The New York Jets interviewed interim coach Jeff Ulbrich on Monday for their head coach vacancy.
Ulbrich, who has been the team’s defensive coordinator for the past four years, took over as interim coach on October 8 after Robert Saleh was fired. During his time as interim coach, Ulbrich led the team to a 3-9 record.
The 47-year-old Ulbrich is the ninth known person the Jets have interviewed for the head coaching job. Other candidates include Darren Rizzi, Steve Spagnuolo, Mike Locksley, Mike Vrabel, Ron Rivera, Rex Ryan, Matt Nagy, and Aaron Glenn.
The Jets are also holding interviews for their general manager position, having already spoken to 13 people for that role.
After the Jets finished a disappointing 5-12 season, Ulbrich said he expected to meet with owner Woody Johnson and the search committee about the possibility of becoming the full-time head coach.
“It was a great honor,” Ulbrich said about coaching the team. “One of the great honors of my football career.”
While Ulbrich was coaching the final games of the season, the Jets had already started interviewing other candidates. Ulbrich said this didn’t feel awkward because he stayed focused on preparing the team. He also mentioned that he would take time to reflect on his performance as interim coach.
“There’s things that I need to improve on and there’s things that I’ve got to take a critical look at myself and find the spaces where I can improve those,” Ulbrich said. “I’m far from perfect and I’m excited about that opportunity to really, with a fine-tooth comb, evaluate every decision and everything I did in the last whatever it’s been, 10, 11 weeks.”
Even though Ulbrich continued his role as defensive coordinator while serving as interim coach, he stressed the importance of maintaining continuity for the players during the tough situation. However, he said that if he becomes a full-time head coach, he wouldn’t want to continue handling both roles.
“I would much rather have the ability to go from offense to defense to special teams,” he said. “There’s moments, especially on gameday, where I’m busy being a defensive coordinator where my resources might be better equipped at being the head coach, just at certain times within games. And there’s times definitely where being a head coach can get in the way of prepping for defense for me, and vice versa.
“So if I could build it perfect in a vision going forward, I would never — I would not be the coordinator and the head coach.”
Ulbrich played as a linebacker and special teamer for San Francisco for 10 years and was part of Saleh’s original staff in 2021. After his playing career, Ulbrich worked as an assistant with Pete Carroll’s Seahawks and Jim L. Mora’s UCLA team.
In 2015, Dan Quinn hired Ulbrich as the linebackers coach for the Falcons. When Atlanta made a coaching change during the 2020 season, interim coach Raheem Morris promoted Ulbrich to defensive coordinator.
