Jets Risking It All With Dangerous Game Of Rodgers Roulette
Things could be about to get very ugly very fast...
If I was a betting man, I’d wager a lot of cash that a thick fog of nervous energy is enveloping Florham Park right now.
For New York Jets General Manager Joe Douglas and the rest of the front office, it is now officially panic time.
And that pressure is only going to increase tenfold with each passing minute of each passing day until Aaron Rodgers makes his decision.
While Rodgers is now out of his darkness retreat, the entire football community is still very much in the dark on his next move. With the general consensus being that an ugly divorce is on the horizon between Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers, it seems retirement or playing elsewhere are the only two options that remain.
Until Rodgers informs everyone of what his immediate short-term plans are - and he’s promised that he won’t “drag anybody around” - the Jets are in a tricky holding pattern. That is a dangerous place to be, and we’re already seeing the consequences of that.
(It is worth noting that former ESPN personality, Trey Wingo, Tweeted out in the early hours of Tuesday morning that the Jets and Rodgers had conversations on Monday. Wingo noted that “while nothing is imminent, Rodgers is open to the idea of going to NY.” That’s important because if the front office at least have an indication that Rodgers wants to continue playing and would be happy doing so in The Big Apple, then they can focus on taking the next steps of putting a trade package together.)
It was reported on Monday by Ian Rapoport of NFL Network that Derek Carr has signed a four-year, $150 million contract with the New Orleans Saints. Carr was the second best quarterback available this offseason - behind Rodgers - and he was a top option for the Jets. He met with the team twice, including a meeting with Owner Woody Johnson in Indianapolis during the NFL Scouting Combine last week and, according to multiple reports, both went very well.
However, the general consensus was always that Carr wanted to resolve his future quickly so he could help lure other free agents to his new team. With the Jets remaining non-committal on anything until the future of Rodgers is known, Carr opted to take his talents to New Orleans. The Saints made it clear Carr was their beautiful bride, whereas he was just the okay-looking bridesmaid in the eyes of the Jets.
It’s nice to be wanted, after all.
As tends to happen in sports, once the first domino falls, the rest tend to follow pretty quickly. We’ve already seen the avalanche start to happen with Geno Smith signing a three-year, $105 million contract with the Seattle Seahawks on Monday. With NFL Free Agency starting on March, 15, the Jets are running out of time. And fast.
Put it simply; the quarterback options are starting to come off the board pretty quickly and, with each passing day, the Jets are playing more and more of a dangerous game of Aaron Rodgers Roulette.
If it pays off and Rodgers decides he wants to continue his NFL career in New York, then the Jets will be the real winners of the offseason. While he endured a down year in 2022 as the Packers missed the postseason, Rodgers is still one of the best to have ever hurled a pigskin and he possesses the game-changing, elite ability that could transform the Jets into Super Bowl contenders over night.
They would finally end their decades-long search for a heir apparent to Joe Namath. They would finally have the quarterback to take them to the promised land.
However, if Rodgers either decides to retire or he ends up staying in Green Bay, then this whole thing could fall off the cliff pretty quickly. With Carr and Smith now both off the market, the quarterback market starts to get razor thin.
There’s veteran Jimmy Garoppolo, who of course knows Jets Head Coach Robert Saleh from their time together with the San Francisco 49ers. I think it has almost become a sport of its own to crap on Garoppolo, and diminish his achievements in the game. He did help lead the 49ers to a Super Bowl appearance, after all, and he was the conductor of a well-oiled offense in 2022 before going down hurt.
Garoppolo would be an improvement on what the Jets have at QB right now, for sure. Is he a a few steps down from Rodgers and Carr? Without doubt. He’s also not exactly durable, having played more than 11 games just twice in his nine-year NFL career. You couldn’t bank on the 31-year-old lasting a season, let alone leading a franchise for three or four years. And the options after Garoppolo only decrease in quality. The next couple of tiers include serviceable veterans like Baker Mayfield, Andy Dalton, Jacoby Brissett, Teddy Bridgewater, Carson Wentz and Marcus Mariota.
With all due respect, that’s hardly an inspiring list of names and that isn’t the section you go shopping in if you’re looking for a quarterback that can put the team on his back and drag them to a Super Bowl.
Of course, for some, the fantasy of luring Lamar Jackson to New York will still remain. Some would argue that, if Jackson became available, he would automatically rise to the status of the best QB available. Even above Rodgers. But the whole situation is complicated with a bevy of moving parts. The Baltimore Ravens have until 4 p.m. ET on Tuesday to either apply the non-exclusive franchise tag, or the exclusive version of the tag on Jackson. If Baltimore applies the non-exclusive tag, Jackson could either negotiate or sign an offer sheet with other teams, which the Ravens could decide to match or decline. He could also be traded. The exclusive tag means that Jackson would belong exclusively to the Ravens, but with a much higher price tag of $45 million for just one year.
It will be fascinating to see what Baltimore does come 4 p.m., but the point remains that if Jackson were to get traded or sign an offer sheet, the Jets would have to give up a substantial amount more than they would for Rodgers. We’re talking multiple draft picks that could instead be spent on the offensive line and filling in other glaring holes on this roster. Jackson would be a game-changer at the quarterback position certainly, but you would also need to put other pieces and weapons around him at some point. You can’t do that if you give up all your draft capital in one hit.
