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Jets players sense 'urgency' as the team prepares for second season under coach Aaron Glenn

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. (AP) — Aaron Glenn's approach to his second offseason with the New York Jets has generated an unmistakable vibe among his players.

The long, hot days of training camp are still several weeks away. The regular season doesn't kick off for another three months. But the Jets, coming off a 3-14 season, understand the magnitude of these moments.

“Yeah, man, there’s a real sense of urgency, I think, from everybody in here, just to be at our best every day,” center Josh Myers said Tuesday after practice during voluntary organized team activities. “I just feel like I can feel it, starting from the top down.”

That's not surprising considering the Jets have the NFL's longest active playoff drought at 15 years and Glenn is coming off a rough first season as a head coach.

While general manager Darren Mougey, also in his second season with the team, was tasked with retooling the roster, Glenn has made it a priority to learn from his own mistakes and, in the process, remove any doubts that he's the right person to turn around the franchise's fortunes — this year and beyond.

“I would definitely attest to that sense of urgency,” said safety Minkah Fitzpatrick, one of the Jets' several veteran newcomers. "I think AG learned a lot from his first year — good, bad and ugly. And I think he wants to not just show the world, but show us that he’s a guy that wants to win. He knows how to win.

"The first year is always tougher for any head coach. There’s a lot of adjustments. And I think he's excited to apply what he’s learned to Year 2."

After last season, Glenn acknowledged “there’s always a sense of urgency” to win — and that remains the mission. The coach replaced half of his assistants, hired Frank Reich to run the offense and is assuming the duties of overseeing the defense while also adding Brian Duker as his coordinator.

Meanwhile, the Jets added several veterans to their locker room, including Fitzpatrick, linebacker Demario Davis and quarterback Geno Smith — a clear push to improve the overall player leadership.

“That was really my plan from the very beginning, well going into this offseason, to make sure I surround some of these young guys with guys like that,” Glenn said. "I think it’s important when you’re trying to build a team that you have a good mix of that so the young guys can learn, and as they learn, they continue to pick those things up. And as they grow older, they’re able to pass those things down to other young guys.

“And to me, that’s exactly how you want your team to be built.”

Defensive lineman Harrison Phillips was acquired from Minnesota last year before the start of the regular season, so this is his first full offseason in New York.

“People approach the offseason differently, philosophically from different coaching trees and how you want to do it,” he said. "And this is a group that wants to work and wants to earn it.”

Phillips quickly assumed a leadership role among the players last season on a team that lacked them, especially after the likes of Sauce Gardner and Quinnen Williams were traded.

During a radio row appearance at the Super Bowl in February, Phillips said he thought Glenn “inherited a very cancerous, truculent group — whole, top to bottom.”

He can see a shift from that and appreciates that he can now also lean on Davis and Fitzpatrick as leaders on the defense.

“When you don’t have as many leaders, sometimes it can feel like a dictatorship because, hey, this is the loud voice in the room and we hear all the time, it’s not his team, it’s not his defense, it’s ours," Phillips said. "And so when you have enough leaders, it is our team. And we have AG’s thumbprint on the whole thing, but it is a player-run team.

“And we have enough guys now from enough different opinions that we can really shape this thing to come together and hopefully that closeness parallels with wins.”

Fitzpatrick, a three-time All-Pro entering his ninth NFL season, echoed Phillips' sentiments and agreed that the Jets are building a successful foundation.

“We have a lot of guys that came from across the league,” Fitzpatrick said. “Some guys have been on winning programs and some guys haven’t. And I think just with that blend, everybody’s bringing what they learned from those programs and ready to take the next step.”

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