It’s getting harder for Aaron Rodgers and his 2-4 Jets to get back up

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — When Aaron Rodgers gets hit, it takes him a little bit longer to get up than it used to. His knees hurt, his ankles hurt — the hits always hurt, but now they hurt more. That’s football at age 40.

In between the creaks and the crumbles, signs of the old Rodgers sometimes emerge. He’s still there, and he’s often glorious, like when he soared a pass into the air just before halftime on Monday night — the greatest thrower of Hail Marys in NFL history, landing another one, 52 yards to Allen Lazard, just before halftime.

HAIL MARY BEFORE THE HALF! @AaronRodgers12 let it fly!#BUFvsNYJ on ESPN pic.twitter.com/4Hf2aBmI5C

— New York Jets (@nyjets) October 15, 2024

The Jets should have gone into the locker room down 20-10. Instead, it was 20-17. Maybe the old man still has some magic up his sleeves, the kind to help a team overcome a week of turmoil, when a head coach (Robert Saleh) was fired and a play-caller (Rodgers’ friend, Nathaniel Hackett) demoted.

Sometimes magic feels alive, and then you realize magic isn’t real. At least not around here.

“Those are the moments where you want to grab the momentum and run with it,” said interim head coach Jeff Ulbrich. “Unfortunately, we didn’t.”

For three straight weeks, late in the fourth quarter, Rodgers had the ball with a chance for the Jets to take the lead. All three times, he lost. On Monday night, it ended when, according to Rodgers, wide receiver Mike Williams ran the wrong route, Rodgers underthrew him, Williams slipped — and was possibly concussed when a defender landed on him — and the pass was intercepted. The game ended a few plays later as defensive end Micheal Clemons watched Josh Allen run by him to convert a first down, game over. A 23-20 loss.

“Yeah, it’s frustrating,” Rodgers said. “I’m here to win those games. But we’ve got to be on our details. It’s little things every single time.”

The Jets are now 2-4 — the first time Rodgers has ever had a losing record after six games. Rodgers was sacked three times and hit fives times on Monday, after getting hit 25 times in the previous two games. It’s getting harder to get back up. And now a 40-year-old man, on his last legs, needs to do his part to pull the Jets out of a 2-4 hole, something he’s never had to do before.

“We need to get going,” Rodgers said. “This was a golden opportunity. Some games you win in the NFL and some games you give away. This was a giveaway.”

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Jets owner Woody Johnson made a change last week, firing Saleh and replacing him with Ulbrich with the idea of giving the Jets a boost. During the Saleh era, the Jets made the same mistakes, over and over again. It was a different coach on Monday, but the same issues persisted, and the Jets gave little reason to believe they have the ability overcome what ails them, largely because they’ve never been able to overcome it before.

On Monday night, the offense came out firing, scoring on its first two possessions — a 34-yard field goal and a stellar 5-yard Garrett Wilson touchdown catch — which it never did under Hackett’s watch. But the defense didn’t do its part, gashed by a rookie running back (Ray Davis) who had 75 yards on 26 carries through five games. On Buffalo’s first possession, Davis had rushes of 3, 14, 6, 5, 15 and 5 yards before quarterback Josh Allen punched in a 1-yard touchdown run. Davis finished with 97 rushing yards on 20 carries — plus three catches for 55 yards — and Bills running backs averaged 5.4 yards per carry.

“Just not the start that we’re accustomed to having from this defense. We have to have more urgency in all that we do,” Ulbrich said.

Saleh was frequently criticized for the Jets being one of the NFL’s most penalized teams. That didn’t change with the coaching switch: The Jets were penalized 11 times for 110 yards on Monday, and that didn’t even account for some of the offsetting penalties that occurred. The Jets were called for four different defensive pass interference penalties and one roughing the passer. Some were questionable calls — on both sides, Rodgers said — but not enough to excuse it.

“We have to collectively look at it, take a hard look at the tape,” Ulbrich said. “What’s legit? What isn’t? It’s always telling. From a discipline standpoint, though, that can’t happen. We got behind the sticks. It puts us behind before we even get started. It wasn’t good enough in that way.”

It wasn’t much better on offense. In the second quarter, a false start called on right tackle Morgan Moses turned third-and-10 to third-and-15, and then Rodgers was sacked. In the third quarter, running back Braelon Allen’s 4-yard touchdown was called back by a Tyron Smith holding penalty. On the next play, Wilson dropped a potential touchdown as he was hit by two Bills defenders.

Then, kicker Greg Zuerlein missed a 32-yard field goal attempt. He later missed a 43-yard field goal, doinking kicks off the uprights, crucial misses in a three-point loss.

“At the end of the day we’re gonna lose games if you kick three,” Wilson said, “and you just never want to live in that world of relying on the kick.”

Wilson also called the penalties “demoralizing.”

“It’s not a good feeling,” Wilson said. “It’s just shooting ourselves in our foot. It’s something we’ve been doing, it’s something we’ve been emphasizing throughout the practice week and we still go out there and do these things to keep us out of the end zone. … We have to be better. We have to do what it takes during the week to be better. It’s definitely frustrating but we’re the ones in control of it. We’ve got to fix it, we have to and we plan to.”

The Jets gained 393 yards of offense. The running game (Breece Hall: 113 yards on 18 carries) woke up and both Wilson (107 yards) and Lazard (114 yards) had big nights. But the Jets scored a touchdown on only one of four red-zone drives and converted 4 of 12 third downs.

“I was feeling good all week,” Rodgers said. “I thought we were going to have a big night on offense. This should have been a 30-plus-point game on offense and this shouldn’t even be a conversation.”

Coaches change, but the same problems persist.

After last week’s loss to the Vikings, Saleh insisted that “it’s still early.” He was fired two days later. Now the Jets are 2-4. It’s getting late, fast — a feeling the Jets are all too familiar with in recent years: Seasons that start with promise and end in misery. Wilson said he’s discovering that climbing out of this sort of hole is easier said than done.

“It’s harder than it sounds is what I’m learning,” Wilson said. “We’ve gotta find it. I don’t know, man. If I had all the answers we would’ve won that game. S— man, we gotta dig a little deeper. Do a little extra. I can’t drop the damn ball no matter how hard I get hit. You gotta live it, you can’t just talk about it. We gotta go out and do this stuff and it’s gotta happen right now.”

The Jets had an emotional week. By all accounts, it was a positive week around the facility, the organization flowing in the same direction, the energy building back toward something positive. But that can be fleeting when the wins aren’t coming. Everyone loves the new coach, until he loses too.

It’s only been one game for Ulbrich, and he’s already running out of time.

“I think there is always a sense of urgency,” Ulbrich said. “There has to be. That’s just the nature of this league. At the same time, 2-4, we are by no means out of this thing. By no means. I know the character of that locker room. I know the way we will respond. I know that. I thought this week’s process was right. I thought the way we were prepared was exceptional. We have to start stacking these weeks of exceptional preparation. I promise you it will start to pay off on Sundays.”

Promises, promises.

“We just gotta find a way to score touchdowns,” Wilson said, “because I don’t want to keep feeling like this.”

(Top photo: Luke Hales / Getty Images)