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NY Jets must put final stake in Aaron Rodgers era after humiliating Week 10 loss

It's never been more over.
Justin Fried
Justin Fried

The Jet Press

Aaron Rodgers / Chris Coduto/GettyImages

The NY Jets swung for the fences when they acquired Aaron Rodgers in the 2023 offseason. The team hoped that trading for one of the greatest quarterbacks to ever play the sport of football would be enough to overcome years of dysfunction and misery.

Rodgers brought legitimate Super Bowl aspirations to an organization that had spent the better part of a decade in the NFL's basement. There was optimism — hope for a brighter future. In the end, Jets fans were treated to the same yearly embarrassment they've become all too familiar with.

The Rodgers experiment has been an unbridled disaster, an unmitigated failure comparable to any of the worst mistakes the Jets have made in franchise history. Even if the process made sense, the results have been calamitous.

Following the team's 31-6 decimation at the hands of the Arizona Cardinals in Week 10, one thing has become abundantly clear. The Jets need a complete organizational overhaul, and that starts with the man under center.

NY Jets must move on from Aaron Rodgers in the offseason

The expectation when the Jets acquired Rodgers was that they would be operating within a 2-3-year Super Bowl window. The first year of that plan was thrown out the window following Rodgers' torn Achilles in Week 1 of the 2023 season. The second year has somehow been even more disastrous.

The Jets now sit at 3-7 through 10 games, a wholesale worse football team than when Zach Wilson was their quarterback last year. They're closer to the first overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft than they are to a playoff spot.

The window of opportunity to compete with Rodgers — if there ever even was one — has been completely shut. The Jets will not win a Super Bowl with Rodgers as their quarterback.

That's why it's imperative the organization realizes this and allows the complete overhaul to take place. The Jets will hire a new head coach and general manager in the offseason. It will be a fresh start for a franchise that desperately needs one.

But with Rodgers still under contract and Woody Johnson running the show, there's a very real possibility the Jets run it back with No. 8 under center in 2025 with the hope of salvaging this current window. There is no window, and there may never have been one.

Keeping Rodgers for one more year would potentially set the organization back half a decade if not more. It would significantly limit the Jets' potential head coach and GM options and handcuff the new regime before they're even given a chance to establish their own identity.

The Jets aren't going on a miracle playoff run this season. They're not winning a Super Bowl with Rodgers as their QB in 2025. The Jets will not win with Aaron Rodgers.

It's time for a reset. It's time to move on. Do the right thing and start over in the offseason.

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Justin Fried

Justin Fried

Justin Fried is an editor for FanSided who has over seven years of experience covering the NFL and various other sports. A diehard Jets fan since birth, Justin has served as the editor for The Jet Press since 2019, interviewing athletes such as Sauce Gardner, Curtis Martin, LaDainian Tomlinson, Joe Klecko, and many others. Justin has also worked closely with brands like Red Bull to help highlight the niche sectors of the sporting world. His four-part series on the sport of breaking remains one of his proudest pieces of work. In his spare time, Justin is an avid pro wrestling fan who is fortunate enough to have traveled to nearly 30 different countries.