I may have heard the Boyle "source" comment on another podcast and mixed the two. I'll find it and post it here.
On Hack - yeah, I mean Saleh was gushing over him. He also hand picked Carter and Downing. I think it is fair to say he doesn't know how to pick Offensive coaches. And JD didn't exactly stop hiring any of these guys. And hired Saleh to begin with. So yeah, I absolutely think they are as bad as their record says they are, and should have been clean up this season, but Woody didn't have the balls to rock the boat before he sees Rodgers play. With Rodgers though, I am not sure if he is washed. I do think it is a possibility, but he did come back from injury pretty quick to practice. So, I don't think he is injured nor do I think he is distracted. He is definitely older though, so we just have to wait and see how much he declined and whether he is injury prone now. There is a chance he is still a very good QB. Hard to tell.
That's precisely why I'm not a fan any more. Yes, we'll see what they do this offseason, but I'm not holding my breath. I'm certain that the Jets hype machine will crank up soon to counter this negative article. The only way I will become positive about the Jets and start rooting for them again, is if they get it right this offseason: fix the OL, add another weapon to take pressure off of G. Wilson and start winning games. If they're at least 6-2 by mid-season, then I might start getting some hope or even excited, but not until then. I've been down this road too many times and been burned. I'm only here now because misery loves company.
I can totally understand that. It’s the smart approach, after all this organization does to us. I felt that way at the end of Bowles, gase. I guess the saleh regime, and especially Rodgers had roped me back in. If it fails, I suspect a mass exodus.
This article is mostly true, but also mostly irrelevant. 2023 was a lost season after only 4 plays. We all realized this. However, Saleh is literally paid to coach this team to win. Douglas is literally paid to build this team to win. You can’t just give up 4 plays into the season and this team simply did. It’s unacceptable. It’s not about going (7-10) without Rodgers, it’s how you got there. That record seems respectable after losing a 4 time NFL MVP instantly into the season, but it’s not. The Jets were pathetic most of the year, especially on offense. The reason the article is irrelevant though is 2023 doesn’t matter now. Rodgers is back. The o-line will be improved and healthy. The defense will still be great. So it all comes down to 2024 for Saleh, Douglas, Hackett and Rodgers.
Saleh gushes about everyone though. He's the cheesy "positive vibes only" guy. Their only crossover was as position coaches at the end/failure of Gus Bradley's tenure in Jacksonville. Saleh fired his best freakin friend in LaFleur, he has no loyalty to or belief in Hackett. They only hired him to get Rodgers
Rodgers (who was 90% retired) in Jan wasn't even in play. I mean I get looking ahead and thinking IF Rodgers ever becomes a possibility better have Hack than someone else as some sort of a tie breaker, but to hire what you know the worst OC in football for a very small chance of getting Rodgers is a bit crazy. A plausible explanation, corroborated by Saleh, is they thought Hack was good (with added benefit of slightly increased probability of Rodgers). If this is a total act, Saleh need to change his profession and go to Hollywood. He seems VERY excited for Hack and Keith Carter and gives a lot of examples why.
They can say whatever they want and spin it however they want, but I 100% believe that we hired Hackett as a recruiting effort to get Rodgers here. I don’t believe the thinking was “hey, IF Rodgers decides to come here, then it’ll be great”…I believe the thinking was “man we need to do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING we can to get Rodgers to come here instead of choosing retirement, so let’s go get his favorite OC, let’s go get whatever players we can get, and convince him to come” I 100% believe that If AR wasn’t in play, I don’t think we’d have gone after Hackett
Putting name value completely aside the 2022 advanced metrics there also suggest that we could of likely got the same general level of overall QB effeciency play signing Jacoby Brissett as opposed to bringing in Rodgers I think the 2022 version of Aaron Rodgers, once you dive deeper then the fluffed up TD total, likely ends up looking a lot closer to 2023 Zach Wilson behind the same supporting cast then people want to realistically acknowledge. I mean I totally get some people want to cling really really hard to this idea that you can simply wash that 39yo decline year away on the idea of him just being banged up, or based on the "Rodgers isn't like every other advanced age QB ever. He's Tom Brady v2!" logic. But yeah. It still happened.
OK, I can see the point of view it was more than a tie breaker. But do you really think they thought Hack was the worst OC in NFL? They must have thought he was at least decent. I mean Saleh hired all the failed Titans coaches and just brought back Gase's WR coach, who last year has coached on the only offense that may have been even worse than ours. Didn't think it was needed to repalce Carter after the job he did on OL. Is it really too much of a stretch to say the guy is clueless when it comes to Offensive coach selection?
