Every single move the New York Jets have made this offseason and will continue to make until the start of the 2024 season are because of Aaron Rodgers.
The quarterback has turned into the NFL’s true enigma, a Hall of Fame talent with a Super Bowl ring and the most self-destructive arrogance of anybody in his football generation.
He’s turned into the league’s most proud purveyor of conspiratorial hogwash, operating with the same intellectual curiosity of a naughty five-year-old that tries to flush a bunch of batteries down the commode to “see what happens.”
Rodgers going to turn 41 before the regular season ends, he’s coming off a torn Achilles that earned controversy during its rehabilitation process and there was a minute there where we all thought he might be anti-vax danger Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Vice President candidate.
He’s also the Jets’ biggest problem and grand hope for a Super Bowl, and he’s the one sparking an offseason that’s got the Jets running away from disaster like Indiana Jones from that giant boulder in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Tuesday’s reported signing of wide receiver Mike Williams, an electric player when healthy but nearing 30 that played a full season since 2021. Williams projects to be an explosive addition to the New York offense, but he’s still a projection of success instead of a guarantee.
Marquee left tackle addition Tyron Smith, 33, is one of the game’s elite talents when he’s healthy, but he’s not played a full season since 2015. In 2020, he played in two games. In 2021, he played in 11. In 2022, he played in four. Last season’s 13-game stint was his best since 2019. The Jets are projecting him to be a wonderful solution at left tackle, but again, projecting.
Newly acquired right tackle Morgan Moses just turned 33. He’s been very durable throughout his career, but he’s a 10-year veteran and a short-term solution on the offensive line. Adding guard John Simpson represents a youthful move since he’s only 26, but he’s got his own injury concerns.
When the Jets inevitably draft in 2024, it won’t be for long-term team-building. It’ll be because they’ve got to maximize the two years left on the massive deal they signed Rodgers to last year to be their grand championship hope. They’re chasing rainbows that cascade from the glory days in Titletown on a guy who will be older than some of the NFL’s head coaches in December and is coming off an Achilles injury.
The problem with the Jets does go back to the ill-fated decision to draft Zach Wilson in 2021 and the immediate need to patch over that draft miss with an aging version of the most controversial players in NFL history with a hope that he’ll somehow recapture a momentum that’s likely passed him by.
With coach Robert Saleh and general manager Joe Douglas both basically tied to Rodgers’ success to determine their own futures in New York, the Jets are forced to push all the chips in on a plan that might be doomed from the start.
Banking on injury-prone players like Smith, Williams and Simpson to stay healthy for half a season on the NFL’s dreaded turf monster of the Meadowlands, led by a quarterback that just tore his Achilles on it, feels like a bit of a risky proposition. However, it’s where the Jets are stuck for now.
New York fans are some of the long-suffering of the league, and it’s not fair for them that they’re having to put so much hope on an NFL plan that has as much chance of success as a pocket full of hundreds at the craps table in Vegas. It’s a giant risk that could basically go in any direction, one that comes with the aura of prestige but reeks of desperation and comes with a very stark expiration date. It’s pushing all the chips in on yesterday’s promise.
The Jets are going to eventually have to reckon with the Wilson miss and the very tenuous Rodgers gamble by actually rebuilding the offense and making good with a championship-level defense. Sadly, that defense might take lumps eventually in order to get the offense in shape for the long haul.
If New York somehow manages to win a Super Bowl out of this, then it’ll all be for naught. This plan will eventually go kaboom, but at least they’d get a title out of it. However, it feels more likely that this is all fated to leave the Jets right where they started: without an answer at quarterback and a pressing need to finally find long-term solutions for the franchise’s problems.
