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Aaron Rodgers
The final call, for new GM Darren Mougey and coach Aaron Glenn, wasn’t made overnight. And handling the end was tricky given Rodgers’s stature and standing in football history.
So Mougey had a series of conversations with Rodgers that led up to the last meeting on Feb. 6 at the team facility in Florham Park, N.J, where the Jets’ decision was communicated.
Leading up to that point, the sides had discussed their plans while trying to get a feel for whether or not all the pieces would fit together—when deep down, both knew it would be difficult to mesh the Jets’ desire to turn the page on their recent past with where Rodgers is in his career. Things came to a crescendo with the in-person meeting, with Rodgers playing as much a part in planning the Jersey summit as the team did.
Here’s a little more from the last few weeks …
• Rodgers did tell Mougey and Glenn that it was his tentative intention to play in 2025. These things can change, of course, but Rodgers gave the Jets the impression that he had unfinished business to take care of.
• Rodgers showed plenty of self-awareness in his exit interviews with the team, bringing up on his own the possibility that the team would want a fresh start, and showing that he knew the decision on that wouldn’t be his own. As such, there was really no attempt from either side at negotiating a third year for Rodgers with the team.
• Contrary to popular belief, Rodgers did have strong relationships in the building, with ex-coach Robert Saleh, team president Hymie Elhai and co-owner Christopher Johnson, among others. And those close to Rodgers did want to do right by him out of respect for all he’s accomplished as a pro and the effort he’d given the Jets the last two years. In this case, doing right by Rodgers meant giving him a decision as early as they could.
• It sounds like a “it’s not you, it’s me” explanation, but the reality was that the Jets’ desire to move on was about them and not Rodgers, and timelines that don’t match up. New York, under its leaders, was looking at a deliberate reimagination of its football operation, which was going to be tough to marry up with a quarterback playing for this year alone.
• Part of that is, yes, the larger-than-life presence Rodgers brings with him, so his effect on and in the media was a factor, if a smaller one. So while there was no ultimatum on giving up appearances on different platforms, like , there was discussion on that stuff.
• For what it’s worth, the Jets do believe Rodgers still has bullets left in the gun.
And, really, a lot of this, again, boils down to goals that don’t really match up.
When Rodgers first arrived in New York, he told folks in the building that the Lombardi Trophy he won at the end of the 2010 season had gotten awfully lonely, and that he felt like he had to put another one next to it. Obviously, getting one is the goal of every team every year.
But in realistic terms, the pursuit of it doesn’t look the same for everyone.
For the Jets, now, it means doubling down on the young core that Garrett Wilson, Breece Hall, Olu Fashanu, Alijah Vera-Tucker, Quinnen Williams, Quincy Williams, Jermaine Johnson and Sauce Gardner make up, and creating a sustained winner off it. Remember, this is a Jets organization coming off a 5–12 season. Had it been a 12–5 year, everyone wouldn’t have been fired. So some form of culture reset was coming regardless, and it is now.
For Rodgers, conversely, it means being with a team that will lean into winning , the way the Jets have the last couple years, and the way the Broncos and Buccaneers did years ago behind Peyton Manning and Tom Brady. Whether or not that sort of team will be out there for Rodgers is an open question. But after the last two years, the Jets weren’t going to be that team again.
