Packers Using Former Jets Coach Robert Saleh as Consultant on Offense

Matt LaFleur and Robert Saleh go back two decades to their season together at Central Michigan in 2004.

Robert Saleh at Packers practice / Bill Huber/Packers On SI

GREEN BAY, Wis. – There was a new face standing in the background during individual drills at Green Bay Packers practice on Wednesday. It was Matt LaFleur’s close friend, former New York Jets coach Robert Saleh.

“We’ve been close for a really long time,” LaFleur said after Wednesday’s practice. “Shoot, we were roommates together back at Central Michigan. So, we thought it was a good idea just to bring him here and he’s helping us on the offensive side of the ball.

“I think that’s always a good deal to have the perspective, that defensive perspective on that side of the ball. So, just taking a look at some of the things we’re doing.”

His role with the team is “pretty fluid,” LaFleur said. This week, for instance, he’s staying in Green Bay through Thursday. Saleh is staying at LaFleur’s house. To say Saleh was “hired” would be an overstatement but he is going to help his good friend.

“I just think it’s a good opportunity for him to learn and also for him to help us and give us perspective on how teams might see us, how they might defend us,” LaFleur said. “Certainly can find holes in, or some vulnerabilities, if you will, in the defense that we’re playing. So, that’s how we’re going to use him.”

Quarterback Jordan Love met Saleh at the Packers-Jets joint practices in 2021 but doesn’t remember if they talked. So, they are building a relationship on the fly.

Love thought it would help having a defensive mind helping the offensive side.

“I think that’s always the goal, is to have the best minds, the best coaches and everything,” Love said. “Having a guy like Saleh around definitely helps.”

Saleh was defensive coordinator for the San Francisco 49ers from 2017 through 2020 before spending 2021 through the first five games of 2024 as coach of the Jets.

Saleh is one of the top defensive minds in the NFL. Even this year, when he was fired after a 2-3 start, the Jets were allowing only 17.0 points per game.

In 2019, LaFleur as Green Bay’s first-year coach led the team to the NFC Championship Game at San Francisco. Saleh’s defense, which finished second in total defense and eighth in points allowed, led the way in the 49ers’ 37-20 victory. It was 27-0 at halftime. In six possessions, the Packers had 97 yards, four punts and two turnovers.

In 2022, Saleh’s Jets finished fourth in total defense and fourth in points allowed. In Week 6 at Lambeau Field, New York won 27-10 by holding the Packers to 278 yards and 4-of-16 on third down.

In seven full seasons as a defensive coordinator or head coach, the 49ers and Jets finished in the top five in total defense four times.

This will be their third time working together. In 2004 at Central Michigan, they were graduate assistants. In 2008 and 2009, they were assistant coaches for the Houston Texans. In 2008, when Saleh was in his fourth year in Houston, he helped LaFleur become an offensive assistant for his first NFL gig.

“That’s a great story,” LaFleur said during his introductory news conference in 2019. “When I was a grad assistant at Central Michigan, there was a guy named Robert Saleh who was there. Robert was my roommate for a year. Robert was a quality control for the Houston Texans [in 2008]. I’ll never forget. He kept encouraging me to go to the (Scouting) Combine. They played in Cleveland that year and he’s like, ‘Hey, come up, I’ll introduce you to some of the guys.’

“I did that. I went to the Combine, met some guys and went up to Cleveland and met them again. So, I started to become somewhat of a familiar face. When Mike Sherman took the job from Houston to Texas A&M, he took one of the quality control guys with him. So, it opened up the door.

“It’s very rare that a quality control coach is going to get another guy in the building. It’s really a credit to the work that Robert was able to accomplish there in Houston. He kept pounding the table for me. They knew at least what I looked like; they didn’t necessarily know my work. I’ll never forget he kept telling me and I was like, ‘Yeah, whatever. That’s not going to happen.’ All of a sudden, I got a phone call from (Texans coach) Gary Kubiak.”

Saleh became the Jets’ coach in 2021. That year, the Packers hosted the Jets for joint practices.

“It is pretty cool,” LaFleur said before the first practice. “Shoot, I can remember when Saleh and I were at Central Michigan together and my brother was in high school with his girlfriend at the time which is now his wife Lauren and we’d all be going over to Doozie’s, the ice cream shop (in Mt. Pleasant) together. So, it is a long way from Mount Pleasant.”

As with most things in life but, especially, in coaching, relationships matter. If Saleh were just another unemployed coach, he might not have been in Green Bay on Wednesday. But because they are friends – LaFleur was the best man at Saleh’s wedding – they reunited.

“I’ve got a lot of respect for everything he’s been able to accomplish throughout his career,” LaFleur said in 2020. “What a great person, first and foremost. I think that’s always the No. 1 quality you’ve got to look for in a person is their intentions, their heart.

“He’s got so much energy. He’s one of the smartest people I know. I think it shows. You can see just the energy, the effort that the defense in San Francisco plays with, as well as just the scheme is really tough to go against. I’m real confident he’ll be a head coach somewhere in this league in the near future.”

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