Jets not ready for prime time but stayed anyway
Aaron Rodgers of the Jets is helped off the field during the team's first possession of the first quarter against the Bills at MetLife Stadium on Sept. 11. Credit: Jim McIsaac
CLEVELAND
The Jets accomplished something on Thursday night that seemed utterly impossible nearly four months ago when Aaron Rodgers limped off the field, taking the team’s hopes for relevancy with him into that blue medical tent.
They made it through their staggering allotment of primetime games without getting flexed out of a single one.
They played on Monday and Sunday nights. They played on Black Friday. And they capped it all with this curtain-call performance against the Browns.
No, they didn’t end their streak of watching the playoffs from home, which has reached 13 years. They didn’t manage to post a winning record. They didn’t even come away with a clear picture of what their roster should or needs to look like heading into next year beyond the broad strokes of finding a better backup quarterback, improving their offensive line and getting Rodgers back on the field.
But in the world of the NFL, in which when you play says as much about what the rest of the league and its powerful broadcast partners think about you as how you play, the Jets were surprising contenders to the end.
Despite all the machinations that the brokers have implemented to shuffle the schedule and avoid eyesore matchups in these marquee platforms, at no point were the Jets bumped.
In fact, the league flexed only one slate of prime-time games, bumping Kansas City at New England in favor of the Seahawks hosting the Eagles earlier this month. The Jets remained locked into their prized slots.
“There are a lot of variables and considerations that go into what that best game is, and so that has to work on a number of levels,” Hans Schroder, the NFL’s executive vice president in charge of those decisions, said in October when he was asked if the Jets would be getting canceled. “There is a lot of football left between now and then.”
Now there isn’t. At least not for the Jets. They made it, though. They remained prime-time players despite not always being very compelling or competent football players.
Congratulations to them. The trophy will be delivered to Florham Park soon.
To be fair, it wasn’t only the Jets that kept the Jets on the main stages of the sport. More often they were secondary characters to Super Bowl contenders such as the Dolphins and (at the time) Chargers or teams with interesting narratives such as the Raiders. One time it felt as if they were almost inconsequential parts of the game when Kansas City came to town with its stars: Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce and — when the romance of the year was still in its budding phase — Taylor Swift.
Last night it was the Browns whose name appeared above the title with a chance to clinch a playoff spot with a win. Imagine that: A team that has cycled through a number of backup quarterbacks, injuries to stars and awful offensive line play emerging as a contender on the season’s penultimate weekend.
Back when the finality of Rodgers’ injury came into focus (and before the shenanigans of his attempt to come back from the Achilles tear this season), it seemed as if the Jets would be dumped by the schedule-masters. Who would want to watch this team?
Turns out plenty of folks did. At one point in late October, the Jets had played in the three most-watched NFL windows of the season. The numbers have wavered a bit since, and the Black Friday experiment was the most-watched game that day despite some disappointing viewership numbers overall, but through it all, the Jets remained front and center.
This last opportunity for a national audience to rubberneck at the one-car wreck that this Jets season has become — swerving into guard rails on either side before finally rolling over to a stop, only for the drivers (Robert Saleh and Joe Douglas) to spring from the front seat unscathed — occurred in the city where the Jets ushered us all into pro football under the lights 53 years ago.
On Sept. 21, 1970, the Browns beat the Jets, 31-21, in the first Monday Night Football game.
At least in that game, the cameras were able to focus on the Jets’ star quarterback on the field during the game; Joe Namath threw for 298 yards and a touchdown. This time the glamorous focal point of the franchise was on the sideline in a ski cap, chatting live from the bench on the pregame show and strapped into a headset as the game ensued.
Rodgers’ injury impacted the Jets most of all, but it also made a dent in the star power that the league enjoys trotting out several times each week.
When he was first hurt, the most woeful cries undoubtedly came from the Jets’ facility, but there also were groans aplenty from the various broadcasting board rooms where they were counting on the four-time MVP to quarterback the team that resides in the largest media market in the country.
The good news for the suits is that Rodgers seems poised to return at something close to full strength for the 2024 season.
Expect plenty more prime- timers on the Jets’ next schedule when it is announced this spring. That may include a potential matchup against the Packers at Lambeau Field, which, assuming the two teams finish in the same place in their divisions this season, will be circled by many on Park Avenue as the must-have, must-watch game of the year.
The Return of Rodgers fist pumps are going to be too numerous to count.
It’ll probably be good news for the Jets to have him back, too.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
