Randall Cobb, Aaron Rodgers: From Lambeau Leap to MetLife Meh

Just about a year ago, Randall Cobb and Aaron Rodgers walked off the turf at Lambeau Field side by side, soaking in what they sensed were their final moments together as Packers. Green Bay had just lost its Week 18 game to the Lions, which eliminated the Packers from playoff contention, and the waves that eventually would push both of them away from the franchise already were starting to build. But at that moment, there was nothing but appreciation for what they had accomplished together.

“I don’t know many people in life who get to end something the way they always perceived it to be,” Cobb told Newsday on Thursday. “That was a great ending to our Green Bay chapter. I don’t think the movies could have written a better script for my life, my career, as far as being able to go back to Green Bay after going to Dallas and Houston for a year each and then being traded back to Green Bay, playing a couple of more years there. I’ll take that for what it is.”

There will be no such walk-off this season.

Even though Cobb and Rodgers technically were on the same Jets team, they had no real opportunity to play together. Rodgers’ season ended on the fourth snap of the first game and Cobb’s pretty much did, too. Without his buddy back there throwing him passes, he never seemed to be able to create a connection with Zach Wilson or whoever else played quarterback. He has been on the field for only 37% of the Jets’ offensive snaps, a career low, and caught a mere four passes for 55 yards on 16 targets.

And when this 2023 season that was going to be their 11th together finally ends in New England on Jan. 7, Cobb and Rodgers may very well find themselves strolling in opposite directions.

Rodgers will be returning to the Jets, trying to do what he couldn’t this season and lift the team to a Super Bowl title that would be a second for him and the franchise. Cobb likely will be going elsewhere.

Retirement? Perhaps. Cobb wasn’t ready to make that decision, although he said he mulled the idea last offseason before Rodgers was traded to the Jets and he joined him shortly thereafter on a one-year deal.

“The big thing will be my family and my situation with my kids,” he said. “I’ll look back after this season and go through everything. I’ll take it for what it is and I’ll make the decision when I am ready to.”

But even if Cobb does decide that at age 34 he still can be productive in the NFL, it probably won’t be with the Jets. They’ve already shown what they think of him by the way they have deployed him this season.

“I signed a one-year deal,” he said of his commitment to the Jets. “I am open to go wherever I want. It depends on the situation. We’ll see.”

We’ll see, too, if any other team thinks it might be able to get more from him than the Jets did. Four-catch seasons don’t usually create big markets in free agency. Even if Cobb isn’t ready to retire from the NFL, the NFL may be just about ready to retire from him.

Despite having that nearly perfect ending a year ago and certainly being fated to have a far less gratifying and dramatic cap to this season, Cobb said he doesn’t regret coming to the Jets . . . even if it was to play with a quarterback who barely played.

“I never regret anything,” he said. “I always look at it as a learning experience, and I think I learned a lot about myself this year.”

Such as?

“I faced a lot of adversity in my life, so I won’t compare some of the stuff I have gone through in my life to football,” he said. “I am in a very blessed situation to be able to play this game that I love and make money while doing it. I won’t compare it to that. But there was a resilience to keep fighting through, even when things are not going the way that I hoped they would.”

In his 10 non-consecutive seasons playing in Green Bay, mostly with Rodgers at quarterback, Cobb caught 532 passes for 6,316 yards (11.9 a catch) and 47 touchdowns. In 2014 he was named to the Pro Bowl and was an AP First Team All-Pro, catching 91 passes for 1,287 yards and a career-high 12 touchdowns.

Beyond that, Cobb and Rodgers were very close friends. Rodgers is godfather to Cade, one of Cobb’s sons. Rodgers stood next to the groom at Cobb’s 2017 wedding and was there when Cobb received his degree from the University of Kentucky.

When Cobb first came to the Jets, coach Robert Saleh called him “a stud.”

“He’s far beyond exceeded any expectation I could’ve dreamed of,” Saleh said in training camp. “His connection and understanding of the offense, everything that we’ve heard about him from a leadership standpoint, it’s priceless. You can’t put a price tag on that.”

Without Rodgers, though, Cobb went from stud to being put out to pasture.

So when Rodgers does come back and rejoins the crew he helped recruit and assemble for the Jets — including Allen Lazard and offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett (plus, lurking on the horizon, a possible offseason pursuit of Devonta Adams) — Cobb figures to be elsewhere.

Disappointment, Cobb said, “sums up everybody’s feeling about this year.” His seems to carry a special weight, though.

It was, after all, a season that began with Rodgers limping off the field on his own. It seems destined to end soon with Cobb walking off it too, and likely by himself as well.

There won’t be a shoulder pad-to-shoulder pad walk-off this time around. No moist eyes taking in one of pro football’s most hallowed panoramas one last time.

As Cobb said, very few ever get to experience that kind of iconic moment of closure.

Cobb and Rodgers already got theirs in Green Bay. New York had, and now likely has, other plans for them.

By Tom Rock

tom.rock@newsday.com@TomRock_Newsday

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.