New Jets general manager Darren Mougey has a history with his new head coach in Aaron Glenn. It was brief, but it stuck with Mougey for years.
Back in 2022, the former Broncos assistant GM remembered sitting in during the interview process for who would become Denver’s next head coach, and Glenn was one of the first candidates to interview.
As part of the interview process, Mougey and the Broncos asked the candidates to describe what their first message would be to the team after assuming the role. Glenn’s response went above and beyond, as Mougey recalled the fiery coach getting into character and playing out exactly what he would say as if the team was collectively on one knee, suited up in full pads before taking the field.
“Most of the candidates would just talk about their philosophies or something,” Mougey recalled during Monday’s introductory press conference, with Glenn seated next to him. “AG said, ‘You want me to do it?’”
With that, Glenn pushed back his chair, stood up, and began his audition, one that Mougey says collectively blew away the Broncos brass that was simply looking for a bullet-point rundown of what the message to the team would be.
“We were all kind of looking around like, ‘Wow,’” Mougey said. “As we went on with the search...we kept going back to it, like ‘Damn, AG killed that thing.’”
According to Woody Johnson, Glenn left a similar impact on Gang Green’s brass, as the Jets owner told reporters that Glenn quickly moved to the top of their list after his first interview. He was hired three days before Mougey, but Mougey as soon as Mougey arrived, he knew Glenn hadn’t lost the fire that had stuck with Denver when he interviewed three years prior.
“Instantly, I’m feeling it again,” Mougey said. “That passion. That passion for the game, the passion and care for the players and the fans...it was instant. We were in lockstep right out of the gate. Same vision. We were speaking the same language.
“There is not a better leader for this team than AG.”
Glenn, coming over from Detroit and serving under the notoriously fiery head coach Dan Campbell, brought that passion to Monday’s press conference, vowing that the emphasis on culture will be paramount, and that New York, the team that drafted him in the first round three decades ago, is where he always wanted to be.
“We’re in this thing together. We met years ago, and I had a feeling,” Glenn said to Mougey during his first remarks as the new Jets head coach. “We’re gonna do some magical things here, bro. I look forward to it.
“To the players, put your seatbelts on and get ready for the ride. I wanted this job. I interviewed for a number of jobs, but I wanted this job...I’m just telling you now, everything else was really out of it. It’s all about the Jets, and it’s been that way from the beginning.”
For Glenn, his career has been a ride in itself, from a one-win season with the Jets as a player to a 12-win season just two years later. In his first year under Campbell with the Lions, Detroit was a miserable 3-13-1, before going 12-5 two years later and reaching the NFC title game before earning the top seed in this year’s playoffs. Glenn has seen tortured franchises turn their fortunes around in short order, both as a player and a coach, and he wouldn’t want to help orchestrate the next turnaround than his former home.
“This is where I started, and you can’t write a better story than that,” Glenn said. “Hopefully this will be my last stop. That’s the way I’m looking at it.”
As for Mougey, he doesn’t have a history with the Jets, but he does have that short history with Glenn to lean on, and he plans on bringing the same fire that Glenn brought to his Broncos interview back in 2022.
“You have my word AG and I are going to put our heart and souls into this job and get a Super Bowl back for this team,” Mougey said.
