The Jets’ 2025 coordinator shakeup has not exactly aged well, and Brian Duker is now right in the middle of the mess.
New York moved on from both Tanner Engstrand and Steve Wilks after Aaron Glenn’s first season opened with a 3-14 record, then turned to Frank Reich on offense and Duker on defense. Glenn took over play-calling himself, which left Duker in a strange spot from the start.
Reich has been uneven, but at least the offense has shown it can move the ball. Duker’s side of the ball, by contrast, has gone from encouraging early on to hard to watch outside of a few players over the last few games.
That downturn has only sharpened the scrutiny around Duker, especially with reports that the locker room temperature is slipping. Per Connor Hughes, Duker is not “particularly well-liked in the building,” and there have been rumblings of “negative things” from people who spoke with Jets staffers about the first-year coordinator. For a 2-7 team with major problems on defense, that kind of chatter tends to spread fast.
Duker’s connection to Glenn goes back to Detroit, where he worked as safeties coach in 2022 and defensive backs coach in 2023. He spent the previous two seasons with the Dolphins as defensive pass game coordinator. The results there were not eye-popping, but he was also dealing with shaky talent.
His arrival in New York followed what was described as a joke of a defensive coordinator interview process. The Jets spoke with some notable candidates, including Daronte Jones and Jim Leonhard, both of whom landed jobs elsewhere. New York had even settled on former Giants DC Wink Martindale before the plan unraveled when Glenn decided he wanted to handle the play-calling himself.
That left Duker in the role of sounding board for Glenn, a hire that was supposed to give the head coach more control over the defense. In that sense, Duker can be partly shielded from the unit’s broader problems. But there’s also no getting around the fact that the Jets have a defensive coordinator who appears to be contributing very little to winning.
And the on-field evidence has not helped his case. Duker has been underwhelming at the podium, and there still hasn’t been much clarity about what he actually brings to the defense.
The secondary, which should be his lane, started the year with some promise but has fallen apart in recent weeks. Brandon Stephens and Azareye’h Thomas have had a rough few weeks, veteran Minkah Fitzpatrick has shown questionable effort at times, and rookie D’Angelo Ponds has been getting lit up when he has been on the field.
If the defensive backs coach is not helping the defensive backs, the question becomes obvious: what is he doing here?
Glenn at least has enough of a track record from before the Jets to make another defensive coordinator or high-ranking assistant job plausible once this ends. Duker’s resume, on the other hand, is looking thinner by the week, and it may be tough for him to convince another team to take a chance on him.
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