A day after the Jets’ disappointing 8th loss of the season left their record at a dismal 3-8, I reached out to some trusted sources for insight into the state of the “Aaron Rodgers Project” — and the unsettling sense that this mission remains far from accomplished.
One league source put it bluntly: “I wouldn’t be mad right now if we were a sorry-ass team with no talent, but now, this roster is good—so it hurts.”
The frustration is palpable, especially when you consider that five of the Jets’ eight losses have come by a touchdown or less. The sense is that they could easily be sitting at 8-3 instead if just a few things had broken their way.
The talent is undoubtedly there: players like Garrett Wilson, Quinnen Williams, Breece Hall, Davante Adams, Will McDonald, Braelon Allen, Sauce Gardner, Haason Reddick, and, of course, future Hall of Famer Aaron Rodgers make up a roster full of potential. Yet despite all this promise, the team’s struggles have left fans and insiders alike wondering just what went wrong.
Something is very off around this team…
At this point, I believe it comes down to the fundamental ability to discern truth from hope.
Beyond picking the right general manager and head coach, is also an absolute necessity to nail the position that involves the person who touches and impacts the ball the most: the quarterback.
The Jets leaned way too much on signs of hope rather than actual evidence of truth when the bald-faced signs were in their faces leading up to their decision to bring Aaron Rodgers to New York, and the many things that have happened since.
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The Zach Wilson era
I’ve long maintained on-record that Zach Wilson was not ready to be the Jets starting quarterback after seeing his Thursday Night Football performance vs Jaguars in 2022, in a 19-3 loss.
That night, with the eyes of the nation upon him, Zach Wilson’s confidence was completely shattered, and I believe it never truly recovered during his time in New York. While Wilson did have some solid performances the following season against teams like the Broncos, Cowboys, and Chiefs — with his career essentially on the line — I’ve come to think of his confidence as manic confidence. It’s too erratic, fluctuating with emotional highs or personal grudges.
Greats like Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan? They didn’t need motivation or an emotional high to perform at their peak. Rain or shine, win or lose, they woke up as competitors, self-assured to their core. That kind of unwavering belief in oneself isn’t something that can be taught or cultivated over time. You either have it or you don’t. Players like Jayden Daniels, Patrick Mahomes, Jalen Hurts, Lamar Jackson, Tom Brady — they have it. And so do many others.
For general managers and head coaches, the key is discernment—being able to spot that “natural dog” instinct and not confuse it with someone who is simply riding a wave of circumstances. And perhaps more crucially, NFL decision-makers can’t let their ambition or desire to prove their picks right cloud their judgment, or get caught up in the notion of “doing right by the player.” Recognizing who truly has that intrinsic confidence is essential.
Resistance to cutting bait from Wilson earlier hurt the trajectory of the Jets and the fate of this regime. It already contributed to costing Robert Saleh his job.
In hindsight, there were opportunities for a better outcome than what they’re experiencing now, and plenty of them.
The 2023 Off-season QB shuffle
Alas, many times on-the-record it was said on my social media that the Jets should have jumped in the Lamar Jackson sweepstakes—when he had the non-exclusive tag placed on him in the offseason of 2023. Check the timeline. Yet, sources told me they’d “have to change too much to accommodate him” at the time. Lamar Jackson went on to have an MVP season last year, after several teams raced to tell their favorite media contact that they weren’t interested. Now look. Was it worth it now to accommodate Jackson then? Plus, how much younger is Jackson than Rodgers?
Precisely.
Decisions missing obvious discernment have a higher probability of being ill-conceived.
Let’s continue.
It was also said many times on-the-record before last season began and before it was conclusive Wilson was returning as QB2 (when it should’ve been as QB3) that the organization should’ve looked more seriously at productive quarterbacks that cost less and who were also available at the time: including Jameis Winston (before re-signing with the Saints), and Baker Mayfield (before signing with the Bucs), Gardner Minshew (before signing with the Colts), etc. None of these quarterbacks signed said deals for more than $10M/year. Moreover, they would’ve provided more of a spark than the baggage that came attached to Wilson, at that point in time.
