Sorry, Jets, you're not a quarterback away from being a contender
Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers walks the field before an NFL game against the Dolphins on Sunday in Miami Gardens, Fla. Credit: AP/Lynne Sladky
Maybe they were right.
Maybe the 2023 Jets were a team that was “a quarterback away” from contending for a title, to echo the sentiments of the highest offices within the organization since the earliest stages of this past offseason.
We’ll never know because the quarterback they thought would be that huge difference-maker never made it out of the first offensive series of the season and just about everything which happened after that, right through Sunday’s 30-0 shellacking in Miami that eliminated them from playoff contention, was essentially a fallout from those opening moments. This whole season has been one huge “what if” for a team that thought it had finally answered that question.
Even if it were true, however, the past few months have shown us that it can’t be the mentality the Jets move forward with as they head into this new offseason. There are too many holes on the roster, too many variables that can take place, for the team to honestly believe it can simply bring this group back for 2024, add a healthy Aaron Rodgers (assuming he is that), and become instantly competitive.
Sure, quarterback is an important position to address, and the Jets will need to have a much more solid backup plan in place for it when they return next year with a 40-year-old coming back from an Achilles injury that he attempted to mend with what has seemed to be more focus on speed than longevity. Quarterbacking has been the bane for the Jets these last two seasons, the downfall of teams that probably would not have won titles but certainly were talented enough to snap the 13-season playoff drought at some point.
The Jets cannot think of themselves as a quarterback away any longer. Because it’s just not accurate.
Their new shopping list for the coming months needs to be long and deep, and this time include more than just those who are on Rodgers’ speed dial and in his inner circle. They need offensive linemen. They need receivers. They need safeties and linebackers. They need a second running back who can come closer to matching the starter’s production. Did we mention offensive line? Good, it deserves to be noted twice.
And yes, they probably need a healthy, cleansing shake-up on a coaching staff that has not proven to be up to the challenges, unique though they were, that this season presented.
They certainly would have won more games with Rodgers, would have been more competitive in several others with him as well. Yet there were so many times these Jets were overmatched and outplayed in which the quarterback had nothing to do with their misery. They can’t be lulled into believing that Rodgers would have solved all of their ills, or worse, that he will next year.
Just because this group failed without Rodgers doesn’t mean they will succeed with him. Somehow, though, they feel dangerously close to that delusional logic.
“Obviously in my heart, I feel like we built a championship roster,” coach Robert Saleh said on Monday, having lost six of the last seven games and compiling a 16-32 record over his nearly three full seasons with the Jets. “But at the end of the day we still have to find ways to win with the guys who are on the football field and we have to be better as coaches, better as players. We’ve got to find a way to string together plays, find a way to stop offenses and make plays on special teams. We’ve got to be better in situational football. It goes all the way across the board. But I do have a lot of confidence in the guys in the locker room? I love the players that are in that locker room. We’ve just all got to be a little bit better.”
Counting on improvement from these current players who have proven who and what they are is not exactly the kind of plan Jets fans are hoping to hear about at this point.
At least one person in the organization appears to get it. Too bad C.J. Mosley is only the defensive captain and Pro Bowl linebacker and not a true decision-maker. He admitted that the “moving parts” at quarterback (a player euphemism for “egregious ineptitude” if ever there was one) have handicapped the team the last two years, but he went on to say that fixing it won’t solve all of the Jets’ issues.
“If we’re just depending on one person, one position, to save our organization, then it’s never going to happen,” he said on Monday. “It has to be everybody. Everybody has to have that mindset, everybody has to believe that, as I’ve said before, they’re the reason why we are here to win, they’re the reason why we are taking those next steps. If we put all our chips on one person, nine times out of 10 it’s not going to happen. This is a team sport … We all have to have that mindset of ‘I want to be the reason why things change tomorrow.’ ”
This year’s team got caught up in the idea that Rodgers could single-handedly save the Jets. The coaches and front office and ownership were giddy over his presence and his knowledge and his mystique, over the ovations he received at training camp and the way he came across on “Hard Knocks,” so they talked themselves into that line of thinking. When Rodgers left the picture as a viable on-field option, though, the Jets found out who they really are.
They are a 5-9 team that has three weeks to potentially become worse. They are a stay-home-in-January squad. They are a roster without anyone capable of rising above Rodgers’ absence on their own and full of others who weigh down the otherwise buoyant segments of the locker room.
They are not a team that is a quarterback away from anything except, without significant shuffling and retooling elsewhere, another potentially disappointing season in 2024.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
