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Damien Woody: Aaron Rodgers Looks Old, Compromised As Jets Flatline

Nothing the Jets have done has improved the reality of their situation.

Kyle Koster

Rodgers and the Jets fell to 2-5 after a humiliating loss on Sunday Night Football.
Rodgers and the Jets fell to 2-5 after a humiliating loss on Sunday Night Football. / Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images
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It's the morning after yet another uninspiring New York Jets loss—perhaps the saddest one yet as Gang Green went into Pittsburgh and got stomped by Russell Wilson's Steelers on Sunday Night Football to fall to 2-5 on the season. It's going to take doing a third conversation-changing thing in as many weeks to distract people from the fact that the whole ship is rapidly sinking and there are only so many coaches that can be fired and old Aaron Rodgers teammates to bring in.

Even the most optimistic pundits are having to face the reality of the situation after talking themselves into believing in it over the past two years. And the realists are becoming more and more comfortable offering some basic realities.

Damien Woody led off Monday's parade of Jets takes while appearing on ESPN's Unsportsmanlike Radio, where he said the team is flatlining and Aaron Rodgers appears both old and compromised.

"They're trying to make all these moves," Woody said. "What's the machine that, the paddles. It's like they've done these moves to try to bring the team back. They fired the coach. Clear! Boom! They trade for Davante. Clear! Boom! But it's still flatlining."

"Aaron Rodgers looks old and compromised," he continued. "If you watch him, the guy doesn't move around. He's off-target with his throws. He's making bad decisions. He's gotten everything he's asked for from the Jets organization. Every move that he's wanted to make the Jets have acquiesced. And where has it gotten them? Nowhere."

Woody pointed out that, by any metric, the Jets are one of the worst teams in the NFL. After all of the drama and expectations. They cannot win a must-win game. Any must-win game. The situation as it is untenable. At a certain point there's nothing they can do to obscure the fact that they are what their record suggests they are: a non-entity in the grand scheme of the NFL. Perhaps we're there already.

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Kyle Koster
KYLE KOSTER

Kyle Koster is an assistant managing editor at Sports Illustrated covering the intersection of sports and media. He was formerly the editor in chief of The Big Lead, where he worked from 2011 to '24. Koster also did turns at the Chicago Sun-Times, where he created the Sports Pros(e) blog, and at Woven Digital.

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