A day after being on air as arguably the biggest news of the NFL season thus far broke, Dianna Russini was back on The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz to talk about the fallout of Robert Saleh’s dismissal in New York.
Despite Woody Johnson saying it was his decision alone and Aaron Rodgers telling Pat McAfee that he resents the implication that he had anything to do with the Jets’ decision to move on from Saleh, Dianna says we all know that the truth of the matter is that Rodgers has all the juice in the building for the Jets.
Dianna says nothing has changed in terms of Rodgers’ power. Now, she says she was told that Aaron knew that Johnson was considering this move but was never outright asked if he would be OK with the Jets firing Robert Saleh. Dianna said everyone with power in the Jets organization walked into the building on Tuesday knowing that Johnson was unhappy and that he could make a move. No one really thought he would do it though.
So the shock was not only from the fanbase and the media, and Dianna specifically on camera, but people in the building were shocked too because they knew that Johnson wanted to give Saleh a pretty long leash to see what he could do with Rodgers. However, it turned out that five games was enough for Johnson to make the move.
No matter what you think of the decision, it played out in the most Jets way possible. Dianna admits that she doesn’t think the Jets did the process in the right way. It’s hard because you have an owner who wants to be great, who says the right things about winning and made the a good move, in Dianna’s opinion, bringing in Rodgers, but the amount of power and control they’ve allowed Rodgers has become the biggest issue here. And she says Saleh dealt with that a lot. Despite claims from both that they had a good relationship, Dianna thinks it was fine. She says there was never a tremendous amount of respect from the place of Rodgers thinking Saleh was the best coach he’s ever had. Rather, she thinks it was more of a scenario of, “We can make this work.” Saleh, she says, was open to listening to Rodgers because he was told Rodgers knows how to win and understands culture. But we’ve seen the issues they’ve had and the Jets still aren’t moving away from Nathaniel Hackett, but it will be interesting to see if the Jets take the play calling away from him because that was something Saleh was looking to do before he himself was gone.
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