For 40 days and 40 nights, our long-suffering Jets fans were hoping for the best but expecting the worst news about whether Aaron Rodgers truly was riding into town as the savior who can lead them out of the darkness that has engulfed the franchise.
And now they can celebrate, because as of this moment, Aaron Rodgers will be wearing No. 8 — same as Daniel Jones — for the New York Jets.
And now Jets fans can dream.
They can dream that impossible Super Bowl dream.
Hoo-rA-Rod.
For some, given all the Jets surrendered in the deal — a swap of first-round picks, a second-rounder, and a conditional 2024 second-rounder that becomes a first if he plays 65 percent of the snaps, not to mention the moolah owed Rodgers with a 2023 fifth-rounder in return — the mandate for the 2023 season will be Super Bowl or Bust.
Understood, of course. And that should be the expectation now inside the Atlantic Health Jets Training Center, starting of course with Woody Johnson. Who got his man.
Joe Douglas got his man.
The Jets got their man.
Rodgers doesn’t guarantee a Super Bowl championship, or appearance. Not in this AFC.
But it does mean that the Jets, now 14/1 to win the Super Bowl, belong in the conversation and are ready to be heavyweight Super Bowl contenders.
No excuses now for Rodgers, or for everyone in Mr. Rodgers’ Neighborhood. End that suffocating, demoralizing 12-year playoff drought once and for all. That’s the low end of the bar.
Aaron Rodgers traded to the Jets
On Monday, after months of speculation and rumors, the Jets and Packers came to an agreement on a trade that brings four-time NFL MVP Aaron Rodgers to New York.
The trade immediately upgrades the Jets from rising team to playoff contender with the hopes that Rodgers will help break one of the longest active postseason droughts in sports.
The trade
The Jets receive: Aaron Rodgers, No. 15 pick (2023) and No. 170 pick (2023).
The Packers receive: No. 13 pick (2023), No. 42 pick (2023), No. 207 pick (2023) and a conditional second-round 2024 draft pick that conveys to a first-rounder if Rodgers plays 65% of the Jets’ plays in 2023.
What comes next
The trade still needs to be finalized — the terms of Rodgers’ contract need to be worked out — and sent to the NFL.
Both teams will begin feeling this deal as early as Thursday at the 2023 NFL Draft.
For the Packers, it’s now about getting fourth-year QB Jordan Love ready to take over. With Gang Green, it’s about getting a whole host of new faces on the same page offensively.
Follow The Post’s coverage of Aaron Rodgers being traded to the Jets
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- Serby: Aaron Rodgers changes everything for Jets
- Meet Aaron Rodgers’ rumored girlfriend
- Jets GM: Trade is ‘historic’ for franchise
The Jets are equipped now to trot out a 39-year-old future Hall of Fame quarterback who can stand eyeball-to-eyeball with the young guns who populate the conference — Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow, Josh Allen, Justin Herbert and Lamar Jackson, once he kisses and makes up with the Ravens.
Dream about an AFC Championship game at Arrowhead, and a shootout unfolding with Mahomes, and Aaron Rodgers refusing to blink.
It means the Robert Saleh Jets are no longer Not Ready For Prime-Time Players.
The Jets are sexy again. The Jets are relevant again. The Jets are feared again. The Jets are a national attraction again. Possibly as many as six times on prime-time television.
Somewhere up there, Sonny Werblin, who signed Joe Namath out of Alabama for $427,000, is maybe wearing a green-and-white cheesehead.
“When Joe Namath walks into a room,” Werblin once said, “you know he’s there. When any other high-priced rookie walks in, he’s just a nice-looking young man. It’s like Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig or Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris.”
Rodgers may not be Broadway Aaron … but he’s more than a nice-looking young man when he walks into a room. Especially his new room. Page Six Aaron, anyone?
Bill Belichick hasn’t had to lose sleep over facing a Jets quarterback since Brett Favre showed up as the reluctant one-year rental gunslinger in 2008.
Favre’s arm betrayed him down the stretch and the Jets missed the playoffs — the discarded Chad Pennington made them, of course, with the Dolphins — but he didn’t have the team around him that Rodgers will now. He didn’t have a Breece Hall. He didn’t have a Garrett Wilson. He didn’t have Sauce Gardner and Quinnen Williams.
The Jets bent over backwards to lure Rodgers — adding offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett and WR Allen Lazard, wooing Odell Beckham Jr. — and they will spend every waking hour continuing to do everything in their power to make him an offer he cannot refuse to play in 2024. Keeping him happy on the field will trump any potential New York media potholes off it.
If he wins, they win, and that in and of itself could compel him to believe that Life Begins at 40. The way it did for Tom Brady.
Rodgers wanted the Jets because he saw a chance to:
Stick it to the Packers, who tired of The Drama King and decides it was time for the Jordan Love Era to begin;
Enhance his legacy. As arguably the most talented thrower of the football in NFL history, Rodgers ought to be motivated to finish with more than the one Super Bowl ring he owns.
Last season, Rodgers threw 26 TDs against 12 INTs, compromised by a broken thumb and the loss of WR Davante Adams. He is only two years removed from his back-to-back league MVPs.
Look, it’s a big gamble. A big risk. But when you are the Jets, you take that risk because after three years of waiting for Sam Darnold, after two years of waiting for Zach Wilson, after 12 years of waiting for the playoffs, after 54 years of waiting for a Super Bowl — you are desperate for the big reward. And should not be afraid to dare to be great.
The date was Jan. 2, 1965, when Namath signed with the Jets.
“We feel that in getting Joe,” Werblin said, “we got the No. 1 college football player in America, and with him we will give the New York fans the finest team in America. This is the start toward many championship years for the Jets.”
Well, it was only one. It was the last one. The only one. One will be enough from Aaron Rodgers.
Hoo-rA-Rod.
