Tag: Robert Saleh coaching staff

Report: Jets add 2 more defensive coaches to Robert Saleh’s staff

The Jets have hired Marquand Manuel as their safeties coach and Tony Oden as their senior defensive assistant and cornerbacks coach.

Robert Saleh has made two new hires to his coaching staff.

According to the NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero, the Jets have added Marquand Manuel as their safeties coach and Tony Oden as their senior defensive assistant and cornerbacks coach.

Manuel and Saleh were together in Seattle from 2012-2013. Manuel served as the assistant special teams coach in the first year before transitioning to defensive assistant. Saleh was the defensive quality control coach.

Manuel also has ties to Jets defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich. The two were in Atlanta from 2015-2018. Manuel was the secondary coach and was then promoted to defensive coordinator for two seasons. Ulbrich, meanwhile, was the linebackers coach.

Manuel was the defensive backs coach with the Eagles in 2020. Before coaching in the NFL, he had an eight-year playing career with the Bengals, Seahawks, Packers, Panthers, Broncos and Lions. Manuel recorded 368 total tackles, 16 pass defenses, two interceptions, four forced fumbles, one fumble recovery and one sack in 116 games as a safety.

As for Oden, he worked under Saleh as the 49ers’ defensive backs coach last season. They were also together in Houston in 2005 when Oden was a defensive assistant and Saleh was a defensive intern.

Oden has held numerous positions in his 25-year coaching career. He started as an assistant defensive backs coach with Millersville University of Pennsylvania in 1996. The next year, Oden became a graduate assistant at Boston College. He then worked at the United States Military Academy as a defensive backs coach and then as the head JV coach.

In 2000, Oden joined East Carolina’s coaching staff as an outside linebackers coach and was named the secondary coach in 2001. After two years at East Carolina, Oden became the defensive backs coach at Eastern Michigan from 2004-2005.

In 2006, Oden got his shot at the NFL as the assistant secondary coach with the Saints from 2006-2010. He earned the full-time position as the Saints secondary coach in 2011. The following two years, Oden served as the defensive backs coach with the Jaguars and Buccaneers, respectively. From 2014-2017, Oden was the cornerbacks’ coach with the Lions. In 2018, Oden was the Lions’ defensive backs coach and was named their safeties coach in 2019.

Report: Jets add 2 more coaches to Robert Saleh’s staff, including ex-Cowboys WR Miles Austin

Robert Saleh has hired Taylor Embree as his running backs coach and Miles Austin as his wide receivers coach.

Robert Saleh has made two new additions to his coaching staff.

According to the NFL Network’s Peter Schrager, Saleh has hired Taylor Embree to be his running backs coach and Miles Austin to be his wide receivers coach. The news comes a day after four other hires were reported.

With the hirings of Embree and Austin, Saleh now has six offensive assistant coaches. He has yet to hire an assistant on the defensive side of the ball.

Embree got started in coaching in 2012 when he was hired as an offensive graduate assistant for UNLV. In 2013, he moved onto UCLA, where he was a defensive graduate assistant for a year before moving back to an offensive graduate assistant for the next two years.

Embree made his jump to the NFL with the Chiefs in 2016 as a defensive assistant. He did that for a season until the 49ers hired him as an offensive quality control coach in 2017. This past season, Embree was the tight ends coach at the University of Colorado.

Austin is coming over from San Francisco, where he was the offensive quality control coach in 2019. Prior to becoming a coach, Austin was a pro and college scouting intern with the Dallas Cowboys.

Austin had a 10-year playing career in the NFL with three teams, including the Cowboys, Browns and Eagles. He had 361 catches for 5,273 yards 37 touchdowns for his career.

Report: Mike LaFleur, John Benton among 4 coaches joining Robert Saleh’s Jets staff

Robert Saleh’s coaching staff is starting to take shape as the Jets’ head coach has brought two 49ers assistants with him to New York.

Robert Saleh is beginning to form his coaching staff.

The Jets’ head coach is taking two 49ers assistants with him to New York, according to NFL Network’s Michael Silver. Mike LaFleur, who was San Francisco’s passing game coordinator, will serve as Saleh’s offensive coordinator, while John Benton will take on the role of offensive line coach and run game coordinator.

LaFleur is the younger brother of Packers head coach Matt LaFleur. The 33-year-old experienced a quick rise under Kyle Shanahan, serving as an offensive intern for him in Cleveland before becoming an offensive assistant in Atlanta. He then followed Shanahan to San Francisco, where he was the team’s passing game coordinator and wide receivers coach from 2017-18. He dropped the wide receiver coach’s title in 2019 and 2020.

Benton has 33 years of coaching experience, including 16 seasons in the NFL. The new Jets offensive line coach just completed his fourth season in San Francisco. Benton’s notable achievements include serving as the Houston Texans offensive line coach from 2006-13, where his offensive line helped establish one of the NFL’s most potent offensive attacks. The Texans set franchise records for rushing yards (2,448) in 2011 and passing yards (4,564) and total offense (6,129 yards) in 2009.

Benton’s unit was instrumental in San Francisco’s march to the Super Bowl in 2019. The 49ers’ offense ranked second in the NFL in rushing yards per game (144.1) and fourth in the league in total offense (381.1 yards per game).

In addition, Silver also reported that former Falcons quarterbacks coach Gregg Knapp will join the Jets in the same role, while Broncos quality control coach Rob Calabrese will be New York’s passing game coordinator.

Knapp has significant NFL experience as an offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, including his work with Michael Vick in Atlanta from 2004-06. Knapp most recently served as the Falcons QB coach from 2018-20.

Calabrese has had a fast rise up the coaching ranks. The former college quarterback was the offensive coordinator at Wagner University before becoming an offensive quality control coach with Denver from 2019-20.

Expect diverse skillsets from Robert Saleh’s Jets staff

Robert Saleh wants his coaching staff to have a diverse skillset, so they an teach things that he doesn’t know how to do.

New Jets head coach Robert Saleh already has a vision for what he wants his first coaching staff to look like.

Saleh spoke at the QB Coaching Summit last year and described what he would look for in an NFL coaching staff. He explained how diversity beyond the color of one’s skin is important for a staff. Having different values and different personalities are key, but bringing in people who do things that you can’t is what makes a group of coaches succeed.

“Your staff completes you,” Saleh said.

The 41-year-old thinks of himself as a great coach — his players have backed that up — but he said he wouldn’t want 20 Robert Salehs on the sideline. Saleh knows that he is not perfect and can’t do everything by himself, and that’s where he needs to be able to count on his coaching staff to pick him up.

“You have to know your weaknesses,” Saleh said. “You have to connect and understand yourself and you have to understand what you can’t give a player. No one coach can give you everything.”

Saleh has learned a lot about coaching philosophy from some great mentors throughout his 16-year NFL coaching career. He’s worked under Gary Kubiak, Pete Carroll and Kyle Shanahan, all of whom have stressed how important it is to have a well-run organization.

While schemes and play-calling are also part of the job, a head coach has to nail setting a standard first. Saleh seems to understand this.

Saleh will now get a chance to implement his staff-building philosophies with the Jets. We’ll see if he can deliver upon those ideologies and turn the Jets into a winning football team.