Jets QB Aaron Rodgers' reign likely is over, but he went out his way
Aaron Rodgers #8 of the Jets reacts after throwing a fourth quarter touchdown pass against the Miami Dolphins at MetLife Stadium on Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025 in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Credit: Jim McIsaac
If this is it for Aaron Rodgers — and it very well may be here, at least — he knew how he wanted it to be scripted.
In the fourth quarter, he had a chance to run for a touchdown but pulled up at the last second and fired a sizzling spiral to the back of the end zone, where his football soulmate, Davante Adams, was waiting.
Another touchdown for the duo. There probably won’t be another.
After they were congratulated by others, the two former Packers walked back to the bench area, Rodgers’ arm around Adams, the prized football tucked under Adams’ arm.
They waited for each other again after the game, strolling off through the tunnel together, Rodgers giving the crowd an appreciative wave after throwing for four touchdowns in the Jets’ 32-20 win over the Dolphins.
“Just in case,” Adams said.
Two years ago, Rodgers made that walk with Randall Cobb at Lambeau Field. On Sunday, he did it with Adams at MetLife Stadium.
This was one last chance for Rodgers to call the shots for the Jets, and he took advantage of it. In a game in which he entered one touchdown pass shy of the 500th of his career, Rodgers looked as if he were determined to reach 600 as well.
Did that mean force-feeding the ball to some of his former Packers pals, Adams and Allen Lazard? You betcha, as they might say in Green Bay. They were the targets on 15 of his 36 pass attempts, with Adams getting 12 of them.
Did it mean emptying the playbook and calling some gimmicky attempts at backyard fun? How else to explain the pass Lazard tried to throw to Rodgers in the third quarter . . . and Lazard begging for him to call the play again.
Even during the national anthem, the three of them — Rodgers, Adams and Lazard — stood at midfield arm-in-arm while the rest of the team gave them their space.
No one admitted it was the end. Everyone just acted that way.
Well, almost everyone.
Running back Breece Hall, who may well have caught the final touchdown pass of Rodgers’ career late in the fourth quarter, hadn’t made that connection on his own. “Damn, that’s crazy,” he said when it was brought to his attention.
Rodgers said he will take some time to reflect in ways only he can before deciding if he will retire or if he wants to keep playing.
One thing is very clear, though: After two years here — one of them spent rehabbing and the other playing, neither of them with much winning — Rodgers’ reign of running things is over. No more recruiting buddies or orchestrating the coaching staff to his liking, no more being the largest figure looming over the organization. The Jets tried that, and it didn’t work.
With the offseason beginning, the Jets go back to being something else. Something even more ominous. They return to being Woody Johnson’s team. He’s the one in charge.
Uh-oh.
Johnson is the one who will spend the coming days and weeks interviewing and hiring head coaches and general managers. He is the one who ultimately will decide whether Rodgers plays again for the Jets.
He’s the one who again will try to shape the organization into a winner even though his previous efforts at such sculpting have resulted in mostly abstract clumps of green Play-Doh.
Of course, he also was the one who pushed for Rodgers to come here. Having him in charge certainly is not encouraging.
But it takes only one or two good hires to change the perspective of an organization. Just look at what has happened in recent years to the Knicks. They matched the right management with the right coach and the right players, and they’re no longer frustrating punch lines.
At some point Johnson will have to decide what is more important to him: Winning or having a big say in how things are run. The two have been mutually exclusive for most of his time owning the Jets.
The Jets’ best course of action wold be to hire smart, shrewd, experienced football people and let them do their thing . . . on their own.
Johnson stopped for a quick comment on the season after emerging from the locker room with his now-famous teenage sons after the win.
“Everybody thought, not just me, that this was a talented [team],” he said. “All the networks that are paying millions of dollars, they put us in six prime-time games. Everybody thought this was going to be unbelievable.”
It was. Just not in a good way.
“We didn’t live up to that early opinion of virtually everybody,” Johnson added, “but we ended up well. I don’t care about anything else, but a win at the end was good.
"We beat ’em today, they played well, they didn’t give up, everybody showed up. We did some really nice things. I’m proud of the guys.”
His next draft of Jets history will be very different in terms of who is here and who is not.
The results? We’ll see.
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.
