Jeff Ulbrich: Lack of delegation, truth-telling part of what went wrong with Jets

Jeff Ulbrich is back for a second stint as the Falcons' defensive coordinator and the topic of what he's learned since 2020 was a topic of conversation at a Monday press conference in Atlanta.

Ulbrich focused on lessons learned in his most recent gig. He served as the interim head coach of the Jets for the final 12 games of the season and he said that he felt he "failed" when it came to delegating responsibilities to other coaches in the wake of Robert Saleh's firing. Ulbrich retained the defensive coordinator responsibilities and he said on Monday that he was left with too much on his plate.

“There is an element of a failure for myself in that way because I didn’t delegate,” Ulbrich said. “I didn’t. I just took it all on myself. In my mind’s eye, I was trying to to create continuity and I didn’t want to fracture the staff. I thought the best thing for me to do at that point in time was just try to keep everybody in the same role that they had just so we could keep things rolling. And it wasn’t the right thing to do. It wasn’t as I look back. I should have delegated. I should have given the defensive coordinator responsibilities to someone else.”

Ulbrich identified another area where things fell short with the Jets. He said he learned "the value of truth tellers" on a coaching staff because assistants sometimes think they should be taking things off of the head coach's plate. Ulbrich said "the lack of truth sometimes was really detrimental" after he was bumped into the interim role and that illustrated what he needs to be for Falcons head coach Raheem Morris.

“It reinforced the idea that Ra's going to need me in that way, to make sure that I’m always telling the truth and, maybe, you know, eliminating some of the blind spots that he doesn’t see," Ulbrich said.

The Jets defense performed better when Ulbrich was just in the coordinator role and the Falcons will be hoping the lessons he learned from his experience help him lead their defense to similar results in Atlanta.