The New York Jets interviewed Kansas City Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo and Maryland coach Mike Locksley on Friday for their head coach vacancy.
The team also spoke to Tampa Bay Buccaneers assistant general manager Mike Greenberg about its GM opening.
Spagnuolo and Locksley increased the Jets' ever-growing list of coaching candidates to seven, joining Mike Vrabel, Ron Rivera, Rex Ryan, Matt Nagy and Aaron Glenn.
Spagnuolo, who has previous NFL head coaching experience, has been in charge of the Chiefs' defense under Andy Reid for the past six seasons. He met with the Jets during a video call, just as Kansas City's Nagy and Detroit's Glenn did earlier this week.
Coaches on teams with a bye this week during the playoffs — such as Nagy with the Chiefs — can conduct virtual interviews with interested teams between Wednesday and the end of wild-card weekend and are limited to three hours in length.
The 65-year-old Spagnuolo is a longtime NFL assistant and defensive coordinator and went 10-38 in three seasons as the Rams' head coach from 2009 to 2011. He also served as the Giants' interim head coach in 2017, going 1-3 after Ben McAdoo was fired by New York.
He has been part of four Super Bowl champions, including the 2007 Giants who beat a previously undefeated New England team, and three with the Chiefs.
Spagnuolo has also had stints with Philadelphia, New Orleans, Baltimore and returned to the Giants in 2015 before being hired by Reid in Kansas City in 2019.
Locksley is 32-36 in six years at Maryland, which went 4-8 this past season but had bowl victories in each of the last three seasons — the Pinstripe Bowl, Duke’s Mayo Bowl and the Music City Bowl. He also led the Terrapins to 8-5 records in 2022 and 2023, the first time in 20 years Maryland won eight or more games in consecutive seasons.
The 55-year-old Locksley was Maryland's offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach from 2012 through the 2015 season, when he also served as the interim head coach for the final six games. He has also had stints at Alabama, New Mexico, Illinois, Florida, Army, Pacific and Towson.
Greenberg has been the Buccaneers' assistant GM under Jason Licht since the beginning of the 2023 season. The New York native worked his way up from being a player personnel assistant with Tampa Bay in 2010 to various roles, including two seasons as the Buccaneers' vice president of football administration before becoming the assistant GM.
Greenberg is the eighth known candidate to interview for the Jets' GM job. He joined Rams senior personnel executive Ray Farmer, Chiefs assistant GM Mike Borgonzi, Eagles assistant GM Alec Halaby, Senior Bowl executive director Jim Nagy, former Atlanta Falcons GM Thomas Dimitroff, former Tennessee Titans GM Jon Robinson and ESPN analyst Louis Riddick.
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AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL
Dennis Waszak Jr., The Associated Press
