The Jets had just capped their first touchdown drive of the season in San Francisco and it was flawless. Seventy yards in 12 plays. Aaron Rodgers connected with Garrett Wilson behind tremendous protection. Breece Hall got involved, too, eventually forcing his way into the end zone with a three-yard run. It was surgical. Everything everyone had waited to see.
ESPN cameras fixated on Rodgers when he reached the sideline. It wasn’t long before Wilson walked up to him. There was no audio, but a clear message read from the quarterback’s lips.
We’re just getting started.
It’s been two months and 10 days since. The Jets just fired general manager Joe Douglas. They fired head coach Robert Saleh and demoted offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett six weeks before. That promise, anticipation, hype … entirely evaporated. Another season over before the final game is played.
A sinking feeling overcoming a franchise that will assuredly miss the playoffs a 14th-straight year: Where do they go from here?
The depth chart read like an All-Star team, marrying perceived young superstars with veterans who had been there and done that. Chairman Woody Johnson called this the most talented roster he’d ever had, and those feelings weren’t misplaced. The line was stabilized after the additions of Tyron Smith and Morgan Moses. Rodgers, a four-time MVP, was healthy. They had Wilson, Hall. They added Braelon Allen. They knew they’d eventually have Davante Adams. They then paired that with a defense that had been one of the NFL’s best the last two years.
And the Jets looked as good as advertised throughout the summer. Especially in joint practices with the Commanders, Panthers, and Giants. This season would be special. It looked that way early, too. After losing to the San Francisco 49ers they beat the Tennessee Titans and New England Patriots. Rodgers talked about how the team’s biggest issue would be “handling success.”
They are 1-7 since that moment.
There were looked-past mistakes that certainly proved debilitating this season. Saleh fought hard to keep Mike LaFleur as his offensive coordinator after 2022, pointing towards the success his unit had with anyone other than Zach Wilson under center, but ownership wanted a change. He stressed how hard it would be to find a replacement – playoff mandate, no quarterback. That proved entirely true. Eventually, Hackett agreed to take the job. He promised he’d bring Rodgers with him.
But it wasn’t long before the Jets realized Hackett’s flaws, exposed after Rodgers’ season-ending injury in 2023. They tried to hire an offensive mind to work above Hackett this offseason, honing in on Arthur Smith. Hackett would remain the offensive coordinator, but Smith would run things. They told him they felt Hackett had “lost his fastball.” Smith took the Steelers’ coordinator job instead. The Jets decided to run it back with Hackett, believing Rodgers could overcome it all.
He couldn’t. The Jets’ offense sputtered even when having success. After losses to the Denver Broncos and Minnesota Vikings, both of which ended with the offense failing to score game-winning drives, the team fired Saleh and demoted Hackett. They promoted defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich. The problem: They never replaced Ulbrich as coordinator.
The result: The offense didn’t improve, the defense regressed, and the Jets continued to lose. Now, you have a team sources described to SNY as “checked out.” Players aren’t angry or annoyed at their 3-8 record. They’re, as one person described, “just ready for it to be over.”
There are seven weeks left in this season. It will give the Jets a jumpstart on another rebuild. They’re looking for a new general manager. They will be looking for a new head coach. Sources told SNY that the team prefers to move on from Rodgers, too. Those are the easy decisions, though. How to fill those voids poses a much greater challenge.
A search firm was used to find John Idzik. They fired him. Charley Casserly and Ron Wolf used to fire Mike Maccagnan (GM) and Todd Bowles (HC). They fired Bowles before Maccagnan, then used Maccagnan (and a phone call from Peyton Manning) to hire Adam Gase. They then fired Maccagnan and used Gase to help find Douglas. They then fired Gase and let Douglas hire Saleh.
The Jets should start by hiring a director of football operations. Let him find the general manager. Let that general manager find the coach and the quarterback, with input from the director of football operations. The Jets are in dire need of football minds in their building – to let those football minds make decisions.
If they do, maybe they can turn this around– something they haven’t been able to do for the better part of a decade.
