Late-career Aaron Rodgers is not a whole lot of fun anymore
The 2-3 New York Jets appear to be in thrall to a 40-year-old curmudgeon
For most of his long career, Aaron Rodgers had a defining characteristic: he could fling it.
I use that word specifically, for a reason. All good NFL quarterbacks can throw the ball. Duh. But Rodgers at his peak had an uncanny knack for being able to throw it long distances, with unusual accuracy, with what seemed like minimal effort. If you saw him play you can picture it: Rodgers rolls to his right under pressure and with seemingly nothing more than a flick of his wrist sends an arcing pass that drops into the arms of a streaking Green Bay receiver.
He was so talented that the only knock on Rodgers through his first 15 or so seasons was that he had only won the one Super Bowl, which came way back in 2010, in his third year as a starter. This wasn’t even necessarily a knock on Rodgers. He didn’t have a history of playoff stinkers, and his teams lost a lot of playoff games in which he played well. If anything, it just seemed a little weird that Rodgers was trending toward a career in which he would have fewer Super Bowls than Eli Manning. He’d still be one of the greatest to ever do the job.
And then COVID hit, and it all went sideways. In the 2021 season, played under protocols that were different for vaccinated and non-vaccinated athletes, Rodgers told reporters that he had been “immunized,” and that was that. Most players were vaccinated, so no one thought much of it. When Rodgers later tested positive for COVID, he admitted that “immunized” had referred to some kind of woo natural-health treatment. He had allowed everyone — coaches, teammates, media — who had interacted with him to believe he had been vaccinated, but he wasn’t. It was a dick move.
But he could still fling it. Rodgers won the last of his four MVP awards in 2021, although the Packers lost at home in the divisional round in a game that turned on a blocked punt in the fourth quarter that the 49ers returned for a touchdown. And even though this had been a very normal Rodgers season — spectacular for long stretches, weird playoff exit — it also felt like the last of its kind. Rodgers had become something of a crank, grumpy with the media, holding grudges against Anthony Fauci and just generally coming across as an unpleasant guy to be around.
That last part has been an image that he almost seems to be trying to cultivate. Through a poor-by-his-standards last season in Green Bay and a first year with the New York Jets that was wrecked by injury in Week 1, Rodgers has relished portraying himself as the guy who knows everything while everyone else is an idiot. He spent much of last season acting as though he might return in time for the playoffs — a timeline that had never been close to happening in the history of Achilles surgeries — in what often felt like a ploy to ensure that he was still a topic on the NFL morning chat shows, when he wasn’t stoking controversy on his weekly appearances on the Pat McAfee show. In one instance, he ridiculed the premise of a meticulously reported article that described the challenges young players had learning his complicated line calls and adjustments, never once acknowledging that the story in question literally had quotes from actual players saying that it was tough. It was in the media, therefore it was fake news.
Despite all that, it still seemed entirely possible that he would be Aaron Rodgers again this season, even if he now had some anti-hero traits. The Jets had a strong defence and some good offensive weapons, and even competent quarterback play would make them AFC East contenders. But Rodgers, at 40, has been barely competent. The NFL’s all-time leader in passer rating (103.0), he’s down at 26th in the league this season at 81.8. By the more all-around measurement of QBR, he’s 21st, behind among others Daniel Jones, Sam Darnold and Anthony Richardson.
And in response to this, the Jets on Tuesday fired head coach Robert Saleh. Now, I don’t mean to mount a rousing defence here of Saleh, who was 20-36 as a head coach in New York, but he arrived as a defensive guy and the defence has been good. The offence, under the direction of Rodgers’ friend Nathaniel Hackett, has been bad. Are the Jets really so beholden to their star quarterback that they couldn’t fire his caddy? Adding a level of palace intrigue to the story, there were reports on Tuesday that Saleh was considering firing Hackett as offensive co-ordinator before Jets owner Woody Johnson swooped in and axed him instead.
Will this fix what has been ailing the Jets? Maybe, if it turns out that Saleh’s influence on the whole place was so negative that just removing him sparks a turnaround. But trying to revive the offence by firing the guy who is not directing the offence feels like fixing a flat tire by replacing the windshield.
Hackett is still there. Rodgers, who turns 41 in early December, has some time to show that he can still fling it. Some time, that is, to save what is shaping up to be a rather desultory finish to a Hall of Fame career. Your move, fellas.