Black Monday

Palm Beach – Black Monday hit the Jets with the announcement that the Jets offered buyouts to 172 of their 250 employees.

Sports Business Journal, which broke the story, claimed, according to a source, “Management’s motivation is cultural, not financial.”

However, some people feel that this “cultural” angle might not be all of it.

When Leon Hess owned the Jets, his media guide bio always started with a one-sentence paragraph that read, “It all starts at the top.”

So, firing the equipment staff, which they have done, how will that change the culture?

Aaron Glenn was hired to coach the football team. He can work on the culture of the football team, but not the entire building.

Reportedly, the Jets had a couple of consultants around the team last year evaluating the entire operation, sitting in meetings, and going over everything.

We hear it drove Joe Douglas crazy.

And clearly those men helped the Jets get to this point where this big decision was made.

One league observer pointed out that the story about the buyouts leaked out during the league meeting, and the deadline to take the buyouts was on Monday, so a lot of people will be shown the door with the the team’s top brass in Palm Beach at the NFL Owner’s Meeting, which ends this afternoon.

Was this done by design to avoid confrontations or security issues in the building with axed employees going after the higher-ups, in perhaps an aggressive fashion? Who knows, but the timing was interesting.

On some level, one could argue there was a slight cultural element to this (Jimmy Johnson fired almost the entire building when he took over in Dallas), but what they did seems similar to what is going on in the government with this DOGE stuff. It’s a chance to tighten their belts and run a more streamlined outfit.

“The exercise has identified opportunities to operate, align, and innovate more effectively, as we position ourselves for future growth,” a Jets spokesperson told Sports Business Journal.

So while some of these moves could tweak the culture to a degree, there has got to be a cost-cutting element to all of this, especially in a weak economy and less than full stadiums the last few years.

Remember, before these mass buyouts, early in 2024, they parted ways with assistant GM Rex Hogan, and did not replace him, eliminating the position altogether. And then got rid of three people from their sports science department and didn’t replace them.

Hey, in a terrible economy, a lot of companies are cutting back.

These buyouts and firings will give the Jets a chance to realign their organization, fill some of the spots (but perhaps not all of them), and bring in new people at more pragmatic price points to them.

One long-time league observer pointed out to us at the league meeting that this could be a tough time to be looking for quality NFL candidates for some positions with a lot of movement around the league the last few months, and good candidates already settled into spots with teams. April is a unique time to be looking to fill a lot of spots in an NFL organization.

But the filling of these spots, or some of them, if they choose not to fill all over them, could go great – we shall see. Nobody knows how this process will turn out.

But it’s hard to believe this was just driven by culture.

Because as they like to say in the corporate world – “Culture starts at the top.”

And that isn’t meant as a shot at anybody, just the reality of how corporate culture generally works.

April 1, 2025

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