FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — The New York Jets celebrated Thanksgiving 2008 in the perfect of locations — first within the AFC East. They had been 8-3, coming off a dominating win over the beforehand undefeated Tennessee Titans. Quarterback Brett Favre, acquired a couple of month earlier than the season as a legend-for-hire, was doing Favre issues at age 39.
“I felt like that was a Tremendous Bowl workforce,” former Jets sort out Damien Woody recalled final week.
The 2024 Jets entered the season with the identical lofty expectations, however they start Thanksgiving week within the actual reverse place — a 3-8 report, tied for final place. Aaron Rodgers, one week shy of his forty first birthday, hasn’t regarded something just like the quarterback who received 4 MVP awards with the Inexperienced Bay Packers.
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Rodgers’ tenure in New York has been a failure. Sixteen years in the past, the Favre experiment fizzled after a promising begin. The Jets are 0-for-2 when importing former Packers icons.
Rodgers and Favre, former Inexperienced Bay teammates, are linked in so some ways, and now they may have yet another factor to speak about once they run into one another at memorabilia occasions or in Canton, Ohio, on the Professional Soccer Corridor of Fame, the place Rodgers will be a part of Favre in the future.
Their trades to New York fueled hope and pleasure for a forlorn franchise. Favre gathered extra highlights in a single yr than Rodgers has produced in two (together with an injury-shortened 2023), however their last epitaph most likely will learn the identical manner:
Two ageing legends who fell in need of the playoffs and bought their coaches fired.
Eric Mangini was dismissed after going 9-7 in 2008, his second profitable season in three years. Robert Saleh was sacked after a 2-3 begin this season; he was 20-36 total.
“I actually believed in what we had been doing,” Mangini mentioned final week. “Looking back, I might say it is by no means good to get that one piece that is supposed to place you excessive. I believe we’d’ve received a ton of video games with Chad [Pennington].”
Ah, sure — the proverbial “lacking piece.”
THE JETS DUMPED Pennington in 2008. He went on to steer the Miami Dolphins to the AFC East title that yr — a salt-in-the-wound second for Jets followers. The rationale behind the quarterback change was Favre would convey a dynamic component to an already proficient offense.
In 2023, the Jets traded for Rodgers as a result of they wanted a alternative for the disappointing Zach Wilson, drafted No. 2 total in 2021, they usually felt Rodgers would full a playoff-caliber roster.
Rodgers, in his introductory information convention in 2023, mentioned he and Favre mentioned his commerce to the Jets in 2008. A hopeful Rodgers anticipated to have a greater consequence, saying, “That was a distinct teaching workers, completely different GM, completely different circumstances. I am excited in regards to the alternative with these guys and my new teammates.”
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Since then, they’re 10-18, with Rodgers having sat out 16 video games due to his torn left Achilles tendon. They’ve but to attain 30 factors in any of his begins.
“Typically a participant of that stature is usually a present and a curse,” mentioned former operating again Thomas Jones, who rushed for 1,312 yards in 2008. “Having an Aaron Rodgers or Brett Favre is nice, however you’ll be able to’t let their mystique supersede all the pieces else.”
The present Jets is perhaps responsible of that, as they constructed all the pieces round Rodgers. They employed his shut pal, Nathaniel Hackett, to run the offense. They put in Rodgers’ system, they usually acquired a few of his former receivers, most just lately Davante Adams.
Jones mentioned it may be “harmful” when one participant is placed on a pedestal. He does not imagine that was the case with Favre.
“We did not see Brett because the chief of the workforce,” he mentioned. “We noticed Brett as an asset. We did not depend on Brett for management. We did not depend on him to be the hero.”
Favre was surrounded by six different teammates who made the Professional Bowl that yr, together with Jones. It was a championship-caliber roster, however Favre tore a biceps tendon in his throwing arm and all the pieces collapsed. They misplaced 4 of their final 5 video games, with a compromised Favre throwing 9 interceptions in that span. He completed with a league-high 22 to go together with his 22 landing passes.
