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Rich Cimini, ESPN Staff WriterDec 12, 2024, 10:43 AM ET
- Rich Cimini is a staff writer who covers the New York Jets and the NFL at ESPN. Rich has covered the Jets for over 30 years, joining ESPN in 2010. Rich also hosts the Flight Deck podcast. He previously was a beat writer for the New York Daily News and is a graduate of Syracuse University. You can follow him via Twitter @RichCimini.
FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — Aaron Rodgers was supposed to be different. Unlike the other rent-a-legends that preceded him, he was going to be the one that flipped the New York Jets‘ culture, the one that turned them into winners.
And yet there he was on Wednesday afternoon, standing in the middle of the locker room with four games to play in a lost season, conceding that the job is too big to accomplish in one year, even for him.
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“It might be some sort of curse we’ve got to snap,” Rodgers said.
Football players aren’t supposed to talk about curses — that’s taboo in their one-game-at-a-time world — but Rodgers has seen a lot in his short time with the Jets, and he certainly has learned plenty about the star-crossed ways of the franchise.
Nine straight losing seasons. Fourteen straight years out of the playoffs — the NFL’s longest active drought. More than a half-century since its only Super Bowl appearance.
After blowing a fourth-quarter lead and falling to the Miami Dolphins 32-26 on Sunday, wide receiver Garrett Wilson said the Jets (3-10) have a “losing problem, like a gene or s—.”
The Jets acquired Rodgers in 2023 to change that, just like they tried with Brett Favre in 2008, Neil O’Donnell in 1996 and Boomer Esiason in 1993 — quarterbacks that won elsewhere. They tried it with several other past-their-prime future Hall of Famers, hoping some of their fading greatness would run off on them.
Nothing has changed.
Rodgers didn’t get a chance to work his spell last season because he suffered a season-ending Achilles injury in Week 1. Now he’s healthy, but the Jets will win fewer games than last season (7-10) unless they end on a four-game winning streak.
The future Hall of Famer’s message on Wednesday wasn’t all gloom and doom. He expressed some hope.
“This team — this organization — is going to figure out how to get over the hump at some point,” he said. “The culture is built by the players. There’s a framework set down by the organizations, by the upper ups, by the staff and, in the end, it’s the players that make it come to life.”
Asked to assess the current culture, Rodgers said: “We haven’t quite figured out how to get that special sauce worked out and mixed up. It’s close. There’s a lot of great guys in the locker room. There’s a good mix of veterans and young guys. We just haven’t quite put it all together.”
Rodgers said “your best players have to be your best people,” and they have to lead with their attitude and practice habits. Those players, he said, are the ones who set the standard.
The four-time MVP has tried to set an example by playing through a variety of leg injuries, though critics might question his leadership by noting that he skipped a mandatory minicamp in June to vacation in Egypt. He was fined by the team.
There’s a lot of talk about culture around the Jets, who are 0-7 in games decided by six points or less — a clear illustration of not having a winning formula.
“We got fans that pay money, season-ticket holders and, at the end of the day, we’re still losing, so they probably feel like they’re just wasting money,” cornerback Sauce Gardner said. “I don’t want to keep losing. I want to do whatever it takes to turn it around.”
Rodgers, 41, probably won’t be around next season to see it through. Maybe his impact will be felt after he’s gone, whether it’s in 2025 or 2026. He said teammates have to hold themselves to “a standard that’s pretty damn high.
“Until that happens,” he said, “you’re going to be touching the edge of that special sauce that makes the locker room have that really good chemistry.”
