Aaron Rodgers dysfunction takes the field alongside Jets offense, Davante Adams or not

Whatever Aaron Rodgers has wanted, Aaron Rodgers has gotten during his time with the New York Jets. He got Allen Lazard and Randall Cobb to provide some familiar faces to the wide receiving corps. He got his buddy Nathaniel Hackett installed as offensive coordinator, a job that no other team in the league was willing to offer him. When all of that still wasn't enough to get the Jets offense clicking, he got a new No. 1 wideout in old friend Davante Adams. (Rodgers claims not to have wanted the firing of Robert Saleh, but it's hard to imagine the team going through with that move if he'd objected to it.)

And yet, at the end of all that, New York is ... well, pretty much right where it started: struggling to move the ball without shooting itself in the foot. Week 8's performance against the New England Patriots offered pretty definitive proof that the one common denominator in all of this is Rodgers himself.

Aaron Rodgers is the common denominator of Jets' offensive dysfunction

It's well-documented how particular Rodgers is when digesting information and controlling the line of scrimmage. He likes to take his time, both to decipher what the defense is going to give him and to try and manipulate defensive linemen. Which is all well and good ... when you're not hamstringing your offense by doing so. That was very much not the case against New England, when the Jets had used all three of their first-half timeouts after just 10 offensive plays.

No, that's not a typo: Every third play, the Jets were forced to burn a timeout to avoid a delay of game penalty. The problem wasn't quite as acute in the second half, but Rodgers was forced to burn another timeout with the ball in Patriots territory late in the third quarter.

And it's not even like the Jets are getting incredible production out of the bargain: Rodgers and the Jets scored just 16 points through three quarters and are locked in a dogfight with a 1-6 Patriots time that lost QB Drake Maye to a concussion in the first half. Rodgers has been given everything he could possibly ask for by GM Joe Douglas and owner Woody Johnson. If this is the best he can make of it, it's time to ask some very hard questions in New York.