Robert Saleh knows Jets fans are out of patience. 

This will be the 11th year the Jets have missed the playoffs, barring a miracle run in the final seven games. This will be their sixth straight losing season if they lose one more game. The losses are all starting to blend together and fans are tired of dreaming of draft picks before they even eat their Thanksgiving turkey. 

Saleh knows you’re skeptical, but he wants you to believe this time is different than all the previous Jets rebuilds. 

“I respect the heck out of the urgency from the fans and the wanting to flip this thing, but in fairness, this is the first time this fan base is actually experiencing something like this,” Saleh said. “Usually it’s been a quick fix, followed by a scramble. This is an actual plan. 

“I feel like Joe [Douglas] is doing a phenomenal job with a really, really concise plan on how to build from the ground up and there’s a lot of exciting pieces on this team that are hidden in these losses. But when you sit back and watch it from our perspective and the combination of veterans and youth, it’s definitely going in the right direction and eventually, while frustrating today, is going to be awesome when this thing gets flipped.” 

Saleh pointed out that he has been part of rebuilds in Houston, Seattle, Jacksonville and San Francisco. Some have worked better than others. Saleh won a Super Bowl with the Seahawks and went to one with the 49ers. Saleh was part of Gus Bradley’s Jaguars staff that was fired after four seasons but did go to an AFC Championship game a year later. 

Jets fans have lived through a decade of rebuilds. John Idzik tore down Mike Tannenbaum’s roster in 2013 when he took over as GM and failed to fix things. Mike Maccagnan and Todd Bowles were hired as GM and coach in 2015 and after loading up with veterans to go 10-6 in 2015, things fell apart. Maccagnan used to say he wanted a “competitive rebuild,” meaning trying to win while also retooling the roster. It never worked and he spent wildly in free agency before he was fired in 2019. 

The failures of the past are never far from the surface when the Jets start losing and Saleh has felt the frustration in the fan base from years of losing. 

“I started joking around with somebody that one year in New York is like dog years,” Saleh said. “It is euphoria or disaster, there is no in between. We embrace the expectation. We want to win.” 

The wins have been hard to come by so far for Saleh. The Jets are 2-8 after Sunday’s 24-17 loss to the Dolphins. The message from Saleh to his team on Monday was the Jets need to learn how not to beat themselves. Saleh pointed to five trips into Dolphins territory that resulted in no points Sunday, killer penalties and mistakes against plays the Jets knew the Dolphins would run. 

“These are things that good teams, teams that win, don’t do,” Saleh said. “A lot of times it’s teams who have experience, they’ve been in the fire for a few years, and they’ve been together for a few years. So, it’s just something you learn, and it takes reps to learn it.” 

Even veteran linebacker C.J. Mosley said he made a critical mistake Sunday on the Dolphins’ go-ahead touchdown. Mosley said he dropped too deep in his zone, allowing running back Myles Gaskin to catch the touchdown pass from Tua Tagovailoa that gave Miami a 21-14 lead in the fourth quarter. 

“That’s definitely another step that we have to take toward getting better,” Mosley said. “When it’s crunch time or in those tough situations where we need those plays, everybody just has to do their job, including me.” 

Mosley echoed Saleh’s message that eventually things will change with the Jets. 

“We want to be great. We want to win. We want to do all these right things,” Mosley said. “But when those times get tough and we still keep that same mindset, that same course, at some point things are going to change. A lot of that is going to have to be us growing up as a team.”