Mike LaFleur's amazing upset makes Jets' Robert Saleh era look as bad as ever

The New York Jets trouncing the Tennessee Titans in Week 1 made their loyalty to Robert Saleh's coaching style all the more puzzling. Not only did he continue to show how Saleh is ill-equipped for the job of being a head coach, but his old offensive coordinator, Mike LaFleur, already has the Arizona Cardinals looking competitive.

LaFleur, who was fired after the 2022 season, helped lead an upset over the heavily favored Los Angeles Chargers. Beating LA, despite them having former Jets avatar of pain Adam Gase on staff as an offensive assistant, should only make fans even more upset about how the Saleh era ended.

Even with Aaron Glenn strutting his stuff in a Week 1 win, there's a good chance that LaFleur could be the best head coaching candidate the Jets have had on their staff in quite some time. Sticking with Saleh will haunt this team.

Mike LaFleur's Week 1 win makes New York Jets sticking with Robert Saleh look worse

LaFleur, much like Saleh, took over a team that was not expected to win many games. In fact, it was not an unpopular opinion to suggest that Arizona was going to have the worst record in the NFL this season. Going on the road against a Chargers team that many expected big things from and winning convincingly was quite the showing in his debut.

The statistical numbers from LaFleur's time with the Jets are never going to look great, but when you're working with a rookie Zach Wilson, how much can really be expected of you? Every time someone else was under center, be it Mike White, Joe Flacco, or Josh Johnson, the offense not only looked better, but it looked incredibly dynamic.

Rather than holding on to LaFleur, who clearly was in tune with where the trends in the NFL were heading from a schematic point of view, the Jets let Saleh bring in Nathaniel Hackett as part of their Aaron Rodgers courtship. Jets fans need no further reminders of how well that pairing managed to end up.

The New York Jets should have kept Mike LaFleur instead of Robert Saleh

The irony of Hackett getting rehired by LaFleur as his non-play-calling OC in Arizona is quite funny, but this is LaFleur's show. Jacoby Brissett was able to slice and dice a respected Chargers defense, showing what the Jets could have had if they'd aired LaFleur with a quarterback who had a pulse.

Certain contingents of Jets fans will sell organs if it means they can get a young, offensive-minded head coach from the Kyle Shanahan or Sean McVay ecosystem. The Jets bought low on someone with experience in both trees, and they fired him either because there was some friction between he and a clearly obvious bust quarterback or to give fans a pound of flesh after 2022.

LaFleur will be one of the great what-ifs in recent Jets history. Rather than trusting in his offensive play-calling, they saddled him with Wilson and blamed him when he didn't make a Michelin-star meal. Instead, the Jets put their trust in Saleh, who wore out his welcome and doesn't appear to have changed in Tennessee.

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