Jets not being moved out of primetime just yet, even with Aaron Rodgers' season over
Garrett Wilson #17 of the New York Jets celebrates his fourth quarter touchdown against the Buffalo Bills at MetLife Stadium on Monday, Sep. 11, 2023 in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Robert Saleh isn’t the only one not giving up on the Jets in light of Aaron Rodgers’ season-ending injury. The NFL is also sticking with them… for now.
With five more primetime contests on their schedule and no star quarterback to drive ratings for those games, the league isn’t rushing to start swapping the Jets out of those coveted and important time slots.
“We’re going to always monitor who is playing their way on, what stories are emerging,” said Hans Schroeder, NFL executive vice president of media distribution, citing moves that brought the Lions and Jaguars into primetime slots last season on a Tuesday conference call with reporters. “But the Jets are 1-0 right now, there is a lot of football left across the entire league, and we’re going to do what we always do which is keep that focus on getting the best games in each of our windows as we move through the season.”
In reality, there aren’t many Jets games the NFL can move this season because of flexing rules. Week 4’s Sunday Night game against Kansas City is locked in place, as is the Week 12 Black Friday game against Miami on Amazon Prime. Monday Night Football games can be flexed this year, but only after Week 12 and the Jets will play the Chargers on that forum in Week 9.
That leaves just two Jets games that could potentially be moved: The Week 10 Sunday Night Football game at Las Vegas and the Week 17 Thursday Night game at Cleveland.
The NFL has some time before making any decisions on those contests. Maybe enough time for Zach Wilson or someone else to step in and prove they can carry the Rodgers ratings load.
“We’ve seen in this league a long history of players stepping up, new players emerging,” Schroeder said. “It happens every year. You saw what happened with [Brock] Purdy last year in San Francisco or what happened 20-plus years ago with [Tom] Brady in New England when [Drew] Bledsoe got hurt.”
As for the Monday Night Football opener, Schroeder said the league expects it to have been “the most watched Monday Night Football game on the ESPN era” when numbers come in.
“The game itself was an incredible win for the Jets,” Schroeder said. “We’re going to do what we always do, which is prepare and look ahead on our schedule. We’ve had a pretty good crystal ball as we think about things.”
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.
