Brick Johnson wields a sure, swift sword, and even if he didn't wield this one, it's nice to think he did without even looking up from his Fortnite screen. This might just be a sins-of-the-father vehicle, but when the New York Jets make news, his name will be invoked because they are the Jets constantly doing Jets things.
If we are to trust Jay Glazer, and let's face it, he's no less trustworthy than any of the other sneaks who pull news out of the NFL before it can type up a release, Rodgers flew to New York last week to learn about his future with the Jets only to discover that he'd already had it. The Jets were, as they say, moving on to their next stupid idea, and their 19th starting quarterback since 2010, the last time they played more than the minimum allotted games.
Rodgers, though, was a special level of stupid idea for the franchise because it didn't start out that way but got there very quickly—four plays into the first game, to be precise. He was the Hall of Fame-level quick fix for a team that thought it was just a quarterback away, only to find out one possession into the grand plan that the plan wasn't grand at all and they actually were several coaches and a bunch of players short. Rodgers tore his Achilles tendon and then spent the rest of his season learning how to crackpot/gadfly his way into America's spleen. The second year was less about him but more about how much less of him as a quarterback he had become, as 40-year-olds tend to do.
His mistake (well, his most enduring, anyway) was in thinking that because he was him, he could raise the Titanic with a spoon. He didn't make the Jets better, they made him worse, and though he tried to turn his legacy into a paper towel by being the humorless contrarian and foe of all things provably true, all he really did was remind us that the Jets are never not going to Jet, whether the Jet in question is Mark Sanchez, Greg McElroy, Tim Tebow, Michael Vick, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Geno Smith, Bryce Petty, Josh McCown, Luke Falk, Sam Darnold, Chris Streveler, Joe Flacco, Mike White, Tim Boyle, Trevor Siemian, Zach Wilson, Tyrod Taylor, or Rodgers. And that's just the starters.
And because the Jets are now considered the phlegm standard in NFL ownership all the way down to precocious Brick, Woody's son and now a meme in his own right, a case can be made that Rodgers is as much victim as perpetrator here. He could annoy a pot of soup, but being annoying is not in and of itself failure. For Rodgers, being annoying was what kept him alive during his incarceration in Jet State Penitentiary. His legacy is as a Packer, and today more than ever before, he must surely be thankful.
His firing—and let's be clear about this, when the people you work for tell you not to come around any more, you've been fired—seems only slightly worse because Glazer broke it on Superb Owl Sunday. Rodgers got the news a week earlier, according to Glazer, but because the Jets are the Jets, they chose to sit back and let someone one else break the news instead. Rodgers might have preferred it that way and this is just an odd way for it to come out but, like having Brick portrayed as the team's shadow general manager whether he is or not, the Jets end up holding the flaming bag of the dog's business. It's not that they can't help but be those guys, so much as they always work harder to seem like those guys. Even a defensible football decision like decoupling from Rodgers in search of a future less 5-12ish looks clumsy when it emanates from Florham Park.
At some point this run of rampant Jettery surely must end despite all the available evidence to the contrary, and we know this because we used to say the same things about the Lions and Bengals, and we say them now about the Browns and Bears and Raiders and Panthers and Giants. But the Third Law of Kneejerk Stereotyping comes into play here, that being "The bigger and more often the swing and miss, the greater the blowback." Rodgers was an intriguing idea 21 months ago with a payoff that lasted barely zeptoseconds, and because it was with the Jets, it seems worse than ... ohh, no it doesn't. It was a disaster, even if, disappointingly for all involved, Brick had nothing to do with it.
But be not disheartened. There's this, from NFL Network's Ian Rapoport:
With the Jets and QB Aaron Rodgers headed for a split, sources say, don’t be surprised if they move on from Davante Adams (with his huge cap number), too. They could reunite elsewhere.
— Ian Rapoport (@rapsheet1.bsky.social) 2025-02-09T19:16:13.775Z
We speak with confidence for everyone when we say, "Too soon, Scooter. Much too soon."
