Take a step back for a moment

While it could take a minute . . .

to consummate the trade, Aaron Rodgers is likely going to be a Jet at some point.

Sometimes we can’t see the forest for the trees, as the old saying goes.

Is this really going to happen?

The Packers are actually going to trade this guy?

I know he’s 39, but he can clearly still play. The Packers won four of their last five games last season.

This isn’t a QB who runs a lot. Those guys tend to age faster. Look at Russell Wilson last year. All that scrambling, all those big hits he took over the years in Seattle, have taken their toll. Rodgers is similar to Tom Brady, who played until he was 45. Rodgers does most of his work from the pocket, which in many ways is the safest place for the QB, especially with all the rules put in to protect QBs in the pocket.

So QBs like Rodgers tend to age more gracefully than QBs who made a lot of their hay scrambling. Drew Brees is another example. He played into his 40’s.

My sense is this guy is still close to the top of his game. Hey, he’s probably lost a little, but he makes up for it with his mental acumen, like Peyton Manning when he won a Super Bowl in Denver late in his career.

I still can’t believe the Packers are going to trade this guy.

What their brass should understand is that Rodgers had more to do with the success of that organization than they did.

There were teams that had no business making the playoffs due to roster deficiencies, but Rodgers is like a rising tide that lifts all boats, so he helped certain Packer teams overcome their shortcomings.

“His level of play automatically elevates everyone,” said Jets receiver Allen Lazard, who played in Green Bay with Rodgers from 2018-22.

Now he might only play a year or two with the Jets, but to have a guy like this, even for just a couple of years, is a rare opportunity.

And he’s going to come in highly motivated coming off an average season by his standards, and also ticked off at Mark Murphy and company in Green Bay for how his end with the Packers was handled.

Jets fans can also thank Murphy and GM Brian Gutekunst for making this possible by picking QB Jordan Love in the first round of the 2020 draft.

If they didn’t have a first-round QB they feel they need to get on the field in his fourth year, this potential trade likely wouldn’t happen. Even though Murphy seems to have tired of Rodgers’ act, do you think he’s trading him if they didn’t have a first-round QB who is entering the final year of his rookie deal? That is very unlikely. If they had a middle-round backup, or a journeyman Case Keenum type, it’s very unlikely they would trade Rodgers.

This is kind of history repeating itself because Rodgers sat three years behind Brett Favre, who was traded to the Jets, allowing Rodgers to take the field in his fourth season.

I still can’t believe this is about to happen. Jets fans should be very excited.

As New England found out in the last three years, you don’t let these kinds of guys out of the building. You work it out.

March 17, 2023

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