-
Rich Cimini, ESPN Staff Writer
FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers took care of his offensive linemen for Christmas, giving each one a customized suit, cologne and sunglasses — all from the designer Tom Ford — plus a Louis Vuitton passport holder and a Bose portable speaker. Each player also received a bottle of Devils River bourbon in his locker.
“Santa Rodgers is the best gift giver on the team,” center Joe Tippmann said.
Rodgers has given plenty to the Jets over two seasons:
Next-level exposure, starting with “Hard Knocks” in 2023; salary cap flexibility, thanks to a voluntary $34 million pay cut; the most publicized Achilles surgery/recovery since Kobe Bryant; constant off-the-field drama (remember the vice presidential rumors and the unexcused trip to Egypt?); and let’s not forget about hope, albeit fleeting.
The one thing that hasn’t come is what they need most: wins.
Rodgers, 41, will take the field Sunday against the Miami Dolphins (4:25 p.m. ET, FOX) in what probably will be his final game with the Jets — perhaps his last appearance as an NFL player. The bottom line isn’t pretty: His record as the Jets’ starter is 5-12 — a .294 winning percentage, lower than his predecessor, the unproven Zach Wilson (12-21, .363).
The oversimplified truth: The Jets have been worse with Rodgers than they were before him, a thought that was unfathomable on April 26, 2023 — the day of his introductory news conference when he vowed to add another Lombardi to the “lonely” Super Bowl III trophy in the team showcase.
“Obviously, I don’t think this season will be talked about in a well-liked manner,” cornerback D.J. Reed said.
In Rodgers’ football career — which includes four MVPs and a Super Bowl with the Green Bay Packers — his time with the Jets marks the first time he has failed to help a team reach postseason play at least once during his tenure, dating back to high school. The most intriguing part? He’s about to finish one of the better statistical passing seasons in franchise history.
RODGERS SAT ON his stool, autographing memorabilia in a half-empty locker room. The players who were present were roughly half his age; to them, he was their Madden video game QB in the flesh. With his age-lined face and graying beard, he looked old and out of place.
It was mid-November. The season was a mess, and Rodgers’ left leg was barking because of hamstring and knee injuries. He wore a jacket with a fur-lined collar, looking like he was ready to leave the building, but he sat uninterrupted and signed various items to be given to fans, including a Wisconsin license plate.
A reminder of past glory.
“People will remember his two different legacies,” said former Packers fullback John Kuhn, who played with Rodgers for nine years, including their Super Bowl championship in the 2010 season.
“They’ll remember Aaron Rodgers — incredible talent, incredible competitor, the sometimes polarizing figure of the NFL. And they’ll remember the not-so-fond years in New York, where one was wasted on a turf injury and one was wasted by a dysfunctional organization.”
Rodgers’ place in history is secure. Along with the MVPs and his Super Bowl ring, he has a Super Bowl MVP, and not to mention, he holds a top-10 ranking in almost every major passing category. In short, he’s destined to be a first-ballot entry into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Two ill-fated seasons in New York shouldn’t diminish his legacy. Then again, some visuals are hard to erase from memory. Joe Namath was — and is — synonymous with the Jets, but old-timers and purists still find it hard to stomach video of a broken-down Namath in a Los Angeles Rams uniform in his final season, 1977.
“A very difficult transition,” Namath once said, regretting the move.
Will Rodgers be tainted by the Jets’ failure?
“To me, it’s a bruise,” a former longtime NFC general manager said. “In time, it’ll go away. It’s the Jets. [Brett] Favre went there. Did that hurt his legacy?”
Former Jets quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick said, “His legacy won’t be impacted by his Jets tenure at all. He’s one of the greatest quarterbacks of our generation.”
Despite his struggles, Rodgers has a reputation as one of the best pure passers in history and the numbers to back it up. His touchdown-interception ratio is the best ever — more than four touchdown passes for every interception (499 to 115). With 62,678 yards, he only needs 115 to pass Matt Ryan for seventh on the all-time list.
“I mean, my God, he’s done everything, he’s won everything,” former Jets quarterback Boomer Esiason said. “His stats are gaudy to say the least. Those two years in New York — if it is two years — will be an unfortunate chapter in his career because of the injury. It’s a shame he couldn’t do what [Peyton] Manning and [Tom] Brady both did, and that’s go somewhere else and win a Super Bowl.”
