“There is little doubt the Jets would have been much better off if Saleh had not been fired,” says Gang Green Nation
The Los Angeles Rams can run their winning streak to four with a trip to the New York Jets in Week 16. While the Jets have fallen out of playoff contention, Aaron Rodgers and company can play spoiler as the Rams dive further into the NFC playoff picture.
I spoke with MacGregor Wells from Gang Green Nation to gain an insider’s perspective on New York’s miserable campaign and more ahead of this week’s matchup.
Q – This has been the season from hell for the Jets as they sit at 4-10 and have been eliminated from postseason play for the 14th consecutive year. Could you go into some of the reasoning for New York’s struggles this season?
A – Woody Johnson. Joe Douglas. Aaron Rodgers. Jeff Ulbrich. In that order. Those are the four main culprits.
Woody Johnson lost patience with what had been looking like a promising rebuild with several top young talents and decided to meddle with the front office, essentially demanding an all-in approach. That approach forced general manager Joe Douglas’ hand to get Aaron Rodgers at any price. Despite no other team seemingly all that interested in Rodgers after a bad season the year before, in 2023 the Jets swapped first round picks with the Green Bay Packers, traded a second round pick to the Packers, and brought Rodgers aboard, along with useless cronies like offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett, wide receivers Allen Lazard and Randall Cobb and backup quarterback Tim Boyle. Hackett is arguably the worst offensive coordinator in the NFL and Lazard cost the Jets $22 million in cap space for half a year of decent performance and one year of he shouldn’t be in the NFL level of performance. Cobb was completely cooked and made zero impact but took up a roster spot, and Tim Boyle is a practice squad talent. Rodgers cost the Jets $75 million and counting for four snaps in 2023 and a 2024 performance that puts him solidly in the bottom dozen or so of NFL starting quarterbacks. The entire Rodgers and friends fiasco has been a catastrophic $100 million delusion on Woody Johnson’s part that the Jets were just a solid quarterback away from Super Bowl contention, and Rodgers would be much better than just solid.
Joe Douglas may have been forced into acquiring Rodgers and his buddies, but he’s far from blameless. In six seasons with the team the Jets never had a winning record, never made the playoffs, never built a decent offensive line until 2024, never drafted or developed a decent quarterback and never had a good draft outside of the terrific class of 2022.
Aaron Rodgers has been just plain bad for most of his time with the Jets, although his play has picked up in the last few games. He has been afraid to get hit, too quick to get rid of the ball before the play even develops, inaccurate and a poor leader.
Finally, Woody Johnson, again being impatient, fired head coach Robert Saleh five games into the season. Saleh is far from a great head coach, but compared to his replacement, prior defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich, Saleh looks great in retrospect. Since Jeff Ulbrich left the Jets defense instantly went from being pretty good to being arguably the worst defense in the NFL. With the level of talent on this defense that’s simply inexcusable. The Jets have been terrible tacklers, often penalized and extremely undisciplined since Ulbrich took over as head coach. He’s been a complete disaster, and his 2-7 record reflects that.
Q – Aaron Rodgers has not looked like his four-time MVP self in 2024 and the Jets will likely cut bait with the veteran quarterback this offseason. Regardless of what happens to Rodgers after this season, how would you assess his NFL future if he decides to play in 2025?
A – After playing poorly in 2022, perhaps as a result of an injury to his throwing hand, playing just four snaps in 2023, and playing poorly again in 2024, with a series of nagging injuries apparently bothering him, it’s difficult to imagine the market for Aaron Rodgers is going to be robust next season. His constant attention-seeking behavior also does not work in his favor. I suppose there’s a scenario that a late-season surge fools an NFL team into believing he is still a great option at quarterback next season, even if he will turn 42 during the season next year. Outside of the total outlier Tom Brady, there really aren’t great examples of 42-year-old quarterbacks being top starters in the NFL. I don’t know, maybe he fools somebody, but I suspect that if he wasn’t in much demand in 2023—and he wasn’t—the last two seasons have not favorably impacted the market for him going forward. Best guess is the Jets cut him, he pretends to be involved in much soul searching regarding retirement while he waits to see if a market develops at a place he’d be interested in playing. When no such market develops to his satisfaction, he retires. Maybe he unretires later if a team he wants to play for suffers a major injury to their starter and they think Rodgers is their best available option for a playoff run.
Q – Former head coach Robert Saleh was the scapegoat for the Jets’ early-season struggles as he was fired five games into the year. Interim coach Jeff Ulbrich hasn’t provided the spark the franchise was hoping for as he has a 2-7 record. While Saleh had his flaws, where do you think the Jets would be now if ownership had stayed patient with him?
