Out of the darkness, from Aaron Rodgers’ lips to all Jets ears:
J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS!!!!
Fifty-four years and two months after Broadway Joe and Super Bowl III, 12 consecutive years now without a playoff appearance, here comes your Dark Knight in shining armor.
“I think since Friday, my intention was to play, and my intention was to play for the New York Jets,” Rodgers said Wednesday on “The Pat McAfee Show.”
The Jets need a HEXorcism.
The one hope, the only hope, the HEXorcist.
The Big Cheese — Aaron Rodgers — will be Quarterback, New York Jets, once the Packers and Jets stop trying to win the leverage battle and make a deal that is in the interests of both teams.
If Jets GM Joe Douglas must surrender the 13th pick of the 2023 NFL Draft, so be it.
It is first-and-goal now for Woody Johnson and the Jets.
An Aaron Rodgers touchdown pass wins the game.
And gives Woody Johnson his best chance to win that elusive second Super Bowl championship in franchise history, gives him his best chance to win his first championship since forking over $635 million in January 2000.
You cannot be all-in on Aaron Rodgers the way Johnson is all-in and commit what would be the greatest Buttfumble in Jets history now.
Get in the end zone, already.
Close the deal.
Forgive Johnson if he is practicing a Lambeau Leap somewhere inside the Atlantic Health Jets Training Center instead of off the roof. Same with Douglas. Same with Robert Saleh. Same with cheesehead burner Sauce Gardner and all the others whose 2022 playoff dreams were dashed by Zach Wilson’s implosion.
Open that Super Bowl window and let the light in.
Johnson Took Flight with his henchman last week for a meet-and-greet with Rodgers. “It was an easy conversation,” Rodgers said.
The Jets haven’t spent a lot of time being feared since Jan. 12, 1969.
Aaron Rodgers will make them feared again.
Especially if he is motivated to stick it to the Packers and show them they gave up on him too readily and unceremoniously. “They don’t want me to come back,” Rodgers said.
For however long it is — two years would be nice — the Jets will be no one’s homecoming game anymore.
Everything changes for them now, for all of them, the way it changed for the Mets when Buck Showalter showed up in the dugout. Changes perception and reality for the Jets.
It changes for Joe Douglas and Robert Saleh. Rodgers referring to him as “Rob” and noting that “Rob” was interested in his darkness retreat is a positive, no?
With games to be won, ALL PASS NO BRAKE may become Saleh’s new mantra.
Douglas aced the 2022 draft but whiffed on Wilson. If he had been right about Wilson, there would have been no desperation for Rodgers.
Saleh is 11-23 to date — guilty with an explanation — but it is no longer enough to trumpet how he has changed the culture, and how much his players love playing for him.
With Rodgers, and that defense, expectations should be a deep playoff run at worst.
Super Bowl-or-Bust is a daunting expectation given the number of Young Guns that litter the conference.
But it is no longer an Impossible Dream.
And here is what we will need to see from Aaron Rodgers — the same conviction for his teammates that his teammates recruiting him hard on social media have for him, the kind of commitment necessary when your one and only suitor makes you believe that the grass is greener on the other side of 39.
The Jets moved to make the transition smoother for Rodgers with the hiring on Jan. 26 of his trusted former offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett. “For people to say that was done just to attempt to lure me is a total disservice to Nathaniel Hackett, what he’s accomplished in his career, the kind of person that he is,” Rodgers said.
And then Douglas on Tuesday signed Rodgers favorite wide receiver Allen Lazard, because who needs a darkness retreat when you have Garrett Wilson on one side and a familiar big target on the other side? That reported wish list Rodgers handed the Jets? “Ridiculous,” he said.
I was there at the Jets’ old Hofstra training base when hyperventilating Jets fans greeted Brett Favre in his familiar No. 4 as the conquering hero. “I am here for one reason, I am here to help the Jets win,” he said.
It will be the same when the Dark Knight in shining armor rides into town on his green-and-white horse.
Even at 39, Rodgers is preserved a lot better than Favre was in 2008, who then had his 39-year-old shoulder betray him down the stretch. Favre rose up for one Last Hurrah as a Viking.
Rodgers may have some gray in his beard now but he is no graybeard quarterback.
He may come off to some as Aaron Oddgers, but Jets fans too young to remember the young Namath will be privy to what a Hall of Fame right arm looks like on Sundays.
In their eternal search for a franchise quarterback once Namath was gone, the Jets have drafted six quarterbacks in the first round.
Joe Willie, who has wanted so badly for The Next Joe Namath to arrive, was 25 when he won Super Bowl III against all odds. He turns 80 on May 31. He has given permission for the Jets to unretire his jersey so Rodgers can keep wearing his 12. “I’ve seen what Joe said,” Rodgers said. “There’ll be time to talk about that down the road.”
The Road to the Super Bowl.
For the Aaron Rodgers Jets.