Robert Saleh Strikes Gold With His NY Jets Training Camp Strategy

The New York Jets held their final training camp of 2024 on Thursday. Afterward, several players spoke to the media, and they consistently shared the same sentiment.

“It hasn’t been this hard since mat practice my freshman year of college when I would wake up at 12:00 a.m. 05:30 “I am,” said Quincy Williams.

“It’s probably the toughest training camp I’ve had in my career so far,” Tyler Conklin said.

A few days earlier, 40-year-old Aaron Rodgers agreed, saying, “I would say camp is a lot tougher this year, maybe the toughest it’s been in the last seven or eight years of my career. I knew I had some insight going into camp that this was what Robert (Saleh) wanted to do. So I think it’s been good for us.” Rodgers added that New York’s starters had gotten about 300 more reps than they did in last year’s camp.

If you’re head coach Robert Saleh, you have to be very happy with how everything turned out.

The Jets are a veteran team with many players dealing with serious injury questions. Choosing to give this team a “hard” training camp—rather than playing it overly safe—was a bold move by Saleh. Had he publicly announced this intention before the start of camp, he likely would have been criticized by fans and the media. Traumatized by the events of 2023, Jets fans likely would have preferred if Saleh had put all of his key players in bubble wrap instead of making them play a single 7-on-7.

But Saleh took the opposite approach, and it ultimately proved to be a smart gamble. Despite pushing his players harder than ever before, New York made it through training camp without any significant injuries. With the team now healthy through the end of August, the extra work has ultimately done nothing but make them more resilient and better prepared for the regular season.

The Jets have struggled mightily with injuries in recent years. It reached a point where the team’s injury woes could not be explained away by bad luck alone. Something had to be done to improve the team.

Maybe this is the change New York has been looking for.

It’s possible that the Jets had set a standard for taking training camp too lightly, leaving their players’ bodies unprepared for what was to come in the regular season. Most of the Jets’ serious injuries in recent years — namely Carl Lawson (Aug. 2021), Mekhi Becton (Sep. 2021 and Aug. 2022), Breece Hall (Oct. 2022), Aaron Rodgers (Sep. 2023) and Alijah Vera-Tucker (Oct. 2022 and Oct. 2023) — have occurred between August and October. Players have tended to get hurt early in the season (or sooner), suggesting a potential lack of preparation.

Playing it safe would have been the easy way out for a franchise terrified of the impact one freak injury could have. Saleh spat in the face of that fear by challenging his players to push even harder.

Sure, this approach could theoretically put them at greater risk for injury, but in the long run, they’d enter September feeling more accustomed to regular-season routine than most other teams. And since the Jets came away unscathed, Saleh’s bet paid off. He got the long-term benefits without the short-term costs.

And who knows? Perhaps the idea that Saleh’s strategy carries short-term risk is far-fetched. It’s possible that going faster actually taken away the risk of the player getting injured during the camp.

In contrast to his aggressive camp approach, Saleh announced Thursday that he has decided to rest his starters for Saturday’s preseason finale, meaning three straight games without any repeats for the starters.

Some argue that Saleh’s decision to rest his starters for the entire preseason is at odds with his aggressive approach in training camp. I disagree.

Consider the workload the starters have already been through in joint practices. Not only did the Jets participate in three joint practices this season (compared to just two last season), but the third was similar in length to a regular game. According to Saleh, the Jets and Giants planned to run “about 75 plays” in their Wednesday practice. That’s significantly more work than the starters would do in all three preseason games combined.

Sure, there’s less contact in a team practice than there is in a preseason game, but team practices are much more valuable mentally. Preseason play-calling is absurdly boring and offers players nothing to learn from an X’s & O’s perspective. Teams are a little more creative in team practices, allowing players to gain experience that is more transferable to an actual game than what they would see in the preseason.

Furthermore, resting his starters for the entire preseason is Saleh’s reward for their hard work on the practice field. With three combined practices and nearly a month of intense training camps, it would be overkill to force his starters to play even one rep in the preseason. Eliminating the risk of a preseason injury washes away the (hypothetical) increased risk of injury that came with Saleh’s more intense camp approach.

Saleh has been the subject of constant criticism during his tenure as the Jets’ head coach (including from me). He deserves credit where it’s due. His revised plan for the team’s 2024 training camp was a smart move. By adopting a more intensive approach in camp, the players’ bodies are better prepared for a 17-game grind than they were in any of Saleh’s first three seasons.

This could be the solution to the injury problems the Jets are looking for.