Jets are going down with Aaron Rodgers as they head to the trade deadline

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – The Jets dropped their fifth straight game on Sunday, a stunning 25-22 loss to the lowly Patriots. Here are some thoughts and observations from the game:

1. I thought the Aaron Rodgers trade was good in April 2023. The Jets had to make a move because Zach Wilson was broke. It was a gamble to bring in a player who was about to turn 40, but it felt like it could work.

That is not the case.

Rodgers is now eight games into his second season with the Jets and his tenure has been a total disaster. No one can blame him for the injury in his first season, but his play in the second season was not good. There have been flashes of the old Rodgers, but for the most part he looked like an old Rodgers.

The Jets always took a risk with an older quarterback. Tom Brady made people forget that, but he was an alien. Most quarterbacks drop out before they turn 40 years old or soon after. Brady was the only one who could achieve success at such an old age. Peyton Manning’s final season wasn’t good for him, but the Broncos’ defense got them to a Super Bowl.

There’s a saying about quarterbacks that someone told me a long time ago and it sticks with me. Good quarterbacks hide your team’s warts and bad quarterbacks expose them.

When Rodgers was at his best all those years in Green Bay, it didn’t matter if the defense wasn’t great or if he didn’t have the best supporting cast around him. Rodgers was so good he hid the warts. Rodgers is now on the other side. He exposes the Jets’ warts. The running game stinks. The offensive line is struggling and we overrated the weapons and defense.

There is nothing the 2024 Jets can do now. They have to sit through this with Rodgers. There may come a point where he has to sit out due to his injuries, but there is no one waiting in the wings to take over as your quarterback of the future. Tyrod Taylor is 35 years old. Jordan Travis is on the non-football injury list and will not play this season. Rodgers goes down with the ship.

2. The trade deadline is a week away, on November 5. The Jets need to have some tough conversations after coming through Thursday’s game against the Texans. Is it time to start selling players to get draft picks?

This is a really weird situation, because selling pieces at the deadline is usually something reserved for rebuilding teams. The Jets are a win-now team that can’t win.

In Joe Douglas’ early years as GM, they moved pieces at the deadline, most notably Leonard Williams. But that was with the idea that the Jets were at least a year or two away from being a contender and needed draft picks. The Jets traded for Davante Adams two weeks ago, a sign that they were going for it this year.

Douglas is out of contract this year and with the way this season is going, it feels like there’s no chance he’ll be back in 2025. He’s been feeling like a lame duck since Woody Johnson fired Robert Saleh earlier this month. Does Douglas think it’s important to get draft picks for his successor? Is Johnson telling him to, or is he still delusional about how great this roster is?

I see DJ Reed, Mike Williams, Morgan Moses and Tyler Conklin having some trade value and they are all in the final year of their contracts. Would any of the teams that wanted Adams a few weeks ago still be interested? It would be crazy to see a player traded twice in one month, but this is a crazy season.

Trading veterans is waving the white flag. If there’s even an ounce of fight left in the veteran Jets, you take it from them. That’s the downside of trading players. But these Jets haven’t shown much fight, so it might be time to turn the page to 2025.

3. The Jets defense ranks fourth in the NFL in yards allowed per play. That shows how meaningless statistics can be.

This defense once again couldn’t make the big stop when the Jets needed it in the fourth quarter. They rolled over to Jacoby Brissett and the Patriots, a terrible offense.

I thought the Jets defense would take a step back this year, but I didn’t expect it to be this dramatic. Their stars are not playing well. Sauce Gardner is not having a good season. Quinnen Williams played well on Sunday, but hasn’t been his disruptive self for most of the year. CJ Mosley was injured. Quincy Williams is not playing as well as last year.

The only Jets defenseman to exceed expectations is Will McDonald, who has eight sacks.

The other confusing aspect of this defense is the inability to force turnovers. The Jets have six takeaways and just two interceptions this season. Both interceptions were by backup Brandin Echols. They never come up with an interception in those key fourth-quarter situations.

The defense has undoubtedly taken a step back since Saleh was fired. It could be that Saleh had more to do with the defense than we thought. Jeff Ulbrich may be overloaded with head coaching and defensive coordinator duties.

Ulbrich should strongly consider giving up defensive play-calling to an assistant and see if that works. Right now, what the Jets are doing isn’t working.

4. Jets fans know how this is going to go. The team has been so bad that you start dreaming of a top-five draft pick and possibly a franchise quarterback. But you know the Jets are going to win just enough to cost you the top draft pick, but not enough to make the playoffs. We’ve seen this movie before.

The Jets’ schedule remains incredibly weak. The Texans and Bills are the only teams with winning records left on the schedule. I get the feeling the Jets would struggle to beat Bergen Catholic on Monday morning, but the reality is they will win some games in the last two months. A 6-11 or 7-10 record should be just enough to cost them a shot at quarterback and the vicious cycle continues.

Revealing stat

This is from a football perspective: the Jets scored 20 or more points, committed no turnovers and held the Patriots to under 250 yards rushing. From 1940 through Sunday, teams were 756-0 when they achieved these three stats. The Jets broke that streak.

Surprising number of snaps

Xavier Gipson had six more offensive snaps. He did score a touchdown. I was surprised his numbers were so low with Allen Lazard out of the lineup. But Mike Williams got more work with 36 snaps. I think Gipson can bring a dimension of speed that other receivers can’t. The Jets need to figure out how to use it.

Game ball

There aren’t many candidates in this race, but I’m going with Quinnen Williams. He had a sack and a half and looked more like himself in this game than he has lately. He was sometimes dominant.