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Rico Cimini
Florham Park, NJ – If he is back with the New York Jets in 2025, Aaron Rodgers’s new offensive coordinator will be the former Detroit Lions assistant, Tanner Engstrand.
Engstrand, 42, agreed terms with the Jets on Friday, the team announced. He is familiar with the newly hired coach Aaron Glenn, since the last four seasons together in Dan Campbell’s staff passed. Engstrand was the coordinator of the air game for an offensive that scored 564 points in 2024.
Once again, the Jets will enter the season with a chief coach for the first time and a playcaller for the first time on the offensive. They did the same in 2021 with Robert Saleh and Mike Lafleur, who was expelled after two seasons.
Engstrand enters historically unstable work that, for now, has a historically large field marshal.
It will be the 11th Playcaller of the Jets in the last 15 years, probably one of the reasons why they have the score offensive in the 32nd position in that period.
Rodgers, 41, is undecided on whether playing a 21st season. Similarly, the jets have not said if they want to advance with the future member of the Hall of Fame, whose performance of 2024 was unequal. Glenn, at his introductory press conference on Monday, said Rodgers will be evaluated as all players on the list.
The four -time MVP has only had four playcallers in his career: Mike McCarthy and Matt Lafleur with the Green Bay Packers and Nathaniel Hackett and Todd Downing with the jets. Downing took over last season when Hackett was degraded in week 6.
The Glenn of defensive mentality will be inclined strongly in Engstrand while drawing a course for the offensive, which ended 24º to score this season.
Also on Friday, the Jets hired Chris Harris as coordinator of passes games and defensive defense coach, a source to Adam Schefter of ESPN told. Harris spent the last two seasons in a similar role with the Tennessee Titans and had interviewed for the position of the Jet Defensive Coordinator.
And the Jets announced the hiring of Chris Banjo as its special team coordinator. Banjo, 34, who replaces Brant Boyer, spent the last two seasons as a special team assistant for Denver Broncos after a 10 -year race.
Engstrand was considered a possible replacement for the former offensive coordinator of the Lions, Ben Johnson, who left to become the chief coach of the Chicago Bears, but was transmitted when Campbell chose to leave the organization to hire John Morton of The Broncos.
Engstrand is a disciple of Jim Harbaugh, who has worked under Harbaugh at the University of San Diego and Michigan. Engstrand has called plays at the university level (San Diego) and in the XFL (DC Defenders) but has no experience in the NFL. It has a distant connection with the new general manager of the Jets, Darren Mougey, who were Quarterbacks in the state of San Diego in 2004.
San Diego’s native spent his next 13 years as an assistant at USD before following Harbaugh to Michigan. In 2020, he landed with the lions as an offensive assistant under coach Matt Patricia, who was fired that year. Engstrand was held by Campbell in 2021, starting as closed wings coach and was finally promoted to the game coordinator.
Engstrand inherits an offensive with two talented open receptors in Garrett Wilson and Davante Adams, although there is the possibility that Adams will be released in a movement related to the salary cover. He also obtains a versatile corridor in Brece Hall and four headlines returning in the offensive line.
The big question is the uncertainty in Quarterback, one of the reasons why his main coordinating goal, the coordinator of the Los Angeles Rams, Nick Caley Rams, rejected an interview.
If Rodgers does not return, the jets will probably add a quarterback. The best quartbacks under contract are Tyrod Taylor, 35, and the fifth round of 2024, Jordan Travis, who lost his rookie year due to a university injury.
