The Jets needed Aaron Rodgers to be Superman, but he finished a dreary, misty MetLife Stadium afternoon battered and beaten and visibly frustrated and in need of a hot tub for both legs, his cape lost and a game lost that never should have been lost.
Robert Saleh and Rodgers had 10 days to prepare for the Sean Payton-Bo Nix Broncos and you would have thought it was 10 minutes … 13 penalties? These aren’t the Same Old Jets (I don’t think). But that’s Same Old Jets crap.
This was no MVP Rodgers and these were no Super Bowl Jets.
“I think we were kinda killing ourselves, I can’t say I had a spectacular game, I missed some throws, the weather sucked,” Rodgers said, “but so did some of my throws.”
He was under repeated duress and he came up limping following a fourth-quarter sack looking like a 40-year-old quarterback for the first time this season.
It marked the fifth time in Rodgers’ career that his offense did not score a touchdown.
“When your defense holds ’em to 10, you gotta win the game 100 percent of the time,” Rodgers said. “That’s on the offense, it’s on me. Yeah, not good enough.”
This was a comedy of errors — except Rodgers (24-42, 225 yards) wasn’t laughing after Broncos 10, Jets 9. He was wincing (five sacks).
He orchestrated an undisciplined offensive unit — five false starts, a field goal following first-and-goal at the 1 — that acted as if his cadence was suddenly a foreign language.
“That was way out of character for us,” Rodgers said. “Seems like an outlier. I don’t know if we need to make mass changes based on kind of an outlier game.”
He could not get Greg Zuerlein closer than a missed 50-yard field goal wide right in the final minute.
He was gifted one last chance at his 40 with 1:27 and no timeouts left after Will Lutz missed a 50-yard field goal. Aided by a pass interference on Riley Moss against Mike Williams, Rodgers advanced to the Denver 32. But then threw incomplete for Williams.
On the previous series, with 2:31 remaining, he threw three consecutive incompletions from his 45 before being sacked by a blitzing P.J.Locke.
He threw balls that zigged while his receivers — Garrett Wilson and Xavier Gipson — zagged in the desperate last two minutes.
“We weren’t really on the same page,” Rodgers said.
The Jets’ two young offensive stars — Wilson (5-41, one first-quarter fumble) and Hall (10-4 rushing, 2-14 receiving) were non-factors. Rodgers and Wilson were supposed to remind everyone of Rodgers and Davante Adams, remember? Hall had trouble with his footing and his false starts and needs to be utilized again more in the passing game.
“Way too many mental mistakes, too many poor throws,” Rodgers said, “and then we just missed some easy stuff, some protection stuff that should have been easy, some route adjustment stuff that should have been easy. I don’t know, our focus just wasn’t as sharp as it’s been the first three weeks.”
Left guard John Simpson’s false start on fourth-and-goal at the 1 forced Saleh to settle for a field goal. A 34-yard pass interference call in the end zone on Moss against Allen Lazard preceded a pair of stuffed Hall runs and a harried Rodgers throwaway.
“You gotta get seven in this league to win,” Rodgers said. “We had multiple opportunities to go up two scores, didn’t do it, that’s why we lost.”
His entire operation was a mess. There were even times when panic-stricken Jets fans might have feared that a Broncos backup quarterback named Zach Wilson had hijacked Rodgers’ No. 8 and snuck into the Jets huddle (sorry, couldn’t resist). Wonder if Sean Payton, on the flight home to Denver, might have been tempted to regurgitate his infamous quote to someone about 2022 Broncos head coach and current Jets offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett: “One of the worst coaching jobs in the history of the NFL.”
Third-and-16 from the Denver 20. An end zone shot? No, a 3-yard Hall run. Third-and-14 at the NYJ 30. A 6-yard completion to Gipson.
“We let this one get away,” Rodgers said.
For Rodgers, this was a dreaded, humbling “Welcome to the Jets” moment. One of those days when you start to wonder whether Life Begins at 40.
