Quote Originally Posted by Fritz View Post
I agree with this, Joe. I do think Guter caved to Rodgers last year, maybe to keep his job, given that it seems Rodgers or Rodgers's rep called Mark Murphy to let him know Rodgers wanted Guter fired in 2021. But then last season happened, and Guter saw that the team's "run it back" hadn't gone very far, so he wrested control back from Rodgers, or was going to, and when he tried to reach out to Rodgers to let him know, well, Guter had to know that would not go over well. Thus the subsequent the split and the he-said-she-said stuff.

But I disagree with you in your comments about "moving on." Moving on? This whole thread is dedicated to not moving on! We need to speculate all next season about whether Rodgers is really making the Jets better, and if he would've rebounded had he stayed, and who is current girlfriend is, and how many eye-rolls he pulls in a given game, then we'll have to compare that to the average number of eye-rolls in Rodgers's last season in Green Bay. So much not-moving-on to do!
Even if Love doesn't pan out, the widely held belief is that the pick goaded Rodgers into playing better and winning two MVPs. That in itself makes it a good draft pick.
It would have been unprecedented to trade a back to back MVP, so I understand why they tried to run it back one more year. I also don't blame Rodgers or Dunn (his agent) for trying to get as much money as possible. The team was dumb to give it to him, at least in the way they did with a 59.3M payout that would have crippled their already stretched cap. When Rodgers flopped this past year, he lost his leverage. Despite what they said publicly, you could tell there was at least something going on, and the animosity is real. It's Gute's job to decide who to draft or sign; Rodgers shouldn't be doing that. There's all the weird airing of laundry on McAfee, telling his (often untruthful) side of a story, the ayahuasca, the COVID immunizied stuff, the retirement talk, all the other stuff just added up. Eventually a straw breaking the camel's back etc.

Rodgers will make the Jets a better team, simply by him swapping in and Zach Wilson riding the pine. I question whether they are better than MIA or BUF, however, and they have a tough road in the AFC in general. Nobody is going to sleep on them this year with Rodgers at QB. One other thing: Rodgers is not the QB he was 3 years ago, he's in physical decline and unless he fixes some bad habits that reappeared last year he's going to be seen on camera close-ups rolling his eyes and swearing to himself. At this point I'd take Josh Allen over Rodgers, but Rodgers over Tua or Mac Jones in the AFCE. Remember: Rodgers has now flopped against TB in the NFCCG (3 4Q possessions, 3 pts), the SF playoff game the next year(ignoring everyone except Adams), and when it mattered against DET in the final week last season. His best games are well behind him, and Ron Wolf would tell you that's a sign to move on.

As mentioned before, he's done some great things and I have some very happy memories (owning the Bears for example) but it was definitely time to move on.