Robert Saleh is gone. Joe Douglas is gone. The New York Jets season is gone.
Can Aaron Rodgers be far behind?
While disgruntled and dismayed Jets owner Woody Johnson fired Saleh and Douglas in response to his team’ woefully underperforming season, a team’s former head coach is strongly suggesting that Rodgers is doing everything he can to force his way out.
On two different FS1 shows this week – First Things First and Colin Cowherd – Eric Mangini repeated his shocking theory that the star quarterback is trying his best to get cut after the season.
“You’d like to keep Aaron because you don’t want to deal with that salary cap hit,” said Mangini, who went 23-25 with a playoff appearance during his three-year stint with the Jets 2006-08. “But Aaron’s doing everything he can to get cut. The fact that Aaron brought up the ‘I’ve never been cut by a teenager, I’ve never been released by a teenager,’ … that’s a direct shot at the owner. That’s legitimizing everything that’s been said in that organization, that’s making fun of how dysfunctional it is. As soon as he said that, in my mind, he said he wants out.”
If that scenario is true, Rodgers would merely be auditioning for other NFL teams as the 4-11 Jets play their last two meaningless games against the Buffalo Bills and Miami Dolphins.
Rodgers, who turned 41 earlier this month, has a year remaining on his contract in 2025. But with sweeping changes for the Jets predicted in the wake of this Super-Bowl-or-Bust season that embarrassing burst, he isn’t sure he wants to around for the extreme makeover.
I think there’s a world where they just say, ‘Hey, thank you, we’re going to go in another direction,” Rodgers said this week on The Pat McAfee Show. “That’s a possibility. I think there’s also a possibility we’re going to wait and see who the new staff is.”
In a recently-published article in The Athletic, sources inside the organization said that Johnson’s teenage sons – Brick and Jack – sometimes influence personnel decisions.
Quipped Rodgers, “Being released would be a first. Being released by a teenager, that would also be a first.”