idzik had attempted as general manager. This chaotic, near-constant turmoil laid the foundation for one of the worst rosters in the NFL before Saleh arrived and an ingrained cynicism had to be smoked out.

While Saleh ultimately had a record of 20-36, it’s fair to assume it would take some time to dig the organization out of the morass. A year ago, the Jets defeated the Philadelphia Eagles 5-0 and were one errant pass interference call away from knocking off the eventual Super Bowl-winning Kansas City Chiefs. Saleh coached the Jets to a win over the Bills in the team’s season opener Rodgers lost four times in the season.

However, as the organization began hitting the fast-forward button on its rebuild, culminating in the signing of Rodgers as its first mentor and later as a complete replacement for Zach Wilson, Saleh likely worked himself into the owner’s crosshairs. We can now interpret endlessly the failed Saleh-Rodgers handshake like a Zapruder movie. We can replay the stage tête-à-tête the pair had over Rodgers’ staccato cadences over and over again. Although it was inevitable that Johnson’s impatience would only last so long. Despite the unrealistic nature of Johnson’s expectations — that a modern NFL offense will immediately reach top-of-the-league status with a 40-year-old quarterback coming off a torn Achilles tendon by firing the club’s defensive head coach — he has now been turned to someone else in the hope that they will be fulfilled.

When the seismic nature of this decision has time to settle, it will be Johnson who will have to grapple with his own record and the concrete perception it has created for the franchise around the NFL.

Once again, we can’t ignore Ulbrich’s ability to read this locker room and turn the franchise around midseason. It may turn out to be a move born entirely from bad intentions and ultimately yield favorable results. And Johnson better hope so, because if Ulbrich doesn’t succeed, he’ll be left with the kind of burned farmland on which little can be built and a job that top coaching candidates will avoid.

Someone will take the job because, with only 32 positions available, there is always someone curious and brave enough to believe he or she can make a difference in a given building. However, after what happened to Saleh and the way he was treated, we can assume that these candidates will not necessarily be the best equipped for what lies ahead. But then again, with the Jets, who is that?