It's looking like the New York Jets will have nothing meaningful to show from the glitzy Aaron Rodgers move going into the third year of the experiment. If they want to continue down the road of placing every available egg in the basket of a mercurial 40-year-old quarterback in 2025 it'll be one last chance to prove the haters wrong or, if things go sideways once again, an unforced error that puts a struggling franchise even further away from its goals. On the bright side, it will provide so much grist for the sports talk mill as one of the most polarizing figures in sports is discussed from every available angle.
Or the Jets could decide enough is enough and look elsewhere in their pursuit of relevance.
Nick Wright seems to think that would be the better option as he tried to work through the situation mentally on What's Wright with Nick Wright on Thursday.
"I'm shocked Aaron might want to come back and I'm even more shocked that there seems to be the general media reaction that the Jets would want him back," Wright said. "In what world is it good for the New York Jets to bring back Aaron Rodgers?"
"Aaron Rodgers retiring has nothing to do with the fact they've gotta cut him. He's a bad, aging, injured, distracted player who has sucked all of the life out of that building," he added.
- What's Wright? with Nick Wright (@WhatsWrightShow) November 14, 2024"Aaron Rodgers retiring has nothing to do with the fact they've gotta cut him. He's a bad, aging, injured, distracted player who has sucked all of the life out of that building."
There are very few pundits out there willing to say that Rodgers is "terrible" and "really bad" as a football player. But that certainly seems like a relevant data point to this discussion. Looking at Rodgers's numbers from this year and the inability to pass the eye test, and it does seem like an organization looking to build a different winning culture might call an audible.
Of course, the thing about all of this that cannot be ignored is that it's the Jets. Over the past few years, they've felt a lot like the Cowboys of the Northeast corridor-plenty of drama to go around and an inscrutable owner in Woody Johnson. With absolutely no inside information, it's simply hard to imagine them admitting failure and cutting bait. One could argue that they're more than pot committed and the small chance Rodgers comes back and sets the world on fire with his play next season is worth the gamble. It's obviously not a great situation and that may actually be the best of many possible bad scenarios for 2025.
