The Jets lost a football game. Lather, rinse, repeat.
This time, though, it came by squandering a five-point lead inside three minutes to go after questionable coaching and vanilla play-calling against a struggling Indianapolis Colts team.
Let’s get right into this week’s three takeaways from a result that dropped Gang Green to 3-8:
Fire everyone: Plain and simple, it’s not working. Absolutely nothing is working.
Joe Douglas, Jeff Ulbrich, Nathaniel Hackett, Todd Downing, all of them. They need a fresh start. All connections with this team need to be lost.
This Jets team should have been better, a lot better than in years past. But somehow, some way, they got worse. In order to truly move on from this disaster of a season, an entirely new front office and coaching staff need to be brought in. Exactly who that new staff will be depends on the team’s direction.
If the Jets want to try again with this roster next year, they must go with an experienced coach. Mike Vrabel or Brian Flores could be an excellent option for a Jets team looking to get the most out of their undoubtedly talented and underachieving roster. However, if the Jets do set the roster on fire, bringing in a young, up-and-coming head coach could be the way to go. Joe Brady or Kellen Moore could be great choices to elevate a young quarterback. Regardless of the direction they decide to go with their staff, they need to clean house this offseason.
Jets should move on from Aaron Rodgers next season: It didn’t work. Maybe it was the Achilles injury, maybe it was being 40 years old, and maybe the Jets are destined never to win anything again. But regardless, the Aaron Rodgers experiment failed, and it’s time to move on.
In Sunday’s loss to Indianapolis, Rodgers completed 22 of his 29 pass attempts for 184 yards and two touchdowns. The loss also marked the fourth game this season in which Rodgers has thrown for under 200 yards in a game.
The concept of “moving on from Aaron Rodgers” is unfathomable to many. This is a unanimous first-ballot Hall of Fame quarterback. But as the saying goes, “Father Time catches up to everyone.” And unfortunately, it’s not as easy to turn back the clock as people wish it were.
While the Jets realistically could keep him next season, even if they do, it would likely be his last year as the starter. Rodgers turns 41 this December, and if the Jets are looking towards the future, cutting him loose this offseason is the logical move.
The fact that the Jets are once again looking for a new QB is likely a sad and unfortunate sight for most fans, but maybe this is the time they finally get it right.
Firing Robert Saleh might have been the wrong decision: Sitting at 2-3, just one game out of first place in the AFC East, the Jets pulled the plug on head coach Robert Saleh’s tenure. While at the time, many saw the move as a necessary step forward for the Jets, that decision began to draw more skepticism.
Since his firing, the Jets have gone 1-5. In the first five games under Saleh, the defense allowed 1,433 total yards and 11 total touchdowns. Since firing Saleh, the Jets have allowed 1,805 yards and 13 total touchdowns. One of the main reasons Saleh was fired was to give the defense, one expected to be one of the league’s very best, a spark. Instead, it seemed to have the exact opposite effect.
With a season as pivotal as this one, entering the season with question marks around the head coach would be the worst possible thing the Jets could have done. And even though Rodgers had confidence in Saleh, many didn’t share that same level of belief. A big reason why this Jets experiment failed could be Saleh’s firing.
