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As you all know by now, it was a very tough week at One Jets Drive, with 170 of the team’s 250 employees being offered buyouts.
“Management’s motivation is cultural, not financial,” Sports Business Journal reported when they broke the story early this week.
Woody Johnson reiterated in his press briefing at the owners meeting that the decision to offer buyouts to 170 of 250 employees was to change the culture.
“He went on to say we are offering the buyouts not because we want to fire anyone – we want to improve the culture,” said former Miami Marlins Team President David Samson. “Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining. You know exactly what buyouts are. They are exactly layoffs.”
So Samson isn’t buying this is driven by culture.
And as we have written before, some around the league wonder how you can change a culture if all the key decision-makers at the very top are staying. Many have theorized in corporate America that when it comes to culture, “It all starts at the top.”
The Jets do need a sea change to their culture. We all know that. So when Johnson says they need to change the culture, he’s spot on.
But who is going to oversee it?
It has to be Aaron Glenn.
While his job is to turn around the football team on the field, he’s going to have to be a powerful influence on EVERYONE in the building – including those higher-ups who are all staying on the non-football side and who are going to pick the new employees. While they might not replace all the former employees, they will have to replace many of them, or how will they be able to function as an NFL franchise with 80 employees (if all took the buyouts, and if they didn’t, they probably aren’t long for the place anyway)?
The team’s former GM, Joe Douglas, certainly knows what a strong NFL culture looks like, after winning three rings before arriving in Florham Park – two in Baltimore and one in Philadelphia.
But during his almost six seasons with the Jets, he struggled to improve the team’s culture.
What gives? He certainly knows what a great culture looks like, especially from all his time in Baltimore with Ozzie Newsome, John Harbaugh and Steve Bisciotti from 2000-2014. The Ravens’ culture has been consistently fantastic.
For one, while Douglas is a terrific talent evaluator, perhaps he’s a little passive aggressive. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a great guy, but he likes to farm his own land, in other words, focus on finding players, perhaps not telling people on the business side, who might be doing something bad for the culture, to “knock it off.” Not how he’s wired.
So my point is Glenn, who is a disciple of Bill Parcells, Sean Payton and Dan Campbell, three great culture builders, will have to leave his football wheelhouse, maybe more than he would like, and if he sees stuff that that is counter-good culture anywhere in the building or the stadium, he needs to tell people on the business side to change it.
Considering Glenn’s blunt, fearless persona, he will have no issue doing this, especially armed with a newly minted long-term contract probably north of $12 million a year.
He’s got the bully pulpit, and he has to use it.
And not just with his players and coaches, but also by setting the right cultural tone for all departments.
I’m not saying he needs to be involved in ticket or suite sales, but if any stuff is going on, in any department, that is bad for the culture, he needs to speak up.
And sure he will.
After learning from Parcells, Payton and Campbell, he knows more about building a strong culture than any other high-ranking powerful figure at 1 Jets Drive.
Many of the people high up, who decided who would stay or go, were there during the cultural unraveling.
That isn’t meant as a shot at anybody, just a dose of reality.
So it’s Glenn who needs to lead the cultural rebirth of the Jets, and not just on the practice field and in the locker room.
April 4, 2025
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