Ah, yes, the injury — easily one of the lowest moments in the 65-year history of the Jets franchise. Rodgers ruptured his left Achilles on the fourth snap of the 2023 season. Rodgers likes to talk about how the universe whispers to him. In this case, it was screaming. He was never the same after Sept. 11, 2023.
By all accounts, he made a quick and full recovery, but the injury compromised his mobility. Instead of sliding outside the pocket to make off-schedule throws — once the hallmark of his game — he has often been trapped, like Houdini without an escape route. The issue was exacerbated by a significant hamstring injury in October that prompted some teammates to wonder if he was fit to play. Rodgers pressed on, refusing to succumb again to injury.
“To see that guy out there, dragging his leg around and pushing forward, it gave me hope,” offensive tackle Morgan Moses said. “You can’t question his love of the game.”
Maybe they were inspired, but the Jets haven’t played like it. As the losses mounted, the whispers about Rodgers got louder. Even with a late-season flurry, he ranks 25th out of 33 qualified quarterbacks in Total QBR (48.3), a continuation of the pedestrian play from his final season in Green Bay (2022).
The Achilles surgery, and the months of rehab that followed, exacted a physical and mental toll, he said.
“Really, since Sept. 11 last year, it feels like I’ve been rehabbing,” he said, admitting he’s disappointed by his performance.
His bold statement before the season, that people would lose their jobs if he didn’t play up to his capability, turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy. The in-season firings of coach Robert Saleh and general manager Joe Douglas flipped everything upside down, and the Jets never recovered.
Rodgers took it hard. He had lobbied for their return at the end of last season, and now the foundation — his foundation — was being dismantled by impatient owner Woody Johnson. The quarterback’s close friend, offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett, was demoted despite Rodgers’ efforts to have him spared. As a result, Rodgers’ influence within the organization had faded.
“He doesn’t have a pot to piss in,” one source close to the situation said.
FROM THE COURTSHIP through the honeymoon period, the Jets catered to Rodgers, hiring his favorite coach (Hackett), signing two of his receivers from Green Bay (Allen Lazard and Randall Cobb) and letting him install his offense. The idea was to make him comfortable amid his late-career transition, with the hope of ending the longest playoff drought in major American sports — now 14 years.
“When he walked into that building, everybody looked at him like he was the god that was going to fix everything,” Esiason said.
But as a quadragenarian, coming off a major injury, his superpowers haven’t been at his full disposal. He has them for a quarter, maybe a half, but not a complete game. There have been a few games, including last Sunday’s two-interception loss against the Buffalo Bills, where he looked overmatched.
Down 33-0 in the fourth quarter, on the verge of falling to 4-12, Rodgers asked out of the game, suggesting to interim coach Jeff Ulbrich that he insert Tyrod Taylor. Rodgers spent nearly the entire fourth quarter on the bench, often sitting alone. He looked like Namath in Los Angeles.
The Jets envisioned Rodgers as the galvanizer, a cerebral quarterback who could use his football brain to win the weekly chess match, camouflage weaknesses and extract the best out of young players.
What they didn’t anticipate was underachievement by the defense, which has blown fourth-quarter leads in six losses, and early-season inconsistency from kicker Greg Zuerlein, whose misses loomed large in three losses.
Of course, Rodgers incurs most of the blame because of his lightning-rod persona. He has sputtered in the clutch, coming up empty on four potential game-winning drives on the final possession, but is he to blame for the league-leading 131 accepted penalties? The faulty game management?
His leadership is always under attack from onlookers. None of his teammates, perhaps out of fear of being removed from the Rodgers circle of trust, has said anything negative about him. Canvass the locker room, and you will get only positive comments on the record.
“I feel like he’s a guy that’s definitely misunderstood,” said Reed, adding that it’s a privilege to play with someone of Rodgers’ stature.
“People have their ups and downs and things to say about him,” Moses said, “but the only thing I can talk about is how I see him every day in this workplace — dealing with injuries, dealing with the uncertainty of coaching changes and just being a staple in the locker room.”
Privately, some teammates said they’ve noticed his body language when someone makes a bad play or misses an assignment. It happened Sunday, when Rodgers threw his arms up after an incomplete pass to tight end Kenny Yeboah — a ball thrown at his feet. As one player said, “It’s like, ‘Come on, man, we’re all in this together.'”
