There is no shortage of ways to address what happened to Aaron Rodgers and the New York Jets.
We could take the micro view and tell you the litany of failures that led to Sunday’s 31-6 loss to the Arizona Cardinals, arguably the ugliest loss of the Rodgers era with the Jets. Or we could go the macro route and rattle off this 3-7 team’s dismal and still-low playoff percentages. We could even go back a little further and go into the history books, and note how much this all sounds a little like Brett Favre’s disappointing single-season foray as the Jets’ starting quarterback in 2008…except that this season is exponentially worse and it’s going away. a cliff much more quickly.
This is a failed season, with an objectively bad team that was taken advantage of against a future 41-year-old quarterback who has sunk to the middle of mediocre at his position. Once we acknowledge that, it opens the door to the question of legacy that will loom over Rodgers for the rest of this lost season.
What’s left?
It is an important question, since this failure threatens to make a lasting impression. Maybe not in the eerie neighborhood of Joe Namath fading away with the Los Angeles Rams or Johnny Unitas bringing the curtain down on the San Diego Chargers. But it also doesn’t come close to the respectably remembered 29 games (including four playoff games) that Joe Montana spent closing out his career in a Kansas City Chiefs uniform. In any case, the end of Rodgers is shaping up to be that of Donovan McNabb leaving Washington and Minnesota with difficulty.
It’s surprising to deal with that kind of framing for Rodgers. But that’s where we are. It could be seen during his press conference after Sunday’s game, another of the editions in which he came out as a calm and defeated passenger, trapped on a journey that no longer has a map. Look for nebulous explanations like “energy” rather than talent or tactics to describe what went wrong.
“There’s certainly been a lot of emotions this year,” Rodgers said Sunday. “I thought after a big win (against the Houston Texans) on Thursday night, a nice long week, we were going to come out with a lot of energy and fun in the game. We didn’t come out with a lot of energy on either side of the ball. And offensively, you’re not going to beat anyone who scores six points.”
It’s the second time this season that Rodgers has targeted energy in a choke situation. Last time, he described the Jets as “flat” after taking a 37-15 beating at the hands of the Pittsburgh Steelers nearly three weeks ago. The following week, the talent-deprived New England Patriots were supposed to present a “get it right” game to the Jets. The Jets lost that one 25-22, in what was, at the time, the most embarrassing loss of Rodgers’ starts. Until this week, when a Cardinals team on the verge of finding its own footing held the Jets to a pair of field goals and racked up 406 yards of total offense against a defense we once thought could be a top-five team. first. unity in the league.
Fired head coach Robert Saleh had nothing to do with it. Neither did demoted offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett. Wide receiver Mike Williams? He’s in Pittsburgh, catching his first touchdown of the season from Russell Wilson on Sunday for the game-winner. Meanwhile, newly acquired receiver Davante Adams caught six balls for 31 yards and Rodgers completed just one pass that went more than 10 passing yards. He also continued his streak of games without a 300-yard passing performance, which is now 33 and counting. These are all concerning numbers, but none more concerning than the $49 million in dead cap space for Rodgers in 2025.
All of this brings us back to the original question of what is left. Well, there are two avenues that seem to be in play at the moment.
The first is that Rodgers will play the 2024 season, salvaging everything he can down the stretch and then return in 2025 for one last attempt to put a respectable end to his career. A league source familiar with the Adams trade told Yahoo Sports last week that the receiver agreed to be traded to the Jets on the condition that Rodgers stay through 2025. Of course, that was before the final weeks of futility, which raises a question of whether the Jets want any of the players on the roster next season, particularly with a new head coach in play and general manager Joe Douglas’ contract expiring at the end of the season. For Rodgers and Adams to return, there would need to be some serious clarification on who will be at the helm in 2025. And that could have been clouded by the presidential election, as multiple sources within the Jets expect team owner Woody Johnson to return. will occupy some kind of position in Donald Trump’s future plans. There are many unknowns at play.
The second way: this is all. That we’re in the middle of Rodgers’ final year with the Jets, either because he chose to retire or because the owners put up with mediocrity the rest of the season and then decided to make sweeping changes at the head coach, general manager and quarterback positions. . and beyond. In that scenario, several veterans would be expected to walk out the door, including Rodgers, Adams, Allen Lazard and others. It’s a review that would consider Rodgers’ experiment to be a tremendous failure with a years-long post-mortem to really understand what exactly went wrong.
For now, neither option is absolutely safe. After all, next week will be another one of those “do the right thing” games, against an Indianapolis Colts team reeling from its own roster-wide issues.
“We just have to focus on what’s in front of us and beat the Colts, then go to halftime and fix some things,” Rodgers said Sunday. “We have a couple of west coast opponents coming out to play at one o’clock. And we have one, two, three division games. There is still a long way to go.”
Much remains ahead and much remains behind. And nothing but questions and disappointment in between.