Robert Saleh: Experience with Jets led to “tremendous growth,” more prepared to be a head coach now

The Titans are betting that the second time will be the charm for Robert Saleh as a head coach.

Saleh was 20-36 over three-plus seasons as the Jets’ head coach before being fired early in the 2024 season, but the Titans still tabbed him to be their next head coach earlier this month. They formally introduced Saleh at a press conference on Thursday and a lot of Saleh’s messages sounded the same as the ones he sent while with the Jets.

Saleh preached playing fast, violent football and broke out his “all gas, no brakes” motto, but also stressed that his experience with the Jets helped make him a different coach this time around.

“There is no handbook to a first time at anything you do,” Saleh said, via the team’s website. “The proper question would be: What didn’t I learn? There is so much to gain from any time you are in the chair as head coach, and there is so many learning experiences that I had. I could sit here and talk to you for the next four hours about all those things. But I can assure you there is tremendous growth from the opportunity I had as a coach and through that growth I think I am more prepared now than I’ve ever been to attack this position.”

One significant difference from his Jets time is that Saleh will be calling the defensive plays in Tennessee and the Titans hope that another will involve the kind of quarterback development that never took place when Saleh was working with Zach Wilson in his previous stop.