The door, shown

 Robert Saleh never had a chance, if what everyone thinks they know is actually what they know. If "NFL" truly stands for "Not For Long," as Jerry Glanville once told us, the clock started on Saleh the minute a mostly used-up boutique quarterback swapped shades of green, trading the Green Bay Packers version for the New York Jets version.

That boutique quarterback, of course, was Aaron Rodgers.

Today, he's 40 years old and his best days are a memory.

He's also still employed by the Jets, which is something Robert Saleh can no longer say.

The Jets canned him as their head coach Monday in as abrupt and brutal a manner as such cannings happen. Essentially, the guy showed up for work and was told he no longer worked there. Then they had security escort him from the building like a criminal.

A lot of people assumed Rodgers was behind all this,  but none of the principals offer a scrap of evidence to support that. Ownership says Rodgers was never consulted on the firing, and both Rodgers and Saleh say  their relationship was fine. That head coaches and their quarterbacks always say that publicly, of course, is the obvious counterweight here.

In any case, Saleh is out, because in the NFL, coaches are always going to be more expendable than players. This is especially true of quarterbacks, and it's really true of quarterbacks like Aaron Rodgers, who'll have a bust in Canton someday but not for anything he's doing now.

In New York, however, he was welcomed as a conquering hero, or at the very least The Man Who'll Make The Jets Less Jets-y. It's what they tend to do in New York, because it's an article of faith there that the city can elevate even those who are past elevation. So everyone looked at 40-year-old Aaron Rodgers and saw 28-year-old Aaron Rodgers, and owner Woody Johnson surrounded him with presumed quality, and suddenly a whole bunch of people who should have known better were saying, by golly, this could be a Super Bowl team.

One problem with that.

In all the excitement, everyone forgot they were the Jets.

Who haven't been to a Super Bowl since Joe Namath was a brash young'un, and not the affable senior citizen who sells you Medicare Advantage on TV today. The Jets have had a few decent teams in the 55 years since, but somehow they've always managed to Jets it up. 

Sunday in London they seemed to be in the process of Jets-ing it up again, losing 23-17 to the still-unbeaten Vikings. That dropped them to 2-3 on the season, and the 40-year-old conquering hero contributed mightily, throwing three picks, completing just 53.7 percent of his passes (29 of 54) and putting up an exceedingly beige 54.9 quarterback rating. No one in New York would dare admit it, but those were Zach Wilson-eque numbers.

As in, "failed bonus baby Zach Wilson."

And yet ...

And yet, Rodgers is still Rodgers, sort of. He's still the pack mule Jets ownership loaded up with their hopes and dreams.  So no way in hell they'd admit he was the problem, or at least a big part of it.

That left one guy to blame: The head coach.

And so, Saleh is gone, a week into October. The door has been shown. He's not the first NFL coach to be pink-slipped before Halloween, but a common thread runs through all of them: Desperation.

It's a panic move, and panic moves rarely work in the En Eff Ell. You can count the number of playoff teams that have made midseason coaching changes on a couple of fingers. That's because the players are still the same players; if they weren't up to the task before Coach was sent packing, it's unlikely they'll be up to the task after.

But, hey. Who knows. Maybe the Jets will stop Jets-ing, now that Saleh is gone. And maybe Aaron Rodgers really will be 28-year-old Aaron Rodgers again.

Nah.