By Zack Rosenblatt, Amos Morale III and Jeff Howe
The New York Jets have fired general manager Joe Douglas, the team announced Tuesday. Senior football adviser Phil Savage will be the interim GM for the rest of the Jets’ season.
“I want to thank Joe for his commitment to the Jets over the last six years and wish him and his family the best moving forward,” owner Woody Johnson said in a statement Tuesday.
The move comes two days after the Jets fell to 3-8 following a one-point loss to the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday and six weeks after the team parted ways with coach Robert Saleh.
Douglas was in his sixth season as the Jets’ general manager and the team had a 30-64 record during his tenure. New York hired Douglas — formerly a scout with the Baltimore Ravens and executive with the Chicago Bears and Philadelphia Eagles — in 2019 after firing Mike Maccagnan.
Douglas, who was in the last year of his deal, didn’t oversee a winning season in New York despite a stacked 2022 draft class and a trade for four-time MVP Aaron Rodgers in 2023.
Why Jets moved on now
With the way the Jets season has gone, Douglas was never returning in 2025 — so it should not come as a major surprise that the Jets decided to move on from him after six years. Douglas never came close to guiding the Jets to the playoffs in six seasons and actually finished with a lower winning percentage than both of his predecessors — Mike Maccagnan and John Idzik. Douglas’ tenure will ultimately be defined by a series of home runs — and debilitating strikeouts.
Douglas inherited a barren roster talent-wise and built it into a, theoretically at least, playoff-caliber team with talent all across the defense and some blue-chip players on offense. His 2022 NFL Draft class is unimpeachable — cornerback Sauce Gardner, wide receiver Garrett Wilson, defensive end Jermaine Johnson and running back Breece Hall. He made some shrewd free-agent signings like cornerback D.J. Reed and claimed others on waivers that turned into key contributors like John Franklin-Myers and Quincy Williams.
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But his misses were big. It took him six years to build the Jets offensive line into an even league-average unit, his 2020 and 2021 draft classes were both disasters — none bigger than quarterback Zach Wilson. He was given the opportunity to keep going even after it was clear that Wilson had failed because the Jets had built a quality defense and believed themselves to be a quarterback away from contention.
Rodgers was supposed to be that quarterback, and so far that has backfired spectacularly.
Ultimately, Douglas’ fate was sealed when Johnson took control of the decision-making and unilaterally decided to fire Saleh after five games without consulting his general manager — and then Johnson also pushed through a trade for wide receiver Davante Adams.
Douglas will land on his feet somewhere else, perhaps back with Howie Roseman and the Eagles, and the Jets will start their GM search. — Zack Rosenblatt, Jets beat writer
Required reading
(Photo: Zach Bolinger / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
