Bryce Huff says what all Jets fans already knew about Robert Saleh

When the New York Jets made the decision to let Bryce Huff walk in 2024 free agency, the team's fanbase was pretty split. Some were furious about allowing a young, homegrown talent walk for free, while others insisted he was just a product of Robert Saleh’s system.

As it turns out, the latter group might’ve been right.

Huff quickly flamed out in Philadelphia after just one year. Injuries, a poor fit with defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, and a disappearing act by season’s end, he was even a healthy scratch in the Super Bowl. This past weekend, Huff admitted he saw the writing on the wall back in training camp.

"There’s a plethora of things that went down. I don’t wanna get into specifics. Being in the league for five years, I kinda knew what it felt like for me to be in a good situation. I gotta look out for myself and do what I think is best. I kind of knew where it was headed fairly early on in the season, probably even training camp if I’m being honest. So when everything popped off, it was just like ‘Yeah, all right let’s get to work."

Bryce Huff

Huff admitted he knows what it feels like to be in a “good situation” in the NFL, and now, reunited with his former Jets head coach in San Francisco, he believes he’s found that again. It’s not hard to read between the lines of those comments.

Is Bryce Huff a "Robert Saleh merchant"?

Huff developed into one of the most efficient pass rushers in all of football with the Jets. After leading the NFL in pressure rate in 2022, he followed that up with a breakout 2023 campaign, finishing second in pressure rate behind only Micah Parsons.

He recorded 67 pressures and 10 sacks that year, becoming the first Jets edge rusher to hit double-digit sacks in a season since Calvin Pace in 2013. Yes, it had been that long.

The Jets had finally developed a homegrown star edge rusher. But when Huff hit free agency in 2024, the organization opted to let him walk. Philadelphia signed him to a lucrative three-year, $51.1 million deal, betting on him to become a centerpiece of their already stacked defensive front.

That bet didn’t pay off.

Huff never found his footing with the Eagles. He battled injuries throughout the year, struggled to adapt to Vic Fangio’s scheme, and was a complete non-factor by the time the playoffs rolled around. He didn’t record a single sack after Week 10 and, again, was a healthy scratch in the Super Bowl.

While Fangio is widely seen as one of the best defensive coordinators in the NFL, he also has a history of clashing with certain players, and it appears he and Huff just never meshed.

The Jets didn’t exactly win the swap, either. They tried to replace Huff by trading for Haason Reddick, ironically from the Eagles, but that move quickly imploded.

Reddick executed one of the most bizarre holdouts in recent memory, missing half the season, and when he finally returned, he looked nothing like the All-Pro edge rusher the Jets thought they were getting. It was a downgrade on both sides.

Now Huff is back with the coach who helped make him a star, reuniting with Saleh in San Francisco. Saleh’s wide-9 system is tailor-made for a pass rusher like Huff, and with expectations reset, a bounce-back season seems not only possible but likely.

Does all of this prove Huff was a so-called “Saleh merchant”? Maybe not definitively, but it certainly strengthens the argument. When he left Saleh’s system, his production and efficiency plummeted. Now he’s back in it, with a chance to prove once again that he can thrive in the right situation.

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