When Aaron Rodgers fails with Jets, blame Tom Brady

If the Aaron Rodgers experiment fails with the New York Jets, and it probably will depending on what they define as success, the Jets will have a familiar face to blame for their failure.

Tom Brady.

In trading for Aaron Rodgers, the Jets are counting on him to still be great well after most great quarterbacks have moved on to celebrity golf.

Aaron Rodgers turns 40 in December. His career has begun it’s downhill trajectory. That should be obvious to just about everyone. But Brady changed expectations about what was possible for old quarterbacks.

But Aaron Rodgers is not Tom Brady.

In fairness, nobody is, but the Jets are asking him to be someone and accomplish something that only Brady has done before.

Brady wanted to play football forever. It’s unclear just how much Rodgers has still wanted to play for the past two seasons as he’s mentioned retiring several times. He needed to take hallucinogens and go to a darkness retreat to convince himself to keep playing.

His head has to be fully committed, because it’s a lot to ask of his body to keep doing this.

Football players fade and break down as they get older. This isn’t a prediction that he’s going to fall off a cliff. He’s already started tumbling backward down the hill. He might have won the press conference, but that’s one more win than he likely get in the playoffs.

He had fewer passing yards in 17 games than in any previous season where he played at least 15. He had fewer touchdowns (26) than in any full season other than 2018. And in that year he threw just two interceptions. In 2022 he threw 12. That was the most since he first became a full-time starter. His rating (91.1) and QBR (39.3) were both the worst of his career.

Neither the Jets nor anyone else are winning a Super Bowl with that Aaron Rodgers. Is it realistic to think he’s going to take a dramatic step forward at his age (and suddenly become good in the playoffs)?

This fictional idea that he’ll be better because he has something to prove in a new location is absurd. If he needed to leave to rediscover his work ethic, then he and the Jets have bigger problems.

He needs everything to go right for it to work. He needs one thing to go astray for it to fail.

New York does not offer the paternal, warm embrace of its players that Green Bay does. His mysterious estrangement from his family and history of celebrity dating has to have the tabloids licking their lips. It’ll only get worse if he isn’t successful.

It’s hard to know what qualifies as success for the Jets. A Super Bowl? Making the playoffs? Finishing higher than the Patriots in the standings?

Whatever it is, he better achieve it. Because when he does retire, the Jets still won’t have their long-term quarterback.