5 other veteran NFL coaches the Jets can bring out of mothballs after Rex Ryan, Ron Rivera interviews

By firing Robert Saleh before Week 6, the New York Jets earned a longer head start than anyone in the NFL when it came to the 2025 head coach hiring cycle. All this extra time has reportedly led them not to rising young assistants or stars from the college ranks, but to sexagenarians who spent 2024 on ESPN panels.

Former head coach Rex Ryan, who hasn’t held a coaching role in any form since 2016, and Ron Rivera, who was fired by the Washington Commanders after 2023, are both reportedly expected to interview for the Jets’ top job as another lost season winds down. This somehow both surprising and not.

Rivera is a respected veteran. Ryan was at the helm of the last New York team to make the playoffs. That may be flimsy reasoning to build a coaching search around them, but the Jets are reportedly subject to the whims of teenage boys and Madden ratings under the stewardship of team owner Woody Johnson, so here we are.

Why stop at Ryan and Rivera? There are plenty of talented coaches waiting on the call to leave retirement or cushy studio jobs behind for the chance to become legend with a franchise that hasn’t seen a Super Bowl since before the moon landing. Who else could New York dig out of cold storage?