There is still hope in spite of 2022 version. According to PFF he was ranked 14th of 41 qualified QBs that year: https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-2022-nfl-quarterback-rankings-and-tiers "Aaron Rodgers struggled after back-to-back MVP seasons and losing star wide receiver Davante Adams in the offseason. His 77.5 PFF grade ranked 14th among 41 qualifying signal-callers and was his worst mark since 2015.". Also, you have to consider the fact he didn't have a good WR core, with Lazard being the best one (!!!). In 2015 and 2017 he had similar PFF ratings. So, yes, I do think he declined, and I don't expect MVP level play, but even to get 14th best play is better than 41st, which is what our norm was. That might be enough to make play-offs and win some games there. Also, it is possible he had a down year and poor WR core didn't help, and next year could actually be better than 2022, and he could be a top 10 guy. The bottom line is, you may be right, but also he could be a lot better than that. We just don't know. What we do know is that we need to drastically improve OL and get another good WR, and we might just have a chance with Rodgers at the helm.
The point is moreover that we just needed mediocre QB play over the past two seasons rather than the worst QB play in the league and we would’ve gotten invited to the tourney. I don’t think Rodgers 2023 looks anything like Wilson’s. That’s silly. He’s never looked close to anything like that in his career and he didn’t turn into a pumpkin from 2022 to 2023 regardless of his supporting staff.
As I said a couple of times, you are free to form your own opinions, even if they come from sites called "rumormill", no one needs to agree with them, regardless of how logical you believe them to be. I beiieve much of what I saw from Rosenblatt and Russini because coaches change their minds, it makes sense, fits the timeline and they work for an organization that requires vetting of information. Outside of it being "fascinating," I have no opinion on if Saleh asked Wilson to start and was denied or if Wilson told someone that he didn't want to start if he was asked - I'm nowhere near enough to the situation to split such hairs.
You keep hammering away on the hiring date there as if that Hackett signing just came out of left field and BEFORE all the Rodgers being traded speculation began. It didn't. Less then 2 weeks prior Russini and others were already connecting the dots to Hackett being brought in to interview as a means to bait Rodgers into coming there. In the days leading up to that hire the fact the Packers were looking to finally hit the reset button and move on with Jordan Love was one of the worst kept secrets ever. Where you even already had Schefter and co widely reporting the likelihood GB was looking into trading him. Which then progressed into a headlined report that "Woody Johnson would happily acquire Aaron Rodgers in a trade" that basically got picked up everywhere. Only then and less then 48 hours AFTER that report on Woody wanting Rodgers, in what anybody could was clearly rationalize out from that point was then going to end up being a Woody bidding against himself scenario after Rodgers predictably didn't let GB retire him after fully bathing in his dark retreat attention...was Hackett hired. The surrounding context there matters and shouldn't just be omitted out for better narrative purposes.
You can't say that giving up on the season so early is unacceptable and at the same time that the article is irrelevant when it is a broad picture of the incompetence within the organization. Until significant changes are made in the decision making process we can expect nothing different. Last year you could have written precisely the same final three sentences - how did that work out?
To clarify I said he'd look a lot closer to 2023 Zach Wilson then people want to realistically acknowledge. We aren't actually talking some grand canon level of difference there. Especially while acknowledging that a notable drop in production would indeed likely happen, and in regards to speculating out what that might project out to look like for a less mobile QB behind a much worse o-line and terrible supporting coaching.
I am not denying they did have Rodgers in mind, but was it the ONLY thing, knowing Hack was the worst coach in NFL? That still seems unlikely. They only got permission to talk to Rodgers on March 7th. They hired Hack in January. Sure, after they brought in Hack for the interview, rumors started, like they did in Denver a year before, but Denver didn't get Rodgers. He was 90% retired in Feb. Thy could not talk to him for almost two months after getting Hack. I just don't buy it that they knew Hack was this bad, but still hired him only because it slightly increased the chance of getting Rodgers. I think they misevaluated Hack, just like pretty much everyone on offense.
That’s being nitpicky. If Rodgers was the 19th best QB in the league we’re in the playoffs and beat the Pats, Raiders, probably the Chiefs and the Falcons. 11-6 with a chance at the division.
We definitely beat the Chiefs. Heck, with the way Wilson was playing that night, I felt pretty good that we'd have beaten them if we'd just gotten the ball back there at the end. And I don't think there's any question that we beat the Pats, Raiders, and Falcons with a healthy Rodgers (or a healthy Brissett or Minshew for that matter).
