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Rich Cimini, ESPN writer
FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — The New York Jets celebrated Thanksgiving 2008 in the best of places: first in the AFC East. They were 8-3, after a dominant victory over the previously undefeated Tennessee Titans. Quarterback Brett Favre, acquired about a month before the season as a legend for hire, was doing Favre things at age 39.
“I felt like it was a Super Bowl team,” former Jets tackle Damien Woody recalled last week.
The 2024 Jets entered the season with the same high expectations, but they enter Thanksgiving week in the exact opposite position: a 3-8 record, tied for last place. Aaron Rodgers, a week shy of his 41st birthday, looks nothing like the quarterback who won four MVP awards with the Green Bay Packers.
Rodgers’ stay in New York has been a failure. Sixteen years ago, the Favre experiment failed after a promising start. The Jets are 0 for 2 importing former Packers icons.
Former Green Bay teammates Rodgers and Favre are linked in many ways, and now they’ll have something more to talk about when they meet at memorable events or in Canton, Ohio, at the Pro Football Hall of Fame. where Rodgers will join Favre one day.
His moves to New York fueled hope and excitement for a desolate franchise. Favre racked up more highlights in one year than Rodgers produced in two (including an injury-shortened 2023), but his final epitaph will likely read the same way:
Two aging legends who didn’t make the playoffs and got their coaches fired.
Eric Mangini was fired after going 9-7 in 2008, his second winning season in three years. Robert Saleh was fired after a 2-3 start to the season; he was 20-36 overall.
“I really believed in what we were doing,” Mangini said last week. “In hindsight, I would say it’s never a good thing to get that piece that’s supposed to take you to the top. I think we would have won a lot of games with Chad. [Pennington]”.
Ah yes… the proverbial “missing piece.”
THE DOWNED JETS Pennington in 2008. He then led the Miami Dolphins to the AFC East title that year, a salt-in-the-wound moment for Jets fans. The reason behind the quarterback change was that Favre would bring a dynamic element to an already talented offense.
In 2023, the Jets acquired Rodgers in a trade because they needed a replacement for the disappointing Zach Wilson, the No. 2 overall pick in the 2021 draft, and felt Rodgers would round out a playoff-caliber roster.
Rodgers, in his introductory press conference in 2023, said he and Favre discussed a trade to the Jets in 2008. A hopeful Rodgers hoped for a better outcome, saying, “That was a different coaching staff, a different general manager, circumstances.” different. I’m excited about the opportunity I have with these guys and my new teammates.”
Since then, they are 10-18, with Rodgers missing 16 games due to his torn left Achilles tendon. They have yet to score 30 points in any of their starts.
“Sometimes a player of that stature can be a gift and a curse,” said former running back Thomas Jones, who rushed for 1,312 yards in 2008. “Having Aaron Rodgers or Brett Favre is great, but you can’t let their mystique replaces everything else.”
The current Jets could be guilty of that, as they built everything around Rodgers. They hired their close friend, Nathaniel Hackett, to run the offense. They installed Rodgers’ system and acquired some of his former receivers, most recently Davante Adams.
Jones said it can be “dangerous” for a player to be put on a pedestal. He doesn’t believe that was the case with Favre.
“We didn’t see Brett as the leader of the team,” he said. “We saw Brett as an asset. We didn’t trust Brett for leadership. We didn’t trust him to be the hero.”
Favre was surrounded by six other teammates who made the Pro Bowl that year, including Jones. It was a championship-caliber roster, but Favre tore a biceps tendon in his throwing arm and everything collapsed. They lost four of their last five games, with a committed Favre throwing nine interceptions in that span. He finished with a league-high 22 to go along with his 22 touchdown passes.
“Not knowing Aaron at all, but looking at it from the outside, it seems like a radically different approach,” Mangini said, comparing from time to time. “Brett wanted to be part of the team. Brett wanted to do the things we were doing. He wanted to be one of the guys instead of being seen as a special savior.
“He never said, ‘This is what I want to do’ or ‘This is what I’m going to do.’ There was none of that. He never talked about the players, saying, ‘This guy has to start’ or ‘I want this guy.’ guy'”.
Mangini was describing Favre’s post-business attitude. At first he didn’t want to play for the Jets. It took three weeks of arduous recruiting before he was convinced to accept the trade.
Favre, after a bitter divorce from the Packers, wanted to play for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but the Packers were unwilling to trade him within their conference.
So it was either play for the Jets or stay home in Mississippi. Once Favre arrived, he accepted, according to Mangini and his former teammates. At that time, in mid-August, Favre was boarding a train that had already left the station. Unlike Rodgers, he didn’t have a long lead-up to the season. It limited his ability to influence the staff, but he had to learn the playbook and his teammates on the fly.
Rodgers also had a bitter split with the Packers, but he didn’t play hard to get. He publicly stated his desire to play for the Jets, which meant a lot to the franchise and its fan base. Imagine, a true legend really wanted to play for them. Still, he fights the perception of having a “me first” attitude, as Mangini alluded to, because of the way the organization meets his needs.
Unlike Favre, who threw six touchdown passes in a blowout victory over the Arizona Cardinals, Rodgers hasn’t produced any signature games.
His 17-7 touchdown-to-interception ratio is fine by Jets’ historical standards, but it’s not a typical Rodgers year. He has gone 33 consecutive games without a 300-yard passing performance, dating back to 2021.
Favre had no 300-yard games with the Jets. It’s mind-boggling that two of the greatest passers in history have failed to reach that level in a combined 28 starts.
“I see a guy in Aaron, he looks like a guy who doesn’t want to get hit anymore,” Woody said. “He looks old. He doesn’t push the ball down the field at all. He can’t run. He looks like a 40-year-old quarterback. That’s what he looks like.”
FORMER FULLBACK PACKERS John Kuhn, who played with Rodgers and Favre in Green Bay, says he believes Rodgers has been undermined by the team’s dysfunction: in-season changes in head coach, play-caller and general manager.
“It’s a disaster in New York,” Kuhn said. “I don’t know how you get continuity, I don’t know how you get rhythm, I don’t know how you get programming when there’s so much chaos and change around you at all times.
“Aaron hasn’t played his best, but I don’t know if that place is conducive to performing at his best.”
In 2008, the Jets saw a vintage Favre until he injured his arm. No one knows exactly when that happened, not even Mangini. Woody says he believes it happened in practice before the five-game tailspin at the end of the season. Mangini, general manager Mike Tannenbaum and the team were ultimately fined by the league office for withholding information about the injury report.
“You could say, like, ‘Uh-oh, something bad just happened,'” Woody said. “You knew we were in a bad situation. We were flying high. Then all of a sudden Brett gets hurt in practice and that derailed everything.”
Jones said, “We crashed and burned.”
Favre underwent surgery after the season, requested his release from the Jets, signed with the Minnesota Vikings and led them to the NFC Championship Game. The Vikings got what the Jets thought they would get.
Now, Rodgers’ future is uncertain, although a split seems likely. Kuhn suspects his old friend will want to continue his career, hoping to find a happily ever after, but wonders if there is an ideal place.
“I don’t know if there’s a team where you can point to the roster and say, ‘Hey, they just need a good quarterback for a solid year,'” Kuhn said. “We thought the Jets were that team two years ago. We thought the Jets were the closest team possible to being one piece away.”
Unfortunately for them, a fired coach, a fired general manager, a demoted playcaller and a 3-8 record say otherwise.