Rodgers’ relationship with wide receiver Garrett Wilson has also come under scrutiny. It started in training camp, with on-field arguments. They tried to write them off as heated moments between two competitors, but Wilson has fumed in recent weeks as Rodgers has relied on old friend Davante Adams as his WR1. Wilson claimed there’s “no truth” to speculation about a rift between them.
Rodgers’ criticism of former teammate Mike Williams also didn’t sit well with some. After a Week 6 loss to the Bills, Rodgers called out Williams in a postgame news conference for running the wrong route on a critical interception late in the game — the infamous “red line” debacle. Rodgers, in great detail, explained how Williams, an offseason acquisition, was supposed to run a vertical route (marked on practice fields with a red line) instead of an in-breaker. That play effectively ended Williams’ short-lived tenure with the Jets.
Adams was acquired the next day in a trade; Williams was shipped out to the Pittsburgh Steelers three weeks later.
“The Mike Williams red line saga was a tough look on his leadership,” Fitzpatrick told ESPN. “He will take the blame in press conferences, but a lot of times it feels empty to me because of the field body language and eye rolls during the game.
“His arrogance works for teammates when they’re winning and can be infectious, and a positive, for the team. But it is hated by many that don’t know him because it comes across as smug.”
Fitzpatrick, who retired after the 2021 season, played against Rodgers and has studied him closely as a Prime Video analyst, enabling him to draw this conclusion:
“I’m sure most of his teammates really like being around him and gravitate to his energy,” Fitzpatrick said. “I know for a fact he treats people the right way in the building, which is great to hear, but he has become such a polarizing figure — because you’re either with him or you aren’t.
“If you’re not [with him], then you’re stupid [in Rodgers’ eyes] — a weird, childish stance that I have to imagine alienates a lot of people once you stop having daily interactions with him.”
DESPITE INCONSISTENT PLAY, Rodgers will finish among the franchise’s single-season leaders in Total QBR (48.3, ranking fifth), passing yards (3,623, sixth) and touchdown passes (24, ninth). With a solid game Sunday, he will finish top five in all three categories. With a game for the ages, he could challenge Namath’s hallowed record of 4,007 yards in 1967 and become the second quarterback in Jets history to eclipse 4,000 yards. Rodgers needs 385 yards to break Namath’s record.
The disclaimer: The Jets’ quarterback history isn’t glittering. In fact, not one quarterback, not even the legendary Namath, has received a single vote for NFL MVP.
“A lot of his season has been plagued by injury,” Adams said of Rodgers. “I don’t want to say ‘plagued,’ but that’s been something he’s fought through. Obviously, he hasn’t been able to put his best product out there.
“He’s been one of the best quarterbacks to ever play this game, and, no matter what happens from this moment on, you can’t take that away from him. Being 40 years old and playing at the level expected, that’s not easy to do. But he’s done a hell of a job statistically, trying to bounce back.”
Healthier than midseason, Rodgers has produced the seventh-most passing yards over the past four weeks (996), fueling talk of a return in 2025. The new general manager and new coach will have a lot to say about that, as will Rodgers — who has said he’s undecided on whether to play. His tenuous relationship with Johnson probably won’t help matters.
The sense around the organization is Johnson is ready to move on, according to people familiar with the owner’s thinking. One person said he’d be “shocked” if Johnson signs off on Rodgers’ return.
Rodgers has talked openly about the possibility of being released, almost sounding as if he’s daring the team to do it. He recently poked Johnson, making a crack about the owner’s teenaged son being involved in the football operation. That probably didn’t sit well in the big office.
The plan, Rodgers said, is to take some time in the offseason before making a decision on whether to retire. Clearly, he wants to control his own destiny.
“Whether he wants to play another year or not, he’s a Hall of Famer and an MVP, and you can’t take that away from him,” Moses said. “One thing about record books and stats and stuff like that: You can try to strip a guy of his records, but you can’t strip the guy of the hardware. And he’s got a lot of it.”
Rodgers called these “the best two years of my life,” meaning in a spiritual sense — new friendships and a new appreciation for the game. He wishes there were more victories. So does the fan base. The universe, often cruel to the Jets, hasn’t obliged.
