For a Jets fan waiting on Aaron Rodgers to make his big move, this is cruel and unusual punishment. Check that — it’s cruel and usual punishment.
No metropolitan area consumer group has been subjected to more setbacks than the men and women who support MetLife Stadium’s secondary tenants. Excruciating delays are, in fact, part of the Jets’ season-ticket plan.
And so, on muscle memory, the hopes that were raised Friday by the words of Packers president Mark Murphy were also tempered by past heartbreak. Asked during a Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association girls basketball tournament telecast if Rodgers would return to Green Bay for the 2023 season, Murphy said that would happen only “if things don’t work out the way that we would want them.” He added that the Packers are “trying to find out what [Rodgers] wants and what we want, and hopefully we can find a win-win situation.”
Murphy also referred to Rodgers’ career in Green Bay in the past tense in an interview with WBAY-TV. He pointed out that very few players end up playing for only one NFL team and spoke of Rodgers someday going into the Hall of Fame. “We’ll bring him back and retire his number,” Murphy said.
That should be a walk-off touchdown for Jets fans, followed by a celebratory slam dunk of the football over the crossbar. A Packers executive just publicly admitted that his team doesn’t want Rodgers back, and that the four-time league MVP would retain his current job only if he effectively forces his employer to keep him.
Hey, set up the press conference in Florham Park, and make sure someone arranges the car service to get Joe Namath there.
Until further notice, however, it’s not quite that simple. Nothing is ever quite that simple with the Jets.
Rodgers clearly knows that, too. In October, after his team lost a home game to the Jets, the Packers quarterback praised Robert Saleh’s coaching and Joe Douglas’ roster. But in making his point on “The Pat McAfee Show,” Rodgers said, “That’s not the Same Old Jets.”
So a guy who played his high school and college ball in California, and spent his entire NFL career on an NFC team in Wisconsin, knew all about the S-O-J. In other words, Rodgers knows how the New York market and the rest of the league perceives the organization.
Jets fans are wired to worry about such things. The team’s decision-makers hopped on Woody Johnson’s jet Tuesday and flew across the country for their Malibu meeting with Rodgers, and everyone supposedly came away happy. ESPN’s Dianna Russini reported that the Jets’ traveling party was optimistic enough after the sit-down to believe they were “on the brink” of landing the future Hall of Famer.
But as of Friday evening, the Jets were still on the brink of either something pretty damn special, or something that would be filed under memorable S-O-J moments. Maybe Rodgers planned on ending the waiting game later Friday night, or sometime this weekend, in advance of the start to free agency next week.
Maybe Rodgers has no concerns about the Jets’ legitimacy, or about Woody Johnson’s Woody-ness. Maybe he has already decided to finish his career at the Meadowlands, and just doesn’t want to announce his intentions publicly in case Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst plans on using his stated preference as leverage in trade negotiations with Douglas.
Or maybe Rodgers has called timeout on the 5-yard line while asking himself, “Am I really going to put my endgame in the hands of the New York Jets?”
The Packers would’ve never granted the Jets permission to speak with and meet with Rodgers if they had any intention of keeping Jordan Love on the bench for another year, or if they hadn’t already decided that Douglas would indeed surrender some kind of package that would make the trade work.
On top of everything else, star cornerback Sauce Gardner posted a unique recruiting video of him burning the cheesehead he grabbed at Lambeau Field in a backyard barbecue attended by teammates Garrett Wilson and Breece Hall. The old Jets, the middle-aged Jets and the young Jets all want Rodgers. A team divided by quarterback issues all last season stands unified on this front.
So what’s the holdup? The Jets have revealed their desperation for an accomplished veteran quarterback, and their owner has confirmed that he’s willing to spend big for said veteran quarterback. The team hired an offensive coordinator, Nathaniel Hackett, who is positively adored by Rodgers, and everyone agrees that the defense is already set to contend.
And yet the deal isn’t done. Jets fans are left to hope and pray that nothing goes wrong near the goal line, because that’s what they’ve been trained to do.
Jets fans lead the league in waiting. They’ve been doing that since January 1969.