ESPN’s Tedy Bruschi crushes Woody Johnson’s ‘knee-jerk’ Robert Saleh firing: ‘Same Old Jets’

A former Patriots star lit into Jets owner Woody Johnson for firing Robert Saleh five weeks into the 2024 NFL season.

Tedy Bruschi, a three-time Super Bowl champion and an NFL analyst for ESPN, said on “Sunday NFL Countdown” that Saleh didn’t deserve to lose his job and placed blame on Johnson for how the Jets are perceived.

“Aaron [Rodgers] said, ‘We win, we’re great. We lose, we’re the Same Old Jets.’ Well decisions like this by the owner make you the Same Old Jets,” Bruschi said. “[Saleh] isn’t a bad coach. He’s a coach I believe that was learning on the job. He was a coach that dealt with a young quarterback in Zach Wilson, got them through that, and then Aaron Rodgers popping his Achilles, getting them through that, and now this week, getting fired.

“In my opinion, I think this was a knee-jerk reaction. I don’t think he should’ve been [fired.] … He was trying to do head coaching things. He wanted to demote Nathaniel Hackett, take the play-calling away, which is ironically exactly what Aaron Rodgers was asking him to do, provide accountability. Remember the cadence quote, and then maybe you have to make somebody be accountable? Well let’s make the offensive coordinator be accountable.”

Bruschi was referring to when Saleh said after the Jets’ Week 4 loss to the Broncos that the team had to figure out if they were “good enough or ready to handle all the cadence” after a slew of pre-snap penalties, which some took as the coach wanting to potentially switch the cadence approach.

“That’s one way to do it,” Rodgers said that day after Saleh spoke. “The other way is to hold them accountable.”

Both Saleh and Rodgers later downplayed any issues regarding the cadence, and Rodgers said Wednesday on “The Pat McAfee Show” that he “resents” accusations that he had anything to do with Saleh’s firing, calling them “patently false.”

Hackett, whom Rodgers is close with from their time together in Green Bay, shouldn’t be with the Jets anymore, according to Bruschi, after he was stripped of offensive play-calling duties, which were given to Todd Downing.

“You’ve got to go, because you’re a distraction to the offensive players,” Bruschi said. “It’s a mess. Get rid of Hackett.”

Bruschi also offered a message to host Mike Greenberg, a noted Jets fan who believes Saleh was a bad coach.

“I think you guys had your guy because finally, because instead of ‘Aaron Rodgers,’ he was gonna flip these quotation marks to the middle finger,” Bruschi said. “Like, ‘I don’t care who you are, I don’t care if you’re Aaron Rodgers. This is my team, I’m taking it back.’”