When Aaron Rodgers fails with the Jets, blame Tom Brady

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If Aaron Rodgers’ experiment fails with the New York Jets, and it will likely depend on what they define as success, the Jets will have a familiar face to blame for their failure.

Tom Brady.

In exchange for Aaron Rodgers, the Jets are counting on him to still be great after most great quarterbacks have moved on to celebrity golf.

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Aaron Rodgers turns 40 in December. His career began its downward trajectory. This should be obvious to just about everyone. But Brady changed expectations about what was possible for former quarterbacks.

But Aaron Rodgers is not Tom Brady.

In all honesty, no one is, but the Jets are asking him to be someone and accomplish something that only Brady has done before.

Brady wanted to play football forever. It’s unclear how much Rodgers has always wanted to play over the past two seasons, as he has mentioned his retirement on several occasions. He needed to take hallucinogens and go to a dark retreat to convince himself to keep playing.

His head needs to be fully engaged, because it’s asking a lot of his body to keep doing that.

Football players fade and decay as they age. It is not a prediction that he will fall off a cliff. He has already started rolling down the hill backwards. He may have won the press conference, but that’s one more win than he likely got in the playoffs.

He had fewer passing yards in 17 games than any previous season in which he played at least 15. He had fewer touchdowns (26) than in any full season other than 2018. And this year- there, he threw just two interceptions. In 2022, he threw 12. It was the most since he became a full-time starter. His rating (91.1) and QBR (39.3) were the worst of his career.

Neither the Jets nor anyone else wins a Super Bowl with this Aaron Rodgers. Is it realistic to think he’ll make a dramatic leap forward at his age (and suddenly become playoff good)?

This fictional idea that hell is better because it has something to prove in a new place is nonsense. If he needed to leave to rediscover his work ethic, then he and the Jets are in bigger trouble.

He needs everything to go well for it to work. He needs one thing to go astray for this to fail.

New York doesn’t offer the warm, fatherly embrace of its players the way Green Bay does. Her mysterious estrangement from her family and history of dating celebrities must have the tabloids licking their lips. It’ll only get worse if he doesn’t succeed.

It’s hard to know what constitutes success for the Jets. A Super Bowl? Make the playoffs? Finish higher than the Patriots in the standings?

Either way, it’s better to achieve it. Because when he retires, the Jets still won’t have their long-term quarterback.

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