This is not to say Wilson will never experience redemption ala Geno Smith or Sam Darnold, this is just confronting the evidence of what was discernible before he was drafted—in my estimation–and certainly by that fateful Thursday night three seasons ago.
This takes us to the Aaron Rodgers Project:
Following the loss against the Colts Sunday, I also asked the league source what their thoughts were on Rodgers. They said, “He did some good things… but he could still be more consistent, but if you are going to be that guy, you have to play like that all four quarters. That includes the start of games. We had five series with no first downs (to start vs. the Colts).”
Overall, I’m not sure if I see the same light behind Rodgers’ eyes now that I saw at his introductory press conference. The excitement, anticipation, and, more importantly, hope are not at the same level. I can feel the weight of the trauma of what should’ve been, beyond whatever range of motion and skill was inevitably lost to his Achilles injury as well.
Beyond that is the question: was all of this predictable?
Maybe not his Achilles injury, but signs from his departure in Green Bay were.
The above question isn’t being asked because it’s impossible to change fates and narratives in new environments, as Geno Smith did in Seattle. Rather, said question illuminates the necessity to detect the current energy surrounding any individual/player for broader context and information that’s necessary for making the right decisions.
I firmly believe that every person, every event, and every decision has an energy attached to it, and the discernment over said energy has to be a part of the evaluation process beyond just a player’s skill set, past resume, and accolades. You have to see and hear what’s actually there, and not just what you hope to see, because there are a lot of strong signs in any current moment–signs that have to be discerned and not ignored.
It’s correct that the energy element would have potentially been negated had Rodgers not gone down after four snaps into the season-opener last year, but the energy in his proverbial baggage is 100 percent a factor in why Rodgers seems to be running out of hope, and light much sooner now. The only way to negate the weight of one’s backstory is to have positive outcomes soon, and to have them be big.
On the other hand, another way to add to heavy energy is by blending it with more.
Said the league source, “this place can eat you alive if you allow it.” The pressure of New York and its fanbase has consumed the best of them: quarterbacks, coaches and general managers: Jets or Giants.
Finding the right blend…
While the source is right that this season so far is more frustrating because of the obvious talent on the team, that does not mean the talent is blended well. Discernment for creating good team composition is not just about talent itself, it’s also the mix of the talent. That’s why you hear me talk so much about the overall vibe in a team’s locker room, and how much an indicator it is to its success.
When Jalen Hurts took the Eagles to the Super Bowl two years ago, that group was popping and well-balanced. You had Jason Kelce, Brandon Graham, Fletcher Cox, and company as the OG’s ‘keeping the yard’ together, to the levity of Darius Slay, to the statesman in Hurts, the alpha in AJ Brown, and no one in between lacking fear to speak or command respect.
With the Ravens last year, from Roquan Smith, to Zay Flowers, you have an excellent blend with that group that was one game away from the chip.
You see it with the Lions, Steelers and obviously the Kansas City Chiefs.
With the Jets, some of their young stars are reluctant to voice their minds. They have veterans with experience who still lack team equity and an ever bigger question about their collective intrinsic motivation in times of adversity.
Beyond signing talent and coaching talent, the discernment to blend the right personalities and experience-levels together is missing from this team, as is true authentic culture.
The wrong blend can lead to fractures that will show up at the facility and eventually on the field.
When you blend the absence of this innate instinct to read people and situations, with a very cynical and long-suffering fanbase, it can become an inescapably toxic and a perennial negative loop.
Going into this season, there were sources already talking about their feelings (I repeat their feelings) of endemic signs in the building that are in desperate need of a reckoning.
So, the moral of this short story is that decision-makers have to have discernment in their arsenal of evaluation skills—not just discernment of talent, but also discernment between truth and hope.
Not having a discerning eye on the front-end can be extremely costly on the backend, especially when said missing trait is mixed with circumstances beyond one’s control.
Circumstances like a fateful Achilles injury, that forever changed the ‘Aaron Rodgers Project’ script.
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