Robert Saleh on NY Jets’ OL coach: ‘Did a really nice job’

Robert Saleh discussed the New York Jets’ offensive line coach, Keith Carter

The New York Jets are running it back, for better and for worse.

At his Monday end-of-season press conference, head coach Robert Saleh confirmed that the team would not make any significant changes to the coaching staff.

“We’re going to evaluate the staff; there are some guys that I’m sure will have opportunities elsewhere, but I’m not anticipating anything significant,” said Saleh.

This means that, along with offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett, offensive line coach Keith Carter and passing game coordinator Todd Downing are set to return.

Saleh spoke specifically about Carter and the job he did with the Jets’ offensive line this season.

“I think he did a really nice job. There are things that he’s, like all of us, there are things that he’s going to have to improve on, but in the first year of a system, to go through that many changes and to have to coach that many young men who had gotten here mid-season, I thought he did a really good job,” said Saleh.

“I thought our run game, like I said, got better and better. Breece, in the outside zone scheme, really hit strides over the last few weeks. Again, it’s year one of a system with all the turnover and the content still being able to improve as the year went on; I thought he did a really nice job.”

The head coach also spoke about the changes the Jets need to make along the offensive line, stating, “I’ve been working on this for over a month and a half in terms of just trying to try to find the direction that we need to go.”

“It’s at the forefront of everybody’s mind to keep those guys healthy. If the O-line’s healthy, the quarterback will be healthy. If the quarterback’s healthy, we’ll all be healthy. It’s definitely something that we’re studying, and we’ll get down to hopefully get an answer for,” said Saleh.

Wanting continuity makes sense for the Jets, an organization that has not had much of it recently.

Yet, the Jets had one of the worst offenses in the league; as X-Factor’s own Rivka Boord said in a previous article, the Jets had a league-worst 1.12 points per drive on offense and gave up 64 sacks.

That does not take into account the regression in the run game, multiple late-week injuries to the offensive line, and the negative sentiment around Carter in the league.

Just watched a snippet of Bussin.

Taylor Lewan talked about how difficult his relationship was with Keith Carter and how they didn’t do a lot to protect the veteran O-Linemen practice-wise.

Said practices were really hard and wore the tread of the tires quick.

Interesting….

— TicTacTitans (@TicTacTitans) January 11, 2023

Keeping a coordinator who is close friends with the star quarterback is one thing. Implementing zero changes for a unit that was horrific in multiple aspects of offense is borderline malpractice.

Unless the likes of Carter and the other coaches make sweeping changes to their coaching styles, it is hard to envision where the improvement is coming from. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results; without meaningful changes, there will be no surprise if the Jets struggle with the same issues next season.

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