During his first press conference since a week of organizational upheaval, Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers seemed to tie his future with the team to the question of whether interim coach Jeff Ulbrich becomes the permanent head coach.
“If a new G.M. comes in and they don’t retain ‘Brick,’ I need to fit in those plans,” Rodgers said.
Rodgers also made it clear that he wants Ulbrich to get the job.
“I’m definitely all in on ‘Brick,'” Rodgers said. “I love ‘Brick.’ But, again, that’s out of my control. I mean, I’m not gonna say, ‘Brick or nothing.’ You know, I need to see how I’m feeling. Obviously, I would love to play for ‘Brick’ again. He’s a fantastic human being. But, you know, there’s a lot of things that can change in the next six weeks. There could be some really good feelings coming out of this, or there could be wholesale changes.
Bet on the wholesale changes. Ulbrich hasn’t won enough games to be a serious candidate for the job. And with owner Woody Johnson hiring an outside entity to help guide the search, the chance of the end result being “let’s keep the guy we have” is slim.
And then, when a new regime is in place, the chance of the Jets wanting to keep Rodgers around is even smaller.
The Rodgers experiment failed worse than Peter Brady’s volcano. This isn’t a new coaching staff inheriting a franchise quarterback. This is a new coaching staff cleaning up a mess. Rodgers is part of that mess.
Maybe he’ll go somewhere else in 2025 and play well. Still, it’s impossible at this point for the Jets to turn the page on a new beginning without closing the book on Rodgers.
