The Jets ended their season on Sunday with a 17-3 road win over the New England Patriots. It marked another conclusion to the regular season in which the Jets will not be playing in the postseason—they finished 7-10 and in third place in the NFC. Overall, the Jets were tied with the Chicago Bears, Atlanta Falcons, and Minnesota Vikings, all 7-10 as well, for the sixth-worst record in the 32-team NFL.
The Jets have ignominiously missed the playoffs for the 13th straight season, the longest streak among all franchises in the four major North American professional sports leagues (NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL). Relatedly, they have the No. 10 pick in April’s draft.
So what did the Jets’ CEO, Robert Wood Johnson IV, commonly known as Woody Johnson, decide about moving forward? He doubled down on the trio of general manager Joe Douglas, head coach Robert Saleh, and quarterback Aaron Rodgers. They all have retained their positions for now.
”My decision is to keep them,” Johnson told the Post regarding Douglas and Saleh on Christmas Eve before the Jets’ 30-28 win over the Washington Commanders, which fired their head coach, Ron Rivera, on Monday after a 4-13 campaign. “I think we’ve had some very positive moves. The culture of the team is a lot better. The defense is better. The offense needs a few pieces.”
The Jets hired Douglas in June 2019. Saleh, who was previously the San Francisco 49ers defensive coordinator from 2017 through the 2020 season, joined the Jets organization in January of 2021. In three full seasons together, the tandem is 18-33.
Keeping Rodgers for at least one more season is the most logical decision, considering the depth of the assets they traded to the Green Bay Packers last April to obtain the now 40-year-old polarizing signal caller.
The Jets surrendered their first-round pick (No. 15) from last year’s draft, a second-rounder from last year (No. 42), their 2023 sixth-round slot (No. 207), and a conditional second-round pick in this year’s draft if Rodgers had played 65% of the Jets’ plays this season. He didn’t come close to reaching that, suffering a torn left Achilles four snaps into the Jets’ September 11 season opener versus the Buffalo Bills.
Rodgers has been more of a controversial presence of controversy than an aid to stabilizing and improving the Jets’ circumstances. His weekly appearances on ESPN’s “The Pat McAfee Show” have been replete with COVID vaccine conspiracy theories, self-absorbed teasers about whether he was going to miraculously return to play before the Jets season ended, and—most recently—implying that late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel was among the infamous list of well-known and powerful people who appear in court documents associated with the notorious financier and child molester Jeffrey Epstein, who was determined to have committed suicide in 2019 while in federal custody at the Metropolitan Correctional Facility in lower Manhattan.
Kimmel has vehemently denied the allegations and threatened to take legal action against Rodgers. The latter is a four-time NFL MVP, and winner and MVP of Super Bowl XLV in 2011. He is the supposed leader of the Jets and seemingly has substantial influence over personnel and other decisions.
Rodgers’s narcissistic behavior isn’t reflective of how to improve a team’s culture. If Johnson, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom from 2017–2021, appointed by Donald Trump, views his QB’s self-absorbed actions as diplomatic and unifying, and aiding in the collective growth of the team, then it’s emblematic of why they have been a lower-tier team for 13 consecutive seasons.