Aaron Glenn was wide awake at 3:30 a.m., ready to begin the process of making Jets' 'pain' go away
A text message sent from his wife an hour earlier had a familiar message: 'Just be A.G.'
'And that's who I'm going to be,' a smiling Glenn said after a light practice Wednesday. 'Right, wrong or indifferent, nothing's going to change about how I operate, nothing's going to change about the way that I think.
'But, man, I was excited.'
And he has been wide awake since.
'This is something,' he said, 'that I've been waiting on for a long time.'
Glenn, who turned 53 last Tuesday, was hired by the Jets in January in a return to the franchise with which he was a star cornerback for the first eight seasons of his 15-year NFL playing career. Thirty-one years after being a rookie player in Jets camp, the longtime assistant coach is now tasked with trying to turn around the fortunes of a franchise that hasn't made the playoffs in 14 seasons, the league's longest active drought.
'Listen, I know the pain,' Glenn said. 'I know all the things that the fans have been through and I know all the things you guys have been through. I might have been gone from here, but I've never been gone in spirit, so I get it. That sticks with me a ton.
'I'm just telling you guys that now, I understand the pain and I'm hoping, I'm praying and I expect to make sure that pain goes away. I think about that every day.'
Glenn's most recent coaching gig was overseeing a defense that helped the Detroit Lions rise to one of the NFL's best teams under Dan Campbell. He played for Bill Parcells and coached for Sean Payton and kept meticulous notes, building his own foundation for how he'd do things if and when he ever got the chance to do so.
Glenn has focused on changing the culture around the facility. It's an often overused term in football, but after all the losing for so long, the Jets sorely needed it.
When he gathered his team Tuesday after the players officially reported for camp, Glenn told them it's a 'one-day mentality' with the knowledge that the Super Bowl is always the ultimate goal. But it starts with the work that's being put in during the hot, muggy days of the next several weeks.
'I've been coached by one of the greatest coaches of all time and I kind of know how it looks and know how it feels when it comes down to being around people who can take me and a team to the highest level,' said defensive tackle Quinnen Williams, who played for Nick Saban at Alabama. 'And (Glenn) got every aspect in him. He's got every quote.
'The way he carries himself, I know he's going to be one of the greatest coaches in this league.'
That's high praise, but Williams isn't alone. The fact that Glenn was once a star player — he made three Pro Bowls and was selected to the Jets' all-time four-decade team in 2003 — carries a lot of weight with the men he's now leading as a coach.
'For me, it was just getting in front of him, meeting him,' fourth-year wide receiver Garrett Wilson said. 'He's done this thing, he's played at a high level. He's been a Jet before, which for me is like, it's huge, man. ... He can relate.
'And then not to mention, he's seen the blueprint for what it means to take a team that hasn't had much success and turn them into a top of the league, premier team, right? He's seen the blueprint twice or three times. So for me, that's really all I needed to hear.'
Glenn and his Jets just need to manifest it all on the field, particularly when they start their season on Sept. 7 at home against Aaron Rodgers and the Pittsburgh Steelers.
And maybe Glenn will find some time to sleep before then.
'We have this whole day where we have things we need to get done,' he said. 'So I'm looking forward to every part of every minute of every hour of what we have going on today because it's a day of teaching. And I want to make sure I go through that the right way.'
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