A – Robert Saleh deserved to be fired. He had a 20-36 record as a head coach and never produced a single winning season. However, as much as Saleh was not a great head coach, he was a very good defensive coach. Saleh’s replacement, Jeff Ulbrich, has been a complete disaster. He took what was a great defense the past couple of years and turned it into the worst defense in the NFL in the games he’s been head coach. Had Saleh stayed on I have to believe the defense—while not as good as the past few years—would have continued to function as a top 12 or so defense in the NFL. If that had been the case, the Jets would probably be fighting for a playoff spot right now, instead of jockeying for draft position. They still wouldn’t have been the Super Bowl contender they thought they were, and making the playoffs as a wild card team risked the bozos who run the Jets thinking it made sense to run it all back next year, which would have been a terrible decision, but in 2024 there is little doubt the Jets would have been much better off if Saleh had not been fired.
Q – New York will again be in the market for a new head coach and general manager once this miserable season concludes, making another rebuild appear inevitable. How should the Jets approach this offseason, and if the team starts selling off key pieces, which players on the roster should remain as cornerstones?
A – This is what I think the Jets should do, but I have little confidence this will happen, because Woody Johnson is an incompetent boob. I think the Jets should decide what year they think is a reasonable goal to compete at the highest level and make decisions accordingly. In my opinion, that year is 2027 at the earliest. The Jets have enough good young pieces that they could conceivably be a playoff contender next season, but that would require once again making a series of short-term decisions that sacrifice their chances of greater success in the future. That’s a Jets specialty.
I think there is no chance the Jets will have a quarterback on the roster next year that would make them a serious Super Bowl contender. I also think the Jets will not be drafting high enough to get one of the top quarterbacks in the 2025 NFL draft. In addition, I’m not sold on any of the quarterbacks in the 2025 NFL draft. It naturally follows that the first chance the Jets will have to draft a top quarterback will be in 2026. No rookie quarterback has ever won a Super Bowl, so realistically the first chance the Jets have of competing at the highest level will be in 2027 at the earliest. Every roster decision should reflect that. Any player who doesn’t want to be part of a painful rebuild should be shipped out for whatever draft picks can be acquired. Any player that will likely be in serious decline or out of the game by 2027 should be traded as well. The Jets should prioritize finishing the rebuild of the offensive line, so that when a quarterback is drafted he will be protected. They should also prioritize getting some more young, quality weapons on offense, so the new quarterback will have good targets to throw to and develop with when he gets here.
As far as cornerstone players, this is impossible to assess without knowing how the players view the Jets and whether they want to be part of a painful rebuild. For example, I would love to keep Garrett Wilson for the long term, but it takes two to tango, and he has been very vocal about how disgusted he is with all the losing. Would he agree to a long-term deal without an egregious overpay? I don’t know, but I doubt it. Unless he buys into the rebuild, he should be traded. The same goes for Sauce Gardner, Breece Hall, Jermaine Johnson, Will McDonald, Joe Tippmann, John Simpson, Quinnen and Quincy Williams and Jamien Sherwood. In an ideal world, those are the players you keep and build around, along with rookie left tackle Olu Fashanu. However, there will undoubtedly be guys who just don’t want to be a part of more losing years for a speculative better future with the Jets. The Jets need to have frank conversations with every guy I named and honestly assess whether they want to be a Jet through two more (at minimum) difficult years. If they’re in, great, get extensions done as they become eligible. For anyone expressing doubts about the plan, thank them and move on, trading for draft picks. Cut Aaron Rodgers, cut Davante Adams, cut C.J. Mosley, prepare for a very difficult 2025 but perhaps a much brighter future in a couple of years. That’s what I’d do. The Jets will not do that. They will do something stupid that sabotages their long-term prospects as long as Woody Johnson is the owner.
Q – Despite all the doom and gloom in Gotham, who have been some bright spots on the team that LA fans should watch for this week?
A – Rookie left tackle Olu Fashunu has been performing well in place of the injured Tyron Smith. Left guard John Simpson and center Joe Tippmann have also been good, giving the Jets a young 3/5s of a good offensive line going forward. Davante Adams is not the future for the Jets, but he’s been playing great at present. Garrett Wilson is very good opposite Adams at wide receiver.
On defense, Quinnen Williams is playing at his usual Pro Bowl level at defensive tackle. Jamien Sherwood has been great filling in for an injured C.J. Mosley. Every other player on defense has been anywhere from mildly disappointing to an abject disaster.