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Happy birthday to New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers. He's now 41 years old and still playing NFL football, which is certainly something to be in awe of.
Birthdays often bring on a sense of reflection, and being that Rodgers is known for getting in the dark and going inside his mind to find the answers he seeks, one would imagine that he'll be doing plenty of reflecting today and over the next month. And frankly, there's a lot for Rodgers to celebrate when he looks at the totality of his time in the NFL.
He's had a 20-year career in the league and due to four MVP seasons and the Super Bowl win with the Green Bay Packers in 2010-11, he'll be a Hall of Famer when all is said and done.
Alongside Tom Brady, many have considered Rodgers the greatest quarterback of his generation. The GOAT, as the kids say. Unlike Brady, though, the “second act” of his career has not gone according to plan. In fact, if you're really honest about it, Brady and Rodgers aren't even close to the same tier of quarterback.
Brady won six Super Bowls with the New England Patriots and in his “second act”, he immediately won a championship with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
By no fault of his own, Rodgers' second act with the Jets started with a torn Achilles, which stole his 2023 season from him. Injuries happen, even to legends, but the expectation was that Rodgers would be able to bounce back in 2024 and lead the Jets into Super Bowl contention.
What has happened has been anything but, though.
Yes, he made a miraculously quick recovery and yes the Jets once again had a ton of hype heading into the season, but we're rounding out the 2024 calendar year and they've only won three games. They're coming off a third-straight loss, to the Seattle Seahawks, and not a single lever they've pulled this season has worked.
Firing head coach Robert Saleh wasn't the answer to the turnaround and neither was trading for Rodgers' friend and fellow big name, wideout Davante Adams. Firing General Manager Joe Douglas was next on the list but that won't have any impact for the rest of this season.
Speaking of, there are five games left, but the season is for all intents and purposes, over. The last change the Jets can make is at quarterback, so buckle up, Aaron, because, alongside the cake, New York should serve up a big serving of “humble pie” and bench Rodgers for his birthday gift.
Aaron Rodgers is washed
Yes, he's a Hall of Famer and yes, the Jets needed to take the chance to bring him in when they did. It was a risk, but it was a risk worth taking for Douglas at the time. Trading for Rodgers is not what got him fired in the long run.
The truth of the matter, though, is that the trade for Rodgers was a failure. Rodgers was starting to lose some of “it” in his final year with the Packers. It wasn't a physical thing at that point, but some of his bad habits had started to fester, and his unwillingness to take chances as a thrower had really hindered his ability to make big plays in big moments.
The Achilles tear is what really did him in, though, because he has none of the “juice” he once had as an athlete. Part of what made Rodgers so special throughout the years was his ability to use his legs to climb the pocket as well as his pinpoint accuracy outside of the pocket when the initial play broke down. He just can't move around like he once did, though, and that lack of confidence in his legs has also impacted his desire to throw down the field.
In fact, Rodgers' last 300-yard game was in 2021. He's averaging roughly 219 yards per game thrown this season and his typical good decision-making is gone. He has a 19-to-8 touchdown-to-interception ratio in 2024. For comparison's sake, he threw nine interceptions in 2020 and 2021 combined.
Having Adams as a weapon hasn't helped. Heck, Garrett Wilson is supposedly one of the best deep threats in the NFL, but that hasn't helped, either.
Simply put, Rodgers is cooked.
The Jets need to serve Rodgers some humble pie
There's nothing more embarrassing than listening to an NFL head coach, and even an interim head coach like Jeff Ulbrich, bow down in fealty to a player who no longer has “it”, but that's exactly what Ulbirch did on Monday when discussing Rodgers and his status as the team's starter moving forward.
In fact, Rodgers' resume is part of the reason Ulbrich and the Jets are sticking with him.
“Obviously, that's part of every conversation regarding Aaron,” Ulbrich said on Monday, according to Rich Cimini of ESPN. “Yeah, he's done amazing things. He's done legendary things, Hall of Fame things in this league, and I think that's always part of the conversation. Always.”
The issue with that statement is that Rodgers last played like an MVP when he was with the Packers. He hasn't done anything MVP-like for the Jets at any point this season.
Ultimately, one of the things that has made an organization like the Packers so good for so long is that no single player is bigger than the team. Rodgers found that out the hard way when the Packers drafted Jordan Love to ultimately replace him, and ironically, his predecessor, Brett Favre, learned the same lesson years before.
The Packers are a well-run organization because they don't allow anything to get bigger than the logo on the side of the helmet, but the Jets have bent over backward to accommodate Rodgers and the only thing that he's given them in return is three wins.
Owner Woody Johnson clearly wants to start over or else he wouldn't have fired Saleh or Douglas. He needs to make a point to end this season that these types of results are unacceptable moving forward. Even four-time MVPs shouldn't be immune to being benched if their play is not up to par. That's the type of move a competent organization would make.
The Jets can help preserve Rodgers' legacy
Here's the biggest gift the Jets can give Rodgers this year. Sure, a benching wouldn't look good on his resume, but there are ways the Jets can put him out to pasture without embarrassing him. Let's say he tweaks his ankle, which just so happens to keep him out for the rest of the season. Or perhaps, he comes down with a cold that he just can't seem to shake, no matter how many psychedelics he takes.
The fact of the matter is that the Jets can be classy about it while still making a point to Rodgers that enough is enough. In the meantime, they'd be saving him from moments like this or more pictures like this.
Ultimately, he will be a Hall of Famer, but as it stands, his legacy would be much better if he rode off into the sunset with the Packers rather than tested fate with the Jets.
Any Jets fan will tell you that fate is normally not on their side. Rodgers, unfortunately, had to find that out the hard way, but the Jets could at least help him out and spare him any further embarrassment over the last five weeks of this lost season. And that would be a great birthday gift.
