It is finally official: after two years, the New York Jets have released quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
The transaction came down late on Wednesday after the NFL’s 2025 league year began. The Jets designated Rodgers as a post-June 1st release, which required them to wait until after 4 PM Eastern on Wednesday to process the move. The
Rodgers is now a free agent for the first time in his NFL career, hitting free agency at the age of 41. There remain a handful of teams looking for starting quarterbacks at this time, most notably the Pittsburgh Steelers and New York Giants. Reports have linked Rodgers to conversations with both of those teams so far, as the Jets had granted Rodgers permission to talk to other teams in the hope of working out a trade for the future Hall of Famer.
The Green Bay Packers traded Rodgers to the Jets before the 2023 NFL Draft, swapping the teams’ first-round picks at 13 and 15 overall while acquiring picks in the second and sixth rounds of that draft and a conditional pick in 2024. That pick remained a second-rounder after Rodgers tore his Achilles tendon on the fourth offensive snap of his first game with the Jets, ensuring that he did not reach the playing time required to elevate that 2024 draft pick to a first-round selection.
Now the Jets will be left with nothing to remember Rodgers’ two-year tenure by besides a hefty dead money charge in both 2025 and 2026. The release leaves $14 million in amortized signing bonus money on the cap this season and another $35 million in dead money in 2026. If the Jets had not released him without the post-June 1st designation, they would have absorbed the entire $49 million cap hit in 2025 instead.