It appears as though Hall of Famer Kevin Greene is a free agent once again.
New New York Jets head coach Adam Gase finalized his coaching staff on Friday and Greene is not part of it and that likely means his contract was either terminated or not renewed. The Jets moving on from Greene isn’t overly surprising, however, as the team is expected to have a 4-3 defense under new defensive coordinator Gregg Williams.
Greene was hired to be the Jets outside linebackers coach in 2017. In 2018, the Jets outside linebacker group that consisted of Jordan Jenkins, Brandon Copeland, Frankie Luvu, Jeremiah Attaochu, Tarell Basham, and Bronson Kaufusi registered a combined 17 sacks. The Jets defense had a total of 39 sacks on the season.
Prior to coaching for the Jets, Greene coached the Green Bay Packers outside linebackers from 2009–2013. During those five seasons with the Packers, Greene helped develop several outside linebackers and that includes Clay Matthews, who had 10 sacks during his 2009 rookie season and 42.5 sacks during Greene’s five seasons in Greene Bay. The Packers also beat the Steelers in Super Bowl XLV in Greene’s second season as the team’s outside linebackers coach.
In January of 2017, Greene let it be known that he was interested in returning to coaching again and that he would love to do so with the Steelers, the team he played three seasons for in 90s. The Steelers, however, decided to stick with Joey Porter as their outside linebackers coach and Greene was ultimately hired by the Jets not long after that.
After Porter’s contract was not renewed earlier this offseason it was reported that Steelers defensive coordinator Keith Butler would be adding coaching the outside linebackers to his duties. Butler coached linebackers for the Steelers prior to becoming the team’s defensive coordinator in 2015.
With Greene looking like he’s out of work now, it will be interesting to see if the Steelers show any interest in him. It is worth noting, however, that there was a Twitter report a month ago from Jets beat writer Manish Mehta of the New York Daily News that stated Greene was scheduled to have hip surgery sometime during the offseason. Such a surgery could require Greene to be off his feet for several weeks or months.
