It’s because he knows this team has gotten better across the board since last season. There’s a reason Saleh took exception to everyone writing off the Jets after Rodgers went down. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images) (Elsa via Getty Images) The Jets' defense is loaded with players like Quinton Jefferson, who could help carry the team to a lot of wins this season. But the team’s brain trust doesn’t believe that's the guarantee most are making it out to be. Could that change? Could Wilson revert to his 2022 basement? Certainly. And the leadership? It’s exponentially more widespread than last season and far more capable of rallying around and carrying Wilson.Įven Wilson himself seems to have grown in just a few months behind Rodgers, showcasing not only the humility to take a back seat and learn but also a mindset to pick himself up and respond when he makes a mistake, rather than coming apart at the seams. The health? For now, even with Rodgers’ devastating injury, it’s better. The offense? Deeper, talented and more experienced. The defense? Deeper, more talented and more experienced. This edition? It’s simply and unquestionably better than the one Wilson was expected to commandeer last season. That’s no longer the case.īut there’s also more than 2022 to take into account when it comes to the makeup of this current Jets roster. And the added value of trading for Rodgers was putting someone in front of Wilson whom he could watch and learn from, safely out of the blast radius of criticism if anything went wrong with the offense in 2023. He seemed mentally broken and in need of a total reset. Wilson was abysmal in 2022 to the point of losing the locker room and sending the brain trust looking for his replacement. It’s undeniable that there is recent history to back up that notion. Matthew Stafford has been speculated, despite the Los Angeles Rams winning their opener over the Seattle Seahawks in eye-opening fashion and Stafford carrying an extinction-level salary-cap escalation if he were to be traded.Īll of that worthless oversimplification has carried the same undertone: Surely, the Jets can’t just go with Zach Wilson. Tom Brady was immediately and prominently injected into the conversation, despite his in-motion purchase of an ownership stake in the Las Vegas Raiders. Fueled by ridiculously speculative notions of unicorn quarterbacks who could be added to the mix, opinions have run rampant about how the franchise should replace one aging icon with another. Naturally, that has been the dominant question orbiting the Jets since Tuesday. … It especially sucks because he had a chance to get paid off in football - I don’t mean the money - to ride off with something under his arm.

You don’t want to see that for anyone, but especially someone who gives all that energy to your whole building.

“Having that be the end result of all that work, I’m just sick for them,” one general manager said Tuesday. Along with them went the immense amount of work undertaken by general manager Joe Douglas and head coach Robert Saleh. When Rodgers took a seat on the turf Monday, the most hopeful notions of the Jets’ atmospheric ceiling this season flattened out beside him. And while that’s just a vantage through the betting peephole, it’s fair to say it’s representative of many opinions across the league. So much so that the Jets’ Super Bowl odds went from 18-to-1 to 66-to-1 at BetMGM. And for a moment, it appeared that Aaron Rodgers would.īut one game into the 2023 season, the loss of Rodgers has reintroduced a familiar quarterback void, rekindling the belief that this is not a team built to reach a February Super Bowl stage.

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