FOXBOROUGH, Mass — From the day he walked into their lives, there wasn’t a soul among the Jets, from top to bottom, who couldn’t stop telling the world how Aaron Rodgers raised the standard of everyone in the building, and how he elevated everyone with his football wisdom and the kind of magical right arm none of them had ever seen.
The honeymoon is on its last legs.
If Rodgers wants that rarefied New York legacy reserved for legends, he better start building it, and now.
He has thrown six interceptions across his past three games and is the not-so-proud owner of a 40-year-old hamstring, a 40-year-old knee and a 40-year-old ankle.
But it always has been folly to count him out, even if he has never been a 40-year-old Jet, and more help than anyone anticipated he would need has mercifully arrived.
Rodgers tried as hard as he could to change the culture, but in a matter of days, the Jets tell us that it was Davante Adams, his all-time favorite receiver, who miraculously changed it.
If that is the case, we should expect more energy and juice and joie de vivre and T-E-A-M from the Jeff Ulbrich Jets on Sunday against the Patriots, and more mental toughness in the face of adversity.
And Haason Reddick, for however long he plays in his long-awaited Jets debut, will be helping Will McDonald and Quinnen Williams hunt Drake Maye if and when Rodgers can seize a lead and keep it this time.
If Rodgers has any “savior” in him, he should recognize he needs to save a season in peril, and save it now.
“I need to be a great leader,” Rodgers said this week. “It starts with me, and I’m going to set the tone this week.”
It actually started with him from the start, that day 19 months ago when he walked into the Atlantic Health Jets Training Center and noticed the lonely Super Bowl III Lombardi trophy still desperate after all these years for a companion.
This is no time to even utter the words Super Bowl. That can and should be put to rest for now — when even Joe Namath might be reticent about guaranteeing a win, even over these Patriots.
The Jets have for decade after decade been a sinkhole for franchise quarterbacks young and old, for veteran hired guns. No one could possibly envision Aaron Rodgers, future first-ballot Hall of Famer, suffering the Same Old Fate.
He is 2-5 as the starting quarterback of the Jets, and no one cares that he would be 4-3 had Greg Zuerlein made the field goals he is paid to make.
Rodgers wasn’t brought here to be 4-3, much less 2-5.
He has had seven games to knock off the rust from his lost 2023 season.
He has had two games to acclimate himself to interim head coach Jeff Ulbrich and new playcaller Todd Downing.
He has had one game to renew vows with Adams.
No excuses.
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That won’t be Tom Brady and Bill Belichick on the other side. It will be Jerod Mayo, a rookie head coach, and Maye, a rookie first-round pick making his third NFL start, and Mayo’s soft defense. It was against the Patriots last month, and only against the Patriots, that Rodgers resembled MVP Aaron.
That quarterback has gone AWOL.
The burden of proof is on him now to raise the standard of his own play, and elevate his own play and those around him. The burden of proof is on him to show that age is just a number, two months from his 41st birthday.
Of course, his challenge is all the more daunting because these are the Woody Johnson Jets, where calamity and chaos and turmoil relentlessly rear their ugly heads.
The offensive line that was bolstered over the offseason to keep him upright has too often left him battered and sore.
But blame the playcaller and blame Rodgers, because this is his offense, for relegating the run game to a veritable afterthought. Whatever happened to the raging-bull visions of 220-pound Breece Hall and 240-pound rookie Braelon Allen imposing their will on a defense?
Against the Vikings, the pass-run ratio was 54-14. Against the Bills, it was 35-21. Against the Steelers, it was 39-15.
Run the damn ball!
In a different era, Namath (17-for-28, 206 yards, zero touchdowns, zero interceptions) won Super Bowl III leaning heavily on FB Matt Snell (30-for-121 rushing with a touchdown, 4-for-40 receiving).
And it would be nice if Ulbrich’s beloved defense showed more pride than it did in the first half against the Bills and in both halves against the Steelers.
It is disturbing that the Jets have resembled a bunch of independent contractors searching for an identity, and a paycheck. Remember the 2011 Eagles? Who imported marquee names and branded themselves a Dream Team? They lost eight of their first 12 games.
Ulbrich is learning on the fly. It is trial by error for him as interim head coach. The owner has been counting on Rodgers to be the deodorant. It is time for Rodgers to do away with the stench.
After all the hype and all the hullabaloo and all the headlines, it is time for Rodgers to find a way to win, and keep winning. If that’s too much to ask, then he and the Jets will be retreating back together into the Same Old Darkness.
