The NFL thought it struck gold last year when Aaron Rodgers signed with the New York Jets. Then his season lasted just four total snaps because of an Achilles tear. In the aftermath, the league was left holding the bag, having built a primetime schedule around the future Hall of Famer playing in Gang Green’s uniform.
After the league released the 2024 schedule, one thing remains abundantly clear: Come hell or high water, the NFL will still milk Rodgers’ Jets in any way it can.
Three NFL teams currently have six primetime slots in 2024.
The Dallas Cowboys (unsurprising, this will never change). The San Francisco 49ers (they play in the NFC title game every year and are a juggernaut). And the Jets because … of Rodgers.
That’s right. The Jets have more primetime games on their current schedule than the two-time reigning Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs, the league’s unofficial trojan horse for some of its worst, more exploitative broadcasting ideas. According to NFL VP of broadcasting Mike North, this was apparently the plan all along. After last season’s disappointment, the league just felt Rodgers and the Jets owed them one.
Uh, sure:
"We feel like the Jets kind of owe us one. We had this conversation a year ago. All of us were all in on the Jets. For that guy to last four plays was disheartening for many of us." – NFL VP of broadcast planning Mike North on Jets having 6 primetime games in first 11 weeks.
— Brian Costello (@BrianCoz) May 16, 2024
What’s more, the league is open to flexing the Jets into more national television slots in the second half of the season! Gee, what a shocker:
Mike North said the #Jets are an obvious candidate for some late-season flexing to more primetime games too. https://t.co/O2fffWGWOz
— Zack Rosenblatt (@ZackBlatt) May 16, 2024
Not only do the Jets have a whopping six primetime games, but those slots all come in the first 11 weeks, largely before networks are really earnest about flex scheduling. Not that anyone would ever flex out of having 40-year-old Rodgers on, who is probably at the end of his NFL career.
That’s precisely why the league has front-loaded the Jets’ schedule while leaving the door open for more. Either Rodgers plays like an MVP-caliber quarterback, dazzling football fans everywhere — something he hasn’t done in three years, and that was when he was healthy — or he looks washed-up. Everyone then gets a front-row seat to watch his inevitable demise as a pro football player.
There’s simply no in-between here.
Now, let me ask you, dearest readers, Which scenario do you think is more likely?
Is it that Rodgers throws 40-plus touchdowns on a contending Jets team coming off one of the worst possible athletic injuries, period, let alone for someone who is 40? Or do we see an older Rodgers get beat up every week on a top-heavy Jets squad that is just crossing its fingers he’ll last the entire season?
There’s probably some mass appeal of tuning in to watch a frustrated Rodgers get pummeled for one more year before he retreats into one of his dark caves.
The NFL, to be clear, doesn’t care either way. Rodgers on the Jets likely equals tons of eyeballs as long as he’s on the field.