So, with Carr and Smith off the board, with Jackson probably unobtainable and with Titans General Manager Ran Carthon making it clear that Ryan Tannehill will be back in Tennessee for the 2023 season - and he probably belonged in the third tier of quarterbacks available anyway - it comes apparent that after Rodgers there is no Plan B for the Jets. Just Plans C, D, E and F.
None of which will help elevate them to the next level.
So, it is being Captain Obvious to state that the front office better hope and pray all the chips fall their way and they land their No. 1 target. Of course, even if Rodgers ends up in a Jets uniform, there’s no guarantees it will result in a happy ending.
As I mapped out here extensively, there’s a plethora of risks and a boatload of baggage attached to Rodgers. He has seemingly embraced the role of villain in the NFL and has flirted with controversy at every turn over the past couple of years. Doing that as the quarterback of a storied franchise like the Green Bay Packers is one thing, but doing it in the biggest market in the world, and with as much media attention as he would attract in New York, is a whole different proposition entirely.
Rodgers opening his mouth about anything ranging from COVID-19 to using psychedelics to embarking on a darkness retreat would send the relentless New York media into a hot frenzy. Every single inch in every single paper and every single second of available airtime on sports talk radio would be dedicated to Rodgers and his every single move.
There’s also some caveats when it comes to the on-field stuff too. Longtime Packers reporter Bob McGinn, who knows and understands the very fine fabric of that organization, reported on GoLongtd.Com with Tyler Dunne a few weeks ago that Green Bay was “disgusted with” Rodgers and the franchise was “done with him.”
It has been reported that the higher-ups within the building were convinced Rodgers hadn’t been all-in and fully engaged with the Packers for a while. He skipped mandatory minicamp in 2021 and some in the Green Bay inner-circle believed he turned up to camp out of shape in 2022. There was also the disturbing trend of Rodgers chewing out rookies and teammates for mistakes made on the field last year, and publicly hanging them out to dry at every turn.
The Jets appear to finally be turning a corner. General Manager Joe Douglas and Head Coach Robert Saleh are building a team-first culture that is starting to breed results on the field. They boast a talented young core with high-end pieces on offense and a defense that could carry a team to a championship right now. Do they really want to risk all of that by throwing a live grenade right in the middle of everything they’ve built over the past couple of years?
A grenade that could blow everything in its path to smithereens in seconds, by the way.
There’s also the fact Rodgers regressed somewhat in 2022. In the midst of the Packers going 8-9 and missing the playoffs, the future Hall of Famer threw for 3,695 yards, 26 touchdowns and 12 interceptions - which were the most picks he’s thrown since the 2010 season. The eye test would also tell you that Rodgers looked a shadow of his former great self, his arm strength looked diminished and he was unable to make some of the superhero, highlight-reel, jaw-dropping plays that he’s built an entire career on.
Of course, he did win back-to-back MVP awards as recently as 2020 and 2021 and, if 2022 was just a blip on the radar and nothing else, then Rodgers has all the skills, all the elite talent and all the intangibles needed to turn the Jets into legit contenders. On the flip side, he is now 39-years-old and as we all know, Father Time defeats all of us eventually. It is just a matter of when. And Rodgers is closer to the end of his career than he is to the beginning.
That’s why Carr would have been the safer bet for New York. He’s a whole eight years younger, he’s a high-character guy and he would have been able to help the Jets compete. He doesn’t get the credit he deserves for how good a QB he actually is, as we dived into here. Alas, Carr wasn’t going to sit and wait around for the Jets and he now has the task of making the Saints contenders again.
Other quarterbacks will be the same. They aren’t going to wait and hope the Jets make them their third, fourth or fifth choice QB. No, they will sign elsewhere and this is where it starts to get really, really dangerous for New York.
Again, the payoff would be well worth it. A peak of his powers Rodgers with high-end weapons around him, such as running back Breece Hall, wide receiver Garrett Wilson and tight end C.J. Uzomah, a powerhouse defense and a reunion with new Jets Offensive Coordinator Nathaniel Hackett, would spell magic and a deep postseason run.
And maybe even a Super Bowl ring or two.
However, with the longer the wait goes on for Rodgers to make a decision, the Jets are wasting precious time and are missing out on other options. It takes a substantial period of time for a QB to learn a new system and adjust to the pressures of playing in a new city. Not to mention the fact that other free agents may decide to skip on New York if they haven’t got a quarterback in place by next week. That’s got to be considered too.
The Jets are infatuated with Aaron Rodgers, and they are like that friend who falls head over heels for the very first girl he meets at a bar. He goes all in, ignoring every single red flag that has been planted right in-front of him and missing out on potential better opportunities because he’s so blindly in love. Come on, we all know that dude. Again, if it works out, it could prove to be a love story for the ages.
But this is dangerous territory now. If Rodgers decides he wants to call it quits on his playing days, or if he can work things out with the Packers for one more run at a championship, then the Jets have set themselves up for ultimate heartbreak by risking being jilted at the altar. If that’s the case, then this magical thrill-ride would have been all for nothing and the fallout could be lethal given the lack of options now out there.
Put it this way, given the corner the Jets have now backed themselves into, they can’t afford to miss on Rodgers. They have no other choice now but to see this through and bring the sure-fire future Hall of Famer to New York. If they do, it is mission accomplished and anything is possible. If they don’t and with their second choice now off the board, what looked to be a bright future for this team just took a sudden dark turn.
The stakes have just got a little bit higher in Rodgers Roulette.
