One New York football team has already benched and released its starting quarterback before the end of the 2024 NFL season.
Is it possible we could see that same scenario play out with the other New York football team?
According to a report from The Athletic’s Diana Russini on Saturday, New York Jets owner Woody Johnson has reportedly lost faith in quarterback Aaron Rodgers’ abilities and that it is possible the team could either place him on injured reserve or perhaps even bench him for the remainder of the season.
She also suggests there are some around the NFL who believe Rodgers could even be released before the season ends, which would be a nearly identical storyline to what unfolded with the New York Giants and quarterback Daniel Jones.
With Johnson having already fired head coach Robert Saleh and general manager Joe Douglas this season, it seems as if the Jets are fully committed to moving on from this failed era and hitting the reset button this offseason.
It seems logical that the next person to pay the price for the disappointment of this season would be Rodgers.
All of this is a stunning reality given the hype and excitement that came with Rodgers’ arrival in New York prior to the 2023 season.
He was supposed to be the missing piece for a Super Bowl puzzle with the Jets, giving a young, talented team with a great defense a franchise quarterback to become a contender in the AFC. But Rodgers was injured just four plays into the 2023 season, and he has come back this season a shell of his former self. The Jets actually have a worse winning percentage with Rodgers than they did in previous years under Sam Darnold and Zach Wilson.
The Jets are now on track to miss the playoffs for the 14th consecutive season, the longest active postseason drought of the four major North American sports leagues.
This report comes just a week after reports surfaced that Johnson had wanted to bench Rodgers following the team’s Week 4 loss to the Denver Broncos, only to have the coaching staff and front office talk him out of it.
A week later, Saleh was fired, and then a couple of weeks after that, Douglas was fired. Now there might not be anybody left in a position to stop Johnson from getting his wish.
The only problem Johnson will run into then is that he will officially be out of scapegoats and might have to actually start looking in the mirror for why his team keeps failing. The general managers, head coaches and quarterbacks keep changing. The results remain the same. At this point, there is only one common denominator remaining. It is the owner.
