Jeff Ulbrich was a gritty player, a respected assistant and now takes over a struggling Jets team

Jeff Ulbrich was in the middle of putting together the game plan for the New York Jets' defense when he got the news that stunned him — and the rest of the NFL.

Robert Saleh was out as the head coach. And Ulbrich was taking over for the rest of the season.

“And then four hours later, I’m doing a press conference here with you guys as the new interim coach of the New York Jets,” Ulbrich said during a video call with reporters Tuesday.

Owner Woody Johnson made the surprising decision to fire Saleh just five games into his fourth season. Johnson was disappointed by the direction the team was headed after it dropped to 2-3 with a 23-17 loss to Minnesota in London on Sunday.

The owner considers these Jets “one of the most talented teams that has ever been assembled” in franchise history. But Johnson wasn't sold on Saleh being able to lead the Jets to the playoffs, which they haven't reached in 13 seasons, and go on a Super Bowl run.

So, he turned to the 47-year-old Ulbrich, a former NFL linebacker and longtime assistant coach whom Johnson has watched closely during his four years with the team.

“When he talks, they listen to him in a way that probably represents the fact that he did play the sport at linebacker for 10 years, which is pretty unique,” Johnson said. “So he brings that knowledge and the respect.”

Ulbrich has gone from leading one of the NFL's top defenses to being tasked with engineering a turnaround for a frustrated franchise.

“It has been a whirlwind,” Ulbrich acknowledged. “It has been four hours of craziness.”

And it's about to get quite a bit more hectic for him.

The Jets entered last season with Super Bowl expectations, but those disintegrated when Aaron Rodgers tore his left Achilles tendon four snaps into his debut with the team.

A healthy and motivated Rodgers welcomed those lofty goals again entering this season. But with the four-time NFL MVP turning 41 in December, Johnson and the Jets know the window to win is small.

With New York on a two-game losing streak and facing the AFC East rival Buffalo Bills next Monday night, the owner fired his head coach in the middle of the season — something he hadn't previously done since taking over the team in 2000.

“The change that we made today — that I made,” Johnson said, "I believe will bring new energy and positivity and will lead to more wins, starting now.”

But Ulbrich has some dubious history with which to contend. Only twice has an interim coach led a team to the playoffs: the 2021 Raiders with Rich Bisaccia and the 1961 Oilers with Wally Lemm.

“The message was: It’s time to lock arms,” Ulbrich said of his meeting with his players. “We go back to back and it’s us against everybody. And with the talent that we have in that room, in my opinion, we have everything we need to be successful and have the season that we know we’re capable of having.”

Ulbrich built a reputation as a gritty, blue-collar type linebacker who was a tackling machine at the University of Hawaii. The California native was drafted in the third round in 2000 by San Francisco and played in 120 games. He was a starter who then became a backup and a hard-nosed special teamer with 501 total tackles, six forced fumbles, two interceptions and 5 1/2 sacks over a 10-year NFL career.

After a concussion during the 2009 season ended his playing career, Ulbrich wanted to remain around the sport he loved — as a coach.

He had stints as an assistant with Pete Carroll's Seattle Seahawks and Jim L. Mora's UCLA squad. When Dan Quinn became the coach of the Atlanta Falcons in 2015, he hired Ulbrich — whom he knew from four seasons together with the 49ers — as the linebackers coach.

Ulbrich became an assistant head coach with the Falcons in 2020 and was promoted to defensive coordinator when Quinn was fired in the middle of the season and replaced by interim Raheem Morris. That experience gave Ulbrich some insight into how to handle a midseason shakeup.

“We’re going to take a hard look at all that we do and the process in which we get to Monday night,” Ulbrich said, "and make the changes we think are necessary.”

When Saleh got the job as the Jets' coach in 2021, he tabbed Ulbrich as his defensive coordinator. And there were some early struggles for New York's defense before establishing itself as one of the NFL's top units.

“Great gratitude for him bringing me here,” Ulbrich said of Saleh. "Great gratitude for staying by me. ... The success I have today, he’s a huge part of that.”

Saleh often praised Ulbrich during his tenure and believed he would someday be a head coach in the NFL. During the 2023 offseason, San Francisco reached out to the Jets to see if Ulbrich could replace DeMeco Ryans as the 49ers' defensive coordinator. The Jets said no, wanting Ulbrich to stay put and lead their defense.

And now, Ulbrich is in charge of an underperforming team with massive expectations.

“We’re not playing to our potential, we’re not,” he said. “We’re too talented to be putting the product we put out there the last couple weeks especially, so we've got to take a hard look at everything and be honest with ourselves.”

