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Rich Cimini, ESPN Staff 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, coming off a dominating win 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 that was a Super Bowl team,” former Jets tackle Damien Woody recalled last week.
The 2024 Jets entered the season with the same lofty expectations, but they begin Thanksgiving week in the exact opposite position — a 3-8 record, tied for last place. Aaron Rodgers, one week shy of his 41st birthday, hasn’t looked anything like the quarterback who won four MVP awards with the Green Bay Packers.
Rodgers’ tenure in New York has been a failure. Sixteen years ago, the Favre experiment fizzled after a promising start. The Jets are 0-for-2 when importing former Packers icons.
Rodgers and Favre, former Green Bay teammates, are linked in so many ways, and now they will have one more thing to talk about when they run into each other at memorabilia events or in Canton, Ohio, at the Pro Football Hall of Fame, where Rodgers will join Favre one day.
Their trades to New York fueled hope and excitement for a forlorn franchise. Favre accumulated more highlights in one year than Rodgers has produced in two (including an injury-shortened 2023), but their final epitaph probably will read the same way:
Two aging legends who fell short of the playoffs and got their coaches fired.
Eric Mangini was dismissed after going 9-7 in 2008, his second winning season in three years. Robert Saleh was sacked after a 2-3 start this season; he was 20-36 overall.
“I really believed in what we were doing,” Mangini said last week. “In retrospect, I’d say it’s never good to get that one piece that’s supposed to put you over the top. I think we would’ve won a ton of games with Chad [Pennington].”
Ah, yes — the proverbial “missing piece.”
THE JETS DUMPED Pennington in 2008. He went on to lead the Miami Dolphins to the AFC East title that year — a salt-in-the-wound moment for Jets fans. The rationale behind the quarterback change was Favre would bring a dynamic element to an already talented offense.
In 2023, the Jets traded for Rodgers because they needed a replacement for the disappointing Zach Wilson, drafted No. 2 overall in 2021, and they felt Rodgers would complete a playoff-caliber roster.
Rodgers, in his introductory news conference in 2023, said he and Favre discussed his trade to the Jets in 2008. A hopeful Rodgers expected to have a better outcome, saying, “That was a different coaching staff, different GM, different circumstances. I’m excited about the opportunity with these guys and my new teammates.”
Since then, they’re 10-18, with Rodgers having sat out 16 games because of his torn left Achilles tendon. They have yet to score 30 points in any of his 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 an Aaron Rodgers or Brett Favre is great, but you can’t let their mystique supersede everything else.”
The current Jets might be guilty of that, as they built everything around Rodgers. They hired his close friend, Nathaniel Hackett, to run the offense. They installed Rodgers’ system, and they acquired some of his former receivers, most recently Davante Adams.
Jones said it can be “dangerous” when one player is 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 rely on Brett for leadership. We didn’t rely on 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 compromised Favre throwing nine interceptions in that span. He finished with a league-high 22 to go along with his 22 touchdown passes.
“Without knowing Aaron at all, but watching from the outside looking in, it seems like a radically different approach,” Mangini said, comparing now and then. “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 looked at as some 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 discussed players, saying, ‘This guy has to start’ or ‘I want this guy.'”
Mangini was describing Favre’s post-trade attitude. At first, he didn’t want to play for the Jets. It took three weeks of hard recruiting before they convinced him to OK the trade.
Favre, after a bitter divorce from the Packers, wanted to play for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but the Packers weren’t about to trade him within their conference.
So it was either play for the Jets or sit at home in Mississippi. Once Favre arrived, he bought in, according to Mangini and former teammates. At that point, in mid-August, Favre was jumping on a train that had already left the station. Unlike Rodgers, he didn’t have a long run-up to the season. It limited his ability to wield influence in personnel, but he had to learn the playbook and his teammates on the fly.
Rodgers, too, had an acrimonious split with the Packers, but he didn’t play hard to get. He publicly declared his desire to play for the Jets, which meant a lot to the franchise and its fan base. Imagine, a true legend actually 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 caters to his wants.
Unlike Favre, who threw six touchdown passes in a blowout win over the Arizona Cardinals, Rodgers hasn’t produced any signature games.
His 17-7 touchdown-interception ratio is fine by Jets’ historical standards, but it’s not a typical Rodgers year. He has gone 33 straight games without a 300-yard passing performance, dating 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 plateau 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 PACKERS FULLBACK John Kuhn, who played with Rodgers and Favre in Green Bay, says he believes Rodgers has been undermined by the team’s dysfunction — the in-season changes at head coach, playcaller and general manager.
“It’s a hot mess 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 scheduling 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 your best.”
In 2008, the Jets saw some vintage Favre until he injured his arm. No one knows exactly when that occurred, including Mangini. Woody says he believes it happened in practice before the five-game tailspin at the end of the season. Mangini, GM Mike Tannenbaum and the team eventually were fined by the league office for withholding information on the injury report.
“You could just tell, 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 just derailed everything.”
Said Jones: “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 were getting.
Now, Rodgers’ future is uncertain, though a parting appears likely. Kuhn suspects his old friend will want to continue his career, hoping to find a happily-ever-after ending, but he wonders if there’s an ideal spot.
“I don’t know if there’s a team out there where you could point at the roster and say, ‘Hey, they just need one good quarterback for one solid year,'” Kuhn said. “We thought the Jets were that team two years ago. We thought the Jets were as close a team as you could have to being one piece away.”
Unfortunately for them, a fired coach, a fired GM, a demoted playcaller and a 3-8 record say otherwise.