Joe Vitt Biography
Joe Vitt is an American football coach who lasted coached the New York Jets of the National Football League (NFL). He was previously the assistant head coach and linebackers coach of the New Orleans Saints of the National Football League (NFL).
He served as an interim head coach for the New Orleans Saints during the 2012 season and the St. Louis Rams for their last eleven games in 2005.
Joe Vitt Age
Joe Vitt was born on August 23, 1954, in Syracuse, New York United States. He is 68 years old as of 2022.
Joe Vitt Height
Vitt stands at an estimated height of 5 feet 10 inches tall.
Joe Vitt Family
Vitt loves to keep his personal life private, information about his parents and siblings is currently unavailable but it will be updated soon. Stay tuned.
Joe Vitt Wife
Vitt is married to Linda and together they have two children.
Joe Vitt Children
Vitt’s son, Joe Vitt, Jr., is a scout for the Saints, and his daughter, Jennifer, is married to Adam Gase, the head coach of the New York Jets and Vitt’s current boss.
Joe Vitt Net Worth
Joe Vitt earns his income from his businesses and from other related organizations. He also earns his income from his work as a football coach. He has an estimated net worth of $ 5 million dollars.
Joe Vitt Salary
Vitt earns an estimated salary of about $500000 to $1 million dollars.
Joe Vitt Education
Vitt graduated from Highland Regional High School in 1973 before spending a year at Staunton Military Academy in Virginia. He played as a letterman linebacker from (1974–75, 1977) at Towson State University despite being an undersized 5’10” and smallish 190 pounds.
Joe Vitt NFL Coaching Career
Vitt entered the National Football League (NFL) as the strength/quality control coach for the Baltimore Colts from 1979 through 1981. He was the Seattle Seahawks’ strength coach when Chuck Knox came to be the head coach in 1983. He quickly promoted Vitt to defensive backs coach.
He moved with Knox to the Los Angeles Rams, where he worked, along with Mike Martz, on his staff from 1992 to 1994. He has also served as an assistant coach for the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers. He served under former St. Louis Rams coach Dick Vermeil for the Kansas City Chiefs for three years until Martz brought him to St. Louis as the assistant head coach and linebackers coach.
It marked Vitt’s eighth time in the National Football League, and the second with the franchise. During the 2005 NFL season, Vitt served as the interim Head Coach of the Rams while Martz was out due to a bacterial heart infection. He coached the team from Week 5 until the end of the regular season; soon afterward, Martz was fired. Vitt had a record of 4–7 and was replaced by Scott Linehan in the off-season.
Joe Vitt New Orleans Saints
The New York Jets reportedly had an interest in bringing in Vitt as their head coach after Herman Edwards signed with the Kansas City Chiefs before hiring Eric Mangini. Instead, Vitt was hired by the New Orleans Saints on January 27, 2006, to serve as their assistant head coach/linebackers coach.
The Saints’ new head coach, Sean Payton, who had never been a head coach before, chose Vitt to provide a degree of experience that Payton lacked: Vitt’s role has been half-seriously compared to that of consigliere in a Mafia crime family. In that position, Vitt earned a Super Bowl ring as part of the 2009 Saints team that won Super Bowl XLIV.
As assistant head coach, Vitt spent a portion of 2011 serving in the head coaching capacity as Sean Payton recovered from a broken leg. In March 2012, the NFL suspended Vitt for the first six games of the 2012 season after it found he had been complicit in the New Orleans Saints bounty scandal.
According to a league statement, Vitt had been assigned to monitor Williams but failed to tell anyone about the slush fund Williams implemented to pay defensive players for deliberately trying to knock opponents out of games.
The league found he had helped to cover up the scheme during both of its inquiries into the matter. In December 2012 the Associated Press reported that, according to transcripts of the players’ appeal hearing, former Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, who was under investigation for starting the bounty program, testified that he wanted to end the program after the NFL began investigating, but Vitt overruled him.
However, he denied the claims and offered to take a polygraph test. Vitt also stated that witnesses of the program had lied in the investigation. The year after his suspension, Vitt and the Saints ended their season with an 11-5 record. From there, the Saints saw three straight years of 7-9 records. After the 2016 season, Vitt along with other assistants was fired from the coaching staff on January 5, 2017.
Joe Vitt Saints interim head coach
Despite the suspension, on April 12, he was named as interim coach of the Saints for the 2012 season while Payton sat out a year-long suspension. Offensive line coach Aaron Kromer ran the team while Vitt sat out the first six games of the regular season. Saints quarterback Drew Brees called Vitt the “obvious choice” to replace Sean Payton.
Joe Vitt New York Jets
After being fired by the Saints, son-in-law, and Miami Dolphins head coach Adam Gase hired Vitt as a consultant for the 2017 season. Vitt joined the New York Jets in February 2019 where Gase had become the head coach.
Joe Vitt Gregg Williams
After seven years the Bountygate scandal ended with former Saints coaches Gregg Williams and Joe Vitt suspended from the league, the two were back on the same sideline, this time with the Jets. This may not end up a happy reunion for the two former Saints, however. While both served their time (Williams was suspended indefinitely but was reinstated after 11 months and Vitt was suspended for six games), the testimony from the investigation leaves the impression that neither Vitt nor Williams liked each other very much.
There were several quotes from Vitt’s testimony in a story by The Athletic‘s Larry Holder paint an ugly picture of the relationship between Vitt and Williams. On at least three occasions, Vitt called Williams a “liar” when asked why their stories didn’t match up surrounding the legitimacy of the scandal or their roles in any pay-for-injury program.