Jet fire head coach Robert Saleh. Who could have seen this coming??

WILD! So Robert Saleh essentially lived this scene out:

Unreal. Who could have seen this coming?? Well, anyone who watched the Jets/Vikings London game on Sunday morning had a pretty good inkling. Aaron Rodgers typically holds his disgust close to the vest but even he couldn’t contain it on Sunday. He put on a moody masterclass of eyerolls, screaming, and aggressive gesticulating toward his sideline the entire game. It felt like the culmination of a LOT of frustration with his head coach. Live look at Packer fans who watched the original version of this movie with Mike McCarthy in 2018:

I know this one!

Look, at this point, unless there’s some interim head coach Aaron Rodgers-Revival coming, it looks like A-Aron is more cooked than a pizza left on a Pizzazz at a college house post-bar close. He still makes a few throws a game where he looks like 2014-Rodgers, but his wheels are completely gone after the Achilles injury last season, and his timing looks broken.

And that’s fine! Father Time is undefeated. I’ll admit, I’ve watched more than a few Jets games this year, and I do still find myself pulling for him from time to time. Especially in instances like Sunday where a Jets win would have helped the Packers immensely. Old habits die hard, I guess. But in watching those games it has become clear that he has lost more than one step. His 2022 season in Green Bay wasn’t just a blip on the radar after back-to-back MVP seasons, it was a harbinger that he was at the end of his time as a dominant player in the NFL. If he had a better team around him? And an offensive line that could block for more than 2.5 seconds? And the Jets trade for Davante this week? He could probably still be decent enough to be a part of a playoff team. But he’s not able to carry a team on his back anymore the way he did for the Packers for a lot of those playoff seasons.

All of that to say: Brian Gutekunst is the clear winner in the Aaron Rodgers trade. He had his next franchise quarterback ready to go and knew it (Malik Willis), he saw the writing on the wall, he was tired of the drama, and he got a decent return in the trade. Probably not as much as he would have gotten after the 2021 season (and I truly believe that’s when he wanted to pull the trigger but couldn’t because Rodgers won the MVP), but still, it’s a win nonetheless.

PS: I did read the unofficial Aaron Rodgers biography released earlier this year:

It’s not a bad read, I wouldn’t say I necessarily learned a lot about Rodgers, but you do get some insight into those Packer playoff runs that fell short. But between reading about his drama in that book, and seeing it play out in real life again in New York, I’m just happy our fan base doesn’t have to deal with this anymore. He’s a HOFer, one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, I had WAY more fun on Sunday’s than not during his run in Green Bay, but the drama is far more entertaining when it’s not the team you root for.