Aaron Rodgers' roast of Woody Johnson guarantees he won't be a Jet in 2025

From the moment it became clear that this New York Jets season wasn't going to have a happy ending, the writing has been on the wall for Aaron Rodgers' time with the team. New York is set to hire a new GM and a new head coach this offseason, and you can bet that the new regime isn't going to have a ton of interest in rebuilding around a 41-year-old quarterback who no longer seems willing to make the adjustments necessary to succeed with his diminished skill set.

But because this is Aaron Rodgers we're talking about, that transition can't be easy. Rodgers would rather die than admit he's at fault for anything at all, and so he's lately begun to embark on a campaign of "you can't fire me, I quit". First, he threw his teammates under the bus, somehow finding a way to blame them for his own failures in last Sunday's loss to the Seattle Seahawks. This week, however, he's managed to reach new heights of blame-shifting. This whole fiasco is actually Jets leadership's fault; if only they'd been more supportive, maybe they'd gotten a bit better play out of their clearly infallible quarterback.

Aaron Rodgers targets Woody Johnson with latest Jets criticisms

It began on Tuesday, when Rodgers gave some eye-opening quotes on the Pat McAfee Show, including the following: “There needs to be a return to hiring the right person at general manager, head coach and then allowing them to do their job with full backing from the organization."

That seemed to be a pretty clear shot at owner Woody Johnson (who, to be clear, is far from blameless in this whole mess). When given a chance to clarify on Wednesday, Rodgers emphasized that yes, it was definitely at shot at Johnson.

“Is that a rhetorical question?" Rodgers asked when questioned about whether his remarks to McAfee could apply to his current situation.

"I cited an example I’ve seen. There were other examples in Green Bay, both for and maybe not as for whoever was in charge. But I think it’s an important part of ownership to hire the right guys, set the vision, and support them when the outside world is trying to tear them down."

When asked whether he thought that was the case in New York, Rodgers let the silence speak volumes.

Rodgers isn't exactly wrong here; if you were to rank the reasons why the Jets haven't won a playoff game since 2010, sclerotic ownership would have to be at the top of the list. Johnson is among the worst owners in the entire league, unable to pick a direction and stick with it, and the culture in the building has deterioriated accordingly.

Still, it's clear what Rodgers is doing here. The man is pathologically incapable of taking responsibility for his own faults; it's always someone or something else, whether it's the wind or not receiving enough support from ownership or whatever else can make Rodgers into the victim whenver things aren't going well. Rodgers doesn't feel very wanted right now (can't imagine why), and when he doesn't feel wanted, he wants to go elsewhere. But he also doesn't want to make it look like New York dumped him for his poor play, and so you get narrative spin like the above.