Jets owner Woody Johnson wanted to bench Aaron Rodgers following the Week 4 loss. He felt that Rodgers’ performance was holding the team back and even suggested that Tyrod Taylor should start instead. However, the coaches convinced him to keep faith in the former Super Bowl MVP, feeling that dropping him this early in the season “would embarrass Rodgers.” However, given how the Jets’ season has unfolded, it looks like they have still ended with an egg on their face.

When Rodgers returned from his Achilles injury to start for the Jets this season, it was believed to be the dawn of a new era. A Super Bowl champion and a highly successful QB coming into a franchise to achieve his “two Super Bowls” dream, courted by a coach and general manager, who believed he was their salvation, the Jets were ready to make a mark. But those plans unraveled as early as Week 5.

Head Coach Robert Saleh was shown the door after a loss to the Vikings in London and GM Joe Douglas was fired 42 days later. The team’s performances continue to dwindle and nothing seems to be going right. Following their loss to the Bills, cornerback D.J. Reed made it clear that he wants to test the free agency market. The Jets are crashing at a rapid speed. So what does the future of Rodgers look like? According to reports, the Jets have had enough.

uSTADIUM posted on X, “Barring an unforeseen change the Jets are expected to move on from QB Aaron Rodgers and WR Davante Adams this offseason. Source tells us the relationship between owner Woody Johnson and Rodgers is “irreparable.””

With just 4 wins and 12 losses, the Jets are nowhere near what they would have envisioned when Rodgers returned to the QB spot this year. They may have not hoped for a deep postseason run, but sitting just above the hapless Patriots in the AFC East was not on their radar either.

Now it looks like they are ready to move on from their Rodgers experiment and it is not a surprise.

At 41, the quarterback’s age was always a bone of contention. Then even before the season started he had arguments with Garrett Wilson and Joe Tippmann at Jets training camp in August. There were also reports of Rodgers being bossy and calling the shots at the Jets, which many believe led to the signing of Davante Adams, who successfully partnered with Rodgers at the Packers. The Jets had hoped they would recreate the magic in New York, but both are on their way out after underwhelming campaigns.

From 2014 to 2021, Rodgers and Adams connected for 7,517 yards and 68 touchdowns for the Packers. But it seems both are past their best, with the exception of the odd spark as seen against the Jaguars in their  32-25 win on December 15.

Top Comment by Anonymous

He should have retired two years ago !!

Share your take

Debate

But after Adams joined Rodgers in October, the duo have only connected for 6 TDs in 10 games. These are dismal numbers and it seems their good days might be behind them. Rodgers is under contract through 2025 with a no-trade clause, this means the Jets might be releasing him soon after this season if they wish to.

Adams, on the other hand, has a more complicated situation. The Jets reworked his contract after signing him from the Raiders. Adams was in the middle of the third season on a five-year, $140m contract signed in 2022. The Jets converted $10.4 million of Adams’ remaining 2024 salary into a signing bonus, lowering his cap hit down to $3.2 million. This ensured that Adams remained under contract for the next season, so the Jets will have a decision to make there as well.

For Rodgers though, the writing seems to be on the wall ever since it emerged Woody Johnson wanted him benched for Week 5. The Athletic reported how things nearly fell apart after the Jets’ loss to the Broncos in Week 4 during a meeting.

“During the meeting, [Woody] Johnson suggested to the coaches that they bench Aaron Rodgers in favor of Tyrod Taylor because he felt Rodgers’ performance was holding the team back.”The coaches and Douglas, stunned at the suggestion, talked him out of it and convinced Johnson to stay the course and that benching Rodgers, with his pedigree, four games into the season would not sit well with the locker room,” the report read.

The decision to release Rodgers from the team could also be down to how there is reported unhappiness in the locker room with how things have gone this season.

A few weeks ago, The Athletic reported that Wilson was unhappy with the direction of the Jets. His relationship with Rodgers has reportedly not gotten any better after their training camp altercation and it has only gotten worse since Adams arrived. As per the NFL Network, Wilson could ask for a trade if the Jets keep Rodgers for the next season. Then we had D.J. Reed expressing his frustrations with how his season hasn’t gone to plan.

“I was going to have 10 picks,” Reed said. “We were going to be elite. I thought that we’d be up in the score late in games and teams would have to throw the ball and I’m going to make plays on the ball.” When asked about his status for the next season, he answered, “I’m ready to go to free agency, bro. I’m ready to see what’s next for me.”

The Jets have seemingly lost Reed but may not want to lose Wilson, hence it might not be the toughest decision Woody Johnson has to make when deciding about Aaron Rodgers’ future. As for where the Super Bowl-winning QB could end up.

Coming off an Achilles tear and a poor season, he may not have teams queuing up to sign him. According to a Daily Mail report, Rodgers is said to prefer one of the four teams if the Jets indeed let him go. These include Cleveland, Indianapolis, Tennessee, and Las Vegas. All these teams are believed to be in the market next season for a QB. But will they be willing to take the gamble after his Jets tenure?

Given the current situation, Rodgers’s departing New York seems inevitable. On top of his fractured relationship with those in the franchise, he hasn’t earned any friends on the outside either.

Aaron Rodgers slammed for throwing his anger on the field?

Keyshawn Johnson, who also played with the Jets during his NFL time, appeared on FS1’s “Speak” on Monday and questioned Aaron Rodgers’s play. He said, “You decide to take your ball and go home because you wasn’t getting your way. … You quit on your team, man. I’m not going to be nice to Aaron Rodgers like that. I thought he was on a mission to convince them [the Jets] that he should come back. Based on what he did yesterday, I don’t want to be nowhere near him. He took his ball and went home! That’s exactly what he just did. He took his ball and went home because he wasn’t getting his way and the Bills were kicking his rear end. What the hell is wrong with Aaron Rodgers.”

Actually, this incident happened due to Aaron Rodgers benching himself in the fourth quarter of the game during Sunday’s blowout loss to the Bills. This new fit from Rodgers puzzled everyone. Later, the reporters asked him about it, to which, the QB admitted that it was his idea to allow his backup Tyrod Taylor to come up, as the game went out of his hand. He said, “I mean it was 33-0, we were sitting there & I said at some point probably go to Tyrod here, huh? Then the next play [the Bills] threw a screen for a touchdown. So it was 40-0.” Hence, this behavior didn’t sit well with the Super Bowl champion Johnson, and he slammed the quarterback on the show.

On the other hand, Aaron Rodgers’s backup was able to pull two touchdown drives in the final quarter, leading the team to score 14 against Bills’s 40.

Will A-Rod would continue with the Jets in the 2025 season or not? This question would be the talk of the town for Gang Green’s fans. What’s your take on this?