“With out realizing Aaron in any respect, however watching from the skin trying in, it looks like a radically completely different strategy,” Mangini mentioned, evaluating every now and then. “Brett needed to be a part of the workforce. Brett needed to do the issues we had been doing. He needed to be one of many guys as an alternative of being checked out as some particular savior.
“He by no means mentioned, ‘That is what I need to do’ or ‘That is what I’ll do.’ There was none of that. He by no means mentioned gamers, saying, ‘This man has to begin’ or ‘I need this man.'”
Mangini was describing Favre’s post-trade angle. At first, he did not need to play for the Jets. It took three weeks of onerous recruiting earlier than they satisfied him to OK the commerce.
Favre, after a bitter divorce from the Packers, needed to play for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, however the Packers weren’t about to commerce him inside their convention.
So it was both play for the Jets or sit at residence in Mississippi. As soon as Favre arrived, he purchased in, in line with Mangini and former teammates. At that time, in mid-August, Favre was leaping on a practice that had already left the station. In contrast to Rodgers, he did not have an extended run-up to the season. It restricted his capacity to wield affect in personnel, however he needed to study the playbook and his teammates on the fly.
Rodgers, too, had an acrimonious cut up with the Packers, however he did not play onerous to get. He publicly declared his want to play for the Jets, which meant quite a bit to the franchise and its fan base. Think about, a real legend really needed to play for them. Nonetheless, he fights the notion of getting a me-first angle, as Mangini alluded to, due to the way in which the group caters to his desires.
In contrast to Favre, who threw six landing passes in a blowout win over the Arizona Cardinals, Rodgers hasn’t produced any signature video games.
His 17-7 touchdown-interception ratio is okay by Jets’ historic requirements, but it surely’s not a typical Rodgers yr. He has gone 33 straight video games with no 300-yard passing efficiency, relationship to 2021.
Favre had no 300-yard video games with the Jets. It is mind-boggling that two of the best passers in historical past have failed to achieve that plateau in a mixed 28 begins.
“I see a man in Aaron, he seems like a man who does not need to get hit anymore,” Woody mentioned. “He seems outdated. He does not push the ball down the sector in any respect. He cannot run. He seems like a 40-year-old quarterback. That is what he seems like.”
FORMER PACKERS FULLBACK John Kuhn, who performed with Rodgers and Favre in Inexperienced Bay, says he believes Rodgers has been undermined by the workforce’s dysfunction — the in-season modifications at head coach, playcaller and basic supervisor.
“It is a scorching mess in New York,” Kuhn mentioned. “I do not know the way you get continuity, I do not know the way you get rhythm, I do not know the way you get scheduling when there’s a lot chaos and alter round you always.
“Aaron hasn’t performed his finest, however I do not know if that place is conducive to acting at your finest.”
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In 2008, the Jets noticed some classic Favre till he injured his arm. Nobody is aware of precisely when that occurred, together with Mangini. Woody says he believes it occurred in apply earlier than the five-game tailspin on the finish of the season. Mangini, GM Mike Tannenbaum and the workforce finally had been fined by the league workplace for withholding info on the damage report.
“You would simply inform, like, ‘Uh, oh, one thing dangerous simply occurred,'” Woody mentioned. “You knew we had been in a foul state of affairs. We had been flying excessive. Then, impulsively, Brett will get damage in apply and that simply derailed all the pieces.”
Mentioned Jones: “We crashed and burned.”
Favre underwent surgical procedure after the season, requested his launch from the Jets, signed with the Minnesota Vikings and led them to the NFC Championship Recreation. The Vikings bought what the Jets thought they had been getting.
Now, Rodgers’ future is unsure, although a parting seems seemingly. Kuhn suspects his outdated pal will need to proceed his profession, hoping to discover a happily-ever-after ending, however he wonders if there’s a great spot.
“I do not know if there is a workforce on the market the place you possibly can level on the roster and say, ‘Hey, they simply want one good quarterback for one stable yr,'” Kuhn mentioned. “We thought the Jets had been that workforce two years in the past. We thought the Jets had been as shut a workforce as you possibly can need to being one piece away.”
Sadly for them, a fired coach, a fired GM, a demoted playcaller and a 3-8 report say in any other case.
