The New York Jets are no longer in the playoff hunt. Frankly, they've been out of the hunt for weeks, and they've potentially been out of it since early October when owner Woody Johnson fired head coach Robert Saleh. The idea was that point that having a four-time MVP quarterback like Aaron Rodgers on the roster would have been enough to help the Jets turn around if the head coaching fit just wasn't right. Instead, the Jets went on to lose three straight after Saleh's firing, and they've won only one game since.
The point is, Rodgers or not, this thing has been over for quite some time. Trading for Davante Adams didn't help. Firing General Manager Joe Douglas didn't help. Hell, even Rodgers' first 300-plus yard game in 34 games wasn't enough to put the Jets on the winning track. They lost to the Miami Dolphins in overtime, 32-26, in Week 15 despite Rodgers completing 27-of-39 passes for 339 yards and a touchdown — which (predictably) went to Adams.
That loss dropped the Jets to 3-10, and they've officially been eliminated from playoff contention, which means that their playoff drought has grown to 14 years — which is the longest playoff drought in North American major sports at the moment.
That's the most Jets thing ever for the Jets, and to hit that dubious milestone with Rodgers — the quarterback who was supposed to be the savior of this franchise — starting every game makes it even more Jets-ier. Even Rodgers is now talking about curses. He and the Jets are down so badly at the moment that even one darkness retreat may not suffice.
“It might be some sort of curse we’ve got to snap as well,” Rodgers recently told the media while discussing the Jets' losing culture, per the New York Post. “Whatever the case, this team, this organization is going to figure out how to get over the hump at some point.”
Rodgers is right. For the Jets to finally become a competent NFL franchise, they're going to have to start figuring out how to get over the hump and win some games. The thing is, the one thing that nobody in the Jets organization will want to say out loud is that winning is counterproductive for them at this point.
The Jets can't play Aaron Rodgers versus the Jaguars
New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers (8) looks on after the game against the Miami Dolphins at Hard Rock Stadium.
Sam Navarro-Imagn Images
Sure, there might be a case to be made that young players like Breece Hall, Braelon Allen, Sauce Gardner, Garrett Wilson, and Will McDonald IV, among others, could use all the winning experience they can get over the next four games. The counterpoint to that is that absolutely nothing from the 2024 season is going to be translatable to 2015 for the Jets. They'll have a new head coach and a new general manager. They'll likely be running different offensive and defensive schemes and plenty of them, and the faces in the locker room will look different.
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Rodgers likely won't be the quarterback next season. If he doesn't choose to retire, reports are that Johnston doesn't want to continue the experiment with the 41-year-old quarterback in 2025. Adams was traded to placate Rodgers, but he'll be owed a base salary of $35.6 million over the past two seasons. Meanwhile, there's an out in his contract that would allow the Jets to get out of it for a dead cap hit of only $8.3 million, so he'll likely be gone as well.
The 2024 season is going to be flushed. It holds no value to the Jets anymore. Well, that's not 100 percent true because the worse the Jets record is at the end of this season, the better their 2025 first-round draft pick will be. And therein lies the folly of starting Rodgers for the rest of this season.
There's certainly reason to show him respect as a four-time MVP, and he's going to make the case to play because he'll want to at least try to salvage some of his tarnished legacy, thanks to the trade to the Jets. The problem for New York is that he's still a halfway competent quarterback, which means that he could mess around and lead them to an additional win or two, and that's not good for the long-term future of this rebuilding franchise.
Up next on the schedule is the Jacksonville Jaguars for Week 15, and the Jags are in the running for a top pick as well, “boasting” the same 3-10 record that the Jets have. It's almost a guarantee that the loser of this game will end up with the higher pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, and right now, the projections have the Jets a few picks behind the Jaguars at No. 8 while the Jags are slotting in at No. 5.
A top-five pick would do a lot for the Jets as they look to start a new era and finally shed the shackles of shame that have held them down for the past 14 seasons, so they must start tanking — though again, nobody will want to admit it.
The higher-ups in New York need to call down to interim head coach Jeff Ulbrich and tell him to deploy Tyrod Taylor for this upcoming contest with the Jaguars. Frankly, either quarterback can play “tank commander” at this point of their respective careers, but against an equally bad team, Taylor gives the Jets the best chance at securing a better draft position.
And yes, that's how bad things have gotten for the Jets…again.