The Jets let everyone know they were championship contenders before this season. And one of the biggest reasons was Aaron Rodgers, who vowed to take the Jets to another level when he arrived 19 months ago, and after missing nearly his entire first season with a torn Achilles, insisted everything would be different when he returned.
Well, things were different with Rodgers playing nearly every snap so far in 2024: the Jets were eliminated from the playoffs in Miami in Week 14, instead of Week 13, after losing 10 of their first 13 games.
Adding to the longest active playoff drought in major North American professional sports, which now stands at 14 seasons, was not an afterword Rodgers expected to be adding to his legacy – as was clear Sunday, when Rodgers was asked about the remarkable stretch of futility and his part in it.
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“What’s the question?” Rodgers shot back after the reporter mentioned missing the playoffs that many seasons is difficult to do. “I mean, I’ve been here – I’ve started one year, so. I’m part of it for one year. It’s disappointing.”
That answer, and Rodgers brusqueness, didn’t sit well with a former Jets coach who also had a disappointing season with a Packers legend: Eric Mangini, now a Fox Sports analyst, blasted the Jets’ quarterback on FS1’s “First Thing First” this week.
“He looked mad in the interview,” Mangini said. “He looked mad that someone asked that question. And I’m thinking, ‘What are you mad about?’ You showed up at the first press conference and said, ‘They smoked us in Green Bay, so I wanted to come here and take them to the next level. You said that Super Bowl trophy looked lonely. You said that in your first press conference. So what are you mad about?”
In his introductory press conference in April of 2023, Rodgers did call up the Jets’ 2022 win over his Packers at Lambeau Field, as a moment that proved to him this team had the talent to win. And in the same news conference, he did mention that the Jets’ lone Lombardi Trophy from Super Bowl III looked “lonely.”
It still does. But Mangini, who started 8-3 with Brett Farve as his quarterback in 2008 only to get fired after Favre suffered a shoulder injury and the Jets lost four of their final five to finish 9-7, had a lot more to say about Rodgers.
“Are you mad that you failed to win more than three games this season?” Mangini said. “Are you mad about all your friends coming to the team? You mad about firing the head coach? You mad about firing the GM? You mad about disappointing every single Jets fan because the expectations were so high? Like, what? You mad about getting paid a lot of money? What are you mad about?”
The Jets have of course brought in several of Rodgers former teammates – including receivers Allen Lazard, Randall Cobb, and Davante Adams – with none of them living up to expectations. And they brought in his former offensive coordinator, and close friend, Nathaniel Hackett, who was stripped of play calling duties in October, after coach Robert Saleh was fired at 2-3.
To be fair to Rodgers, he lobbied multiple times for the Jets to keep Saleh and general manager Joe Douglas (fired in November) and has hinted strongly that he disagreed with Woody Johnson’s decision to fire Saleh after only five complete games for Rodgers in a Jets uniform.
But Mangini finished his rant by touching the nerve that surely is the most sensitive and frayed for Rodgers these days: we saw Peyton Manning and Tom Brady write a new legacy with a new team at the end of their careers in Denver and Tampa, respectively, while Rodgers is writing a far different closing chapter in Florham Park.
“Are you mad that you got asked the question because you failed, this team has underachieved at a level that’s pretty epic,” Mangini said. “The most disappointing team in the NFL in a lot of seasons, based off of other Hall of Fame-type quarterbacks who have come and been able to perform at a much higher level.”
Instead, the Jets have gotten a lot more drama than they have wins out of Rodgers. And Mangini, like many Jets fans, is tired of all of it.
“It’s just like, enough,” Mangini said of Rodgers, who finally had his first 300-yard passing game in nearly three years on Sunday. “Enough. Enough. Enough with your – you threw for 300 yards. Congratulations. That’s great. Took you 34 games to do it. Stop being mad at everybody about you not achieving [on] a team that gave you every opportunity to achieve.”
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Andy Vasquez may be reached atavasquez@njadvancemedia.com.