Aaron Glenn finalizes Jets' defensive coaching staff with four new hires

The road to get here was...something, to say the least.

Charlie Baduini

Aaron Glenn head coach New York Jets / Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

After a turbulent offseason of Aaron Glenn resetting nearly his entire New York Jets coaching staff, it seems everything has fallen into place. The Jets announced their final hires Thursday morning, after finalizing their offensive staff earlier in the week.

Ryan Slowik will serve as the safeties coach, Ben Bolling will serve as linebackers coach, and Collin Bauer and Ronald Booker have been brought aboard as defensive specialists.

Now that the staff is done, the Jets and their front office can look ahead to the rest of the offseason and determine what can be done to improve the roster and how they can field a competitive team in 2026.

Jets add four new faces to defensive coaching staff

Arguably, the most exciting hire of the bunch is new linebackers coach Bolling. He was plucked from Demeco Ryans' coaching staff and has gone from assistant linebackers coach to the full-time gig.

The Jets' linebackers were not a good unit last year. Jamien Sherwood regressed under former linebackers coach Aaron Curry, and his fractured relationship with Quincy Williams was well-documented. Hopefully, he can bring some of the pop from Houston over to New York.

Slowik, the older brother of new Miami Dolphins offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik, spent time with defensive coordinator Brian Duking in Miami. The last two years, he was the defensive backs coach and passing game specialist. Before that, he was the Dolphins' outside linebackers coach and senior defensive assistant.

Miami had nine interceptions in 2025, which is nine more than the Jets had last season. Maybe he can teach New York's secondary how to track the football and generate turnovers.

This isn't Slowik's first stint in New York. He coached with former Jets head coach Todd Bowles in Arizona, and followed him when he took the Jets job in 2015. He served as the assistant defensive line coach for a single season.

Booker comes over from the Cardinals, where he spent the last five seasons as a defensive assistant and quality control coach. Jonathan Gannon wasn't necessarily a good head coach, but he's certainly a good defensive mind. Hopefully, Booker picked up a thing or two under his most recent boss.

Finally, Bauer is getting his first shot in the NFL after spending the last three seasons with the UFL's Michigan Panthers. He served as the defensive line coach in 2023 and was promoted to defensive coordinator while also coaching the DL in 2024 and 2025.

On paper, the Jets' defensive coaching staff looks a bit stronger than it did last season, and hopefully it translates to a better overall unit in 2026.

Charlie Baduini

Charlie Baduini covers the New York Jets as a site expert for The Jet Press and FanSided. He is a sports journalist based in Northern New Jersey with a wide variety of sports reporting experience in print and broadcast journalism. Baduini’s byline can also be seen on Heavy and The Sporting News, where he covers several teams across the NFL and NBA. His work has been featured in Heavy, Athlon Sports, The Sporting News, Yahoo Sports, MSN, and Yardbarker. He also serves as a seasonal intern for ESPN, working as a production assistant for the Heisman Trophy Ceremony every year since 2022. Baduini has been a Jets fan for as long as he can remember, with his family's fandom dating back to the 1960s when his grandfather, Louis, became a season ticket holder. His family has since held on to the tickets to this day. He is an avid fan of the New York Knicks and New York Mets.