It was another rough week for New York Jets head coach Robert Saleh. The fourth-year coach was caught on the sideline putting his head in his hands following a CJ Ham rushing touchdown in the second quarter of the Minnesota Vikings’ Week 5 23-17 win over the Jets.
New York tumbled to 2-3 on the season with the loss in London despite sky expectations in the team’s first full year with quarterback Aaron Rodgers under center.
The Jets QB spent much of the week defending his reputation with the under-fire Saleh and did not have his strongest game. Rodgers completed just 29-of-54 passes for 244 yards with two touchdowns and three interceptions.
One of those interceptions was a pick-six to Vikings linebacker Andrew van Ginkel.
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When asked to analyze the performance of his starting quarterback, Saleh answered “Obviously up and down. The biggest thing that we talked about going into this game was playing clean ball.”
“Minnesota had been feasting on pick-sixes and putting their offense in positions to get easy layups. Unfortunately, that pick-six was the big difference in the game.”
Following his second interception just one series later, the Mirror.com’s Charlie Wilson reported Rodgers seemingly ignored his head coach while heading to the sideline.
Rodgers seemed to back his beleaguered head coach postgame: “There will be a lot of people outside the building who won’t be sticking with the Jets. If we stick together — and I still have a lot of confidence in this team — we think this is a team that’s going to make a run. “
“Whether that run starts next week, the following week, or whenever it might be, I’m confident in our guys [and] I’m confident in leadership that we’ll get this figured out.”
Earlier this week, Rodgers was asked about Saleh while at the team hotel. “I think there’s some driving force trying to put a wedge [from] outside the facility between Robert and me,” he said.
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“We’re really good friends, We enjoy each other. We spend time almost every day in his office talking about things and talking about the energy of the team.”
Not all of the veteran voices in the Jets locker room were as rosy. Linebacker Quincy Williams was brutally honest when asked to assess the team’s performance.
”People get tired of hearing the same s—,” Williams said. “People gotta start taking accountability from the top to the bottom…that’s the main thing.”
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