(Editor’s note: This story was originally published on Nov. 7 and has been updated to reflect the New York Jets’ hiring of Aaron Glenn.)
Three years ago, when Ben Johnson was elevated to be the offensive coordinator of the Detroit Lions, he got a direct challenge from Aaron Glenn, the team’s defensive coordinator.
Bring it.
In every head-to-head between the offense and defense, from training camp to a midweek practice, bring it all. Bring the creativity. Bring the trick plays. Bring everything Johnson could conjure up.
Mainly bring the competitiveness.
Not only would it help make each unit better — and help Detroit go 15-2 this season and secure the No. 1 seed in the NFC playoffs — it would make Johnson and Glenn better, especially when they eventually became head coaches.
“It’s always iron sharpens iron,” Johnson told Yahoo Sports this season of Glenn’s attitude. “He has really challenged me to stay cutting edge, attack him. We’ve gone back and forth during training camp and in the springtime, we’ll make some adjustments and he’ll make some adjustments. It’s just constant competition between the two of us.”
On Monday, Johnson, 38, became the new head coach of the Chicago Bears. On Wednesday, Glenn, 52, took over the New York Jets.
Glenn will now need to bring that same attitude to the Jets — competitiveness, pressure, relentlessness. The same attributes that drove him as a Pro Bowl lock-down corner, including eight seasons (1994-2001) with New York and then as a grinding-assistant coach that he demanded be reflected in his Lions defenses.
He takes over a five-win team in New York that hasn’t sniffed the playoffs since 2010. He does it with the only mentality he’s ever known, one that drove him from an unlikely place to NFL head coach.
Glenn grew up in the Bordersville neighborhood of Humble, Texas, just on the outskirts of Houston. It was built in the 1920s, a settlement of wooden shacks, created so African Americans could work at a nearby…
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