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FILE - New York Jets head coach Robert Saleh, right, talks with defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich before an NFL football game against the San Francisco 49ers in Santa Clara, Calif., Monday, Sept. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez, File)

FILE - New York Jets defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich walks the sideline during an NFL preseason football game against the Carolina Panthers, Saturday, Aug. 12, 2023, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Brian Westerholt, File)

Hurricane Milton dropped to a Category 4 early Wednesday as it churns toward Florida's west coast. The National Hurricane Center had predicted it would likely weaken, but remain a major hurricane when it makes landfall late Wednesday or early Thursday.

The Tampa Bay area, home to more than 3.3 million people, faced the possibility of widespread destruction after avoiding direct hits from major hurricanes for more than a century.

Follow AP’s coverage of tropical weather at https://apnews.com/hub/hurricanes.

Here’s the latest:

Human-caused climate change boosted a devastating Hurricane Helene ’s rainfall by about 10% and intensified its winds by about 11%, scientists said in a new flash study released just as a strengthening Hurricane Milton threatens the Florida coast less than two weeks later.

The warming climate boosted Helene’s wind speeds by about 13 mph (21 kph), and made the high sea temperatures that fueled the storm 200 to 500 times more likely, World Weather Attribution calculated Wednesday from Europe. Ocean temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico were about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) above average, WWA said.

“Hurricane Helene and the storms that were happening in the region anyway have all been amplified by the fact that the air is warmer and can hold more moisture, which meant that the rainfall totals — which, even without climate change, would have been incredibly high given the circumstances — were even higher,” Ben Clarke, a study co-author and a climate researcher at Imperial College London, said in an interview.

Milton will likely be similarly juiced, the authors said.

The scientists warned that continued burning of fossil fuels will lead to more hurricanes like Helene, with “unimaginable” floods well inland, not just on coasts. Many of those who died in Helene fell victim to massive inland flooding, rather than high winds.

▶ Read more about the effects of climate change on hurricanes.

In Charlotte Harbor, about two blocks from the water, Josh Parks spent Wednesday morning packing his Kia sedan with his clothes and other belongings from his small triplex apartment.

The clouds were swirling and the winds had begun to gust. Two weeks ago, Helene’s surge brought about 5 feet (1.5 meters) of water to the neighborhood, its streets still filled with waterlogged furniture, torn out drywall and other debris.

“It’s a ghost town around here,” said Parks, an auto technician.

His roommate had already fled and Parks wasn’t sure when he would be back.

“I told her to pack like you aren’t coming back,” said Parks, who was fleeing to his daughter’s inland home.

Law enforcement vehicles blocked the bridge from the mainland to the barrier island of St. Pete Beach on Wednesday morning, where as of Tuesday evening, officials had closed down access to this string of low-lying barrier islands that jut out into the Gulf.

All residents in these low-lying communities west of the city of St. Petersburg are under mandatory evacuation orders, as another storm bears down less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene killed 12 people in the Tampa Bay area, including residents who didn’t leave – and then drowned in their homes.

At a park bench on the side of the road that cuts through the small island of Deadman Key, plastic bags stuffed with clothes and a shopping cart full of someone’s personal belongings sat in the blowing rain, seemingly abandoned by its owner ahead of Hurricane Milton’s expected impact.

Three boats were already dashed against a low-lying seawall and under a bridge, apparently casualties from Helene, which sent deadly storm surge into scores of homes in Pinellas County, even as the eye of that storm stayed 100 miles (160 kilometers) offshore from this stretch of the coast.

Officials are warning that a direct hit from Hurricane Milton would bring far greater risks to this part of the state.

The National Weather Service on Wednesday morning issued the watch, which includes a vast part of Florida, including the Tampa area, the Florida Keys and Miami-Dade County.

“We’ve seen a lot of questions about, ‘well I live on a creek,’ or ‘I live on a river, is it really going to get 10 to 15 feet where I live?,’” Sarasota County Emergency Management Chief Sandra Tapfumaneyi said in a briefing early Wednesday.

“That storm surge is going to start at 10 or 15 feet near the coastline and then it’s going to travel,” she said. “And storm surge likes to go on the path of least resistance. So those of you that live near a river, that live near a creek, those river banks, their water will come up.”

“We do not want you staying in your home if you’re anywhere near a body of water,” Tapfumaneyi said.

“This is going to be an intense disaster for Sarasota County,” she added. “Evacuate now if you have not done so already.”

Boards on the window of a store display a message ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Milton, in Bradenton Beach on Anna Maria Island, Fla., Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Members of the Florida Army National Guard stage on a beach as they prepare for the arrival of Hurricane Milton, in Bradenton Beach on Anna Maria Island, Fla., Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

A boarded up business stands beside a deserted street in an evacuation zone, ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Milton, in Anna Maria, Fla., on Anna Maria Island, Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)