Aaron Rodgers coming to the Jets from his long tenure in Green Bay was one of if not the biggest chatter during the offseason. Aaron Rodgers came out from his darkness therapy and announced on the Pat Mcafee show that he intended to play for the New York Jets. Jets fans were ecstatic. They finally had something to be legitimately hopeful for. Something to finally snap the NFL longest active playoff drought.
Hope is what makes a true NFL fanbase. Rain, snow or sunshine, a true fanbase sticks around and has Superbowl hopes every year no matter the circumstances. What makes for a true fan base is all of this support for no championship rings or none for decades. The Jets even with it being so long-ago Joe Nameth is a god among men for Jets fans. Not having a descent quarterback is rough and can make it hard to get behind a team, even if there like the Jets and are able to put together championship level teams but just cant get that quarterback situation taken care of.
There was finally a light at the end of the tunnel. Aaron Rodgers was going to come steer the ship and take the Jets to the promise land, or at least give that sense of hope. He didn’t just come to New York. It seemed that he was immersing himself in the culture out there. He attended the Tony’s, went to see Taylor Swift, restructured his deal to help out the franchise bring in more talent or at least having the option to.
Season opener at Metlife Stadium. 9/11 and two New York Teams facing off against each other. A new season a clean slate, all outcomes and possibilities ahead of them. Rodgers comes out waving the American flag and looking stunning in the green and white Jets uniforms. Hope in human form, a legitime quarterback and endless possibilities.
As soon as Aaron goes in he was getting chased around from the get-go. At four plays in the unbelievable happens. Rodgers goes down. The energy in Metlife is absolutely drained. It wasn’t an extremely hard hit or anything out of the ordinary, but for some reason Aaron Rodgers is having a hard time getting up. After a few moments Aaron gets up and his teammates around him and group for the usual huddle. Aaron has a look on his face and just keeps staring at the Jets bench to what seemed to be disbelief. I think as soon as Aaron stood up he knew it wasn’t good.
The Jets had made all the right moves this offseason to be successful and in the span of seventy-five seconds that all went away. Now the spotlight moves to Zach Wilson, with the backup plan heard around the rumor mill could be ex Chargers quarterback Phillip Rivers. It will be interesting to see where their season goes in the face of this adversity.
The Jets won that game on a walk off punt return. I don’t know what’s going to happen the rest of the season for the Jets, but one thing is for certain seems like they are going to be very fun to watch this year on defense and special teams alone.