The morning session of the Jets’ first day of rookie minicamp was ending Friday when the team gathered to hear the head coach speak.
It took a second for Robert Saleh to remember that he was the one everyone was waiting to hear.
“The horn blew for practice to be over and I started to take my normal spot behind the huddle to listen to the head coach speak and I was like, ‘Oh, shoot, that’s me,’ ” Saleh recalled with a smile a short time later.
Saleh has been the Jets’ coach for four months, but in some ways Friday was his first true day on the job. He was on the field, coaching the rookies and getting used to being the head coach after serving as the 49ers’ defensive coordinator for the past four years.
“That’s the fun part of it, right?” Saleh said. “To be able to get out there and get on the grass with the guys and start teaching your techniques and fundamentals and scheme and seeing the coaches coach and the players play. That’s always the best part about this whole job.”
The Jets’ rookies spent a few hours on the field Friday with Saleh. Because of COVID-19 protocols from the NFL, the team was divided into two groups. The linemen practiced in the morning and the skill players in the afternoon. New quarterback Zach Wilson was the main attraction, but it was Saleh’s debut in many ways as well.
The new coach was known, while with San Francisco, for his sideline energy, and the rookies said they can already feel that from him.
“I rock with him already,” running back Michael Carter said. “I can’t wait to play for him. He’s a great coach already. He wants to win. He wants to have fun doing it. He wants to have high energy and that’s me. So, I’m excited to play for him.”
Alijah Vera-Tucker, the guard the Jets took with the No. 14-overall pick, said Saleh’s energy is easy to sense.
“It’s in everything,” Vera-Tucker said. “I met him in person last week and he had a lot of energy. You see it on the field when he was back in San Francisco coaching up the defense always bringing that energy and in team meetings as well. He always has, I guess, a chip on his shoulder. He always wants us to work our butts off, which we will.”
For Saleh, he needs to get used to coaching an entire team after just coaching the defense for the 49ers. The Jets hired him with the idea that he would oversee the entire team. There has been a feeling from the past few Jets coaches that they have been overly focused on one side of the ball.
“It’s no different,” Saleh said of being the head coach at practice. “From a coordinator’s standpoint, you walk from position to position and you’re just making sure that everybody’s on their Ps and Qs and things are being recited the way you wanted and taught the way you wanted. You want to see players responding the way they need to respond. Instead of just hanging around the defense, going to the offense and special teams, but observing practice and making sure everybody is doing what they need to be doing to get better. It’s just a bigger scope.”
The rookies will be back on the field Saturday. Saleh wants this minicamp to be a low-pressure chance for the rookies to start picking up the scheme and learning about each other and the coaches.
“For them to really start to introduce who they are and what we can expect day in and day out and not to leave gray area in the identity they want to portray. That’s the biggest message,” Saleh said. “That’s the biggest goal of this entire weekend is just a good, clean introduction on both sides and to really learn what it’s like to be a Jet.”
