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The New York Jets are, once again, in rebuilding mode, as the team is searching for both a new general manager and head coach (and likely quarterback, too) as they head into the offseason. Gang Green fired both head coach Robert Saleh and GM Joe Douglas in the middle of the current 2024 season.
While the Jets entered the 2024 season with Super Bowl expectations, those all came crashing down within the first month of the season as it became clear that 41-year-old four-time NFL MVP Aaron Rodgers is nowhere near the same player he once was.
There are plenty of people in the Jets’ organization that are culpable for this mess, but the two most frequent target of fans’ ire have been Rodgers and team owner Woody Johnson.
Even Rodgers has begun taking shots at the media, as he implied that ownership did not support the team’s brass this season.
“I think It’s important for an ownership to hire the right guys… set the vision… and then support them when the outside world is trying to tear them down,” Rodgers told the media on Wednesday, an obvious reference to Johnson’s snap decision to fire head coach Robert Saleh when the team sat at 2-3 after five games.
Aaron Rodgers on the best ownership approach in general . . . pic.twitter.com/ancdIe6fxp
— Dan Leberfeld (@jetswhispers) December 4, 2024
The Jets’ disatrous 2024 season has been filled with reports of Johnson’s meddling, beginning with “social media-driven” signings such as offensive tackle Tyron Smith and wide receiver Mike Williams (neither of which remotely worked out) to unilaterally firing head coach Robert Saleh to reportedly wanting to bench Aaron Rodgers in September.
All of Johnson’s recent self-destructive behavior is also exacerbated by the fact that the Jets currently own the longest postseason drought in the four major professional sports leagues in the United States: 13 years (which will become 14 years after this season).
Johnson officially purchased the Jets in January 2000 and just weeks later saw then-head coach Bill Belichick resign via a note written on a napkin. Since then, the Jets have won just won division title and have qualified for the postseason just six times, most recently in 2010.