MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — In a quiet corner of another disgusted and disillusioned Jets locker room, after another disgrace when the Jets were shamefully outplayed and outcoached and out of the playoffs one more time, I asked D.J. Reed whether it made any sense for Aaron Rodgers to come back now.
“No,” he said, “I don’t think so. He’s a grown man, he’s gonna do what he wants to do at the end of the day. But I just feel like it’s a high risk, low reward just because we’re not going to the playoffs, so … the season, in a way, is over. The ultimate goal is to win a Super Bowl, in my opinion.”
We gave him all our doubts, all our prognostications.
Aaron Rodgers didn’t listen to any of them, and good for him.
But now, he is forced to listen to the voice that should be screaming at him inside his head:
DON’T BOTHER!
Or as they might say in Tommy DeVito’s neighborhood:
FUHGEDDABOUDIT!
For the 13th consecutive year, the first one that Aaron Rodgers has endured since he emerged from the darkness, and wound up in another dark place, the Jets were eliminated from the playoffs thanks to a 30-0 disgrace against the Dolphins, and imagine if Tyreek Hill had played.
This was Black Sunday for the organization, and for Aaron Rodgers, who sat in silence for a while at his locker in the visiting locker room head down scrolling through his phone, his heart yearning to be healed as much as his Achilles.
If the sight of Zach Wilson (4-for-11, 26 yards, one early costly strip-sack fumble) getting knocked around behind that turnstile offensive line and out of the game with a concussion with 1:03 left in the first half didn’t provide clarity and convince him that it is a no-brainer to be Aaron On The Side of Caution, nothing will.
The Dolphins didn’t need any Fail Mary to embarrass the Jets this time.
This one was Fail Aaron.
Rodgers expects to receive clearance at the end of his 21-day practice window on Wednesday for what it’s worth.
It’s worth the respect and admiration of the organization and the faithful for fighting this inspirational fight and trying to climb Mount Achilles faster than anyone, and that in and of itself will have to serve as his triumph.
Suiting up as the emergency quarterback for these last three games would enable Rodgers to take his bows and then get the hell out of there and claim Mission Accomplished and come back healthy for the 2024 season.
Because the team he decided to join to try to lift up from the land of the downtrodden let him down and played as if it couldn’t have cared less about whether he would get to have his dream chance.
“They out-schemed us, out-efforted us,” Allen Lazard said.
It was 24-0 at the half and someone asked Reed if there was enough fight.
“Quite honestly, I would say up until like probably the mid-third, you could kinda just see the energy and just the momentum and just the emotion on guys’ faces, just kinda down about the whole game,” he said. “I wouldn’t say I was too happy about that.”
Mike McDaniel schemed Jaylen Waddle (8-142-1 TD) open at will. Nathaniel Hackett couldn’t figure out a way to get Garrett Wilson (3-29) a single target until the third quarter, and neglected the run at a time when Zach Wilson was getting his head handed to him.
No inspired New York Jets in sight anywhere inside Hard Rock Stadium.
No Christmas Miracle for Aaron Rodgers. He won’t have to answer questions now about whether he is coming back to make history as a medical marvel.
The only question he needs to ask himself now that there is officially no Super Bowl to chase — unofficially has been in business for months — is this one:
What’s the point?
In Jetsworld, how often has even the smallest risk been worth the reward?
Rodgers’ medical team and surgeon Dr. Neal ElAttrache wouldn’t have felt any sense of guilt advising him that it would make more sense to wait til next year to postpone his comeback obsession.
But this isn’t simply clearing a patient 100 days after rupturing an Achilles. This patient is an NFL quarterback. A 40-year-old NFL quarterback.
The league has bent over backwards to protect its quarterbacks but doesn’t place them in Bubble Wrap.
Some men see things as they are and say, “Why’? I dream things that never were and say ‘Why Not?’ ”
That was George Bernard Shaw, repeated by Robert F. Kennedy.
Good for Aaron Rodgers for dreaming things that never were and saying why not?
But now it’s time for him to come to grips with reality and ask himself: Why?
