It’s either the top spot or a dark spot on the line for the Jets

This is a moment of truth for the Jets that wasn’t expected this early in the season, if at all.

Aaron Rodgers will now be armed with a new head coach and a new player for a game he and the 2-3 Jets need to win against the 3-2 Bills on Monday night to stop the bleeding and avoid a skid that could rush a crisis of confidence.

First place, or a dark place.

New head coach Jeff Ulbrich needs to get his defense to continue playing with their hair on fire against a struggling Josh Allen to give Rodgers a chance to win the game in the fourth quarter if required.

New quarterback Todd Downing needs to get Rodgers plays quickly and decisively, and get Breece Hall more involved, especially as a weapon out of the backfield, and get Tyler Conklin more involved, because Rodgers doesn’t get involved anymore. Garrett Wilson needs to be re-targeted 22 times.

And Aaron Rodgers? Maybe if he had been able to throw a touchdown pass against the Broncos, maybe if he hadn’t thrown three interceptions, one of six, in London against the Vikings, maybe if the offensive line had stopped him on consecutive hits, Robert. Saleh would still be their head coach.

Woody Johnson sounded like the late Jets owner Leon Hess, who said this when he hired Rich Kotite in 1995: “I’m 80 years old. I want results now.”

Hess was 82 when he hired Bill Parcells after Kotite went 4-28.

After a 12-year playoff drought, Johnson nearly stood atop the Atlantic Health Jets Training Center and yelled, “I’m 76 years old. I want results now” when he made the big hit for Rodgers 19 years ago months

Sometimes these jet training changes can provide the spark the owner is desperately looking for.

But the reality is that we’ve only seen MVP Rodgers twice, once in the win against the Titans and once against the Patriots, but more often this season we’ve seen the 2022 Green Bay Rodgers, who has a score career-low 91.1 quarterback rating. .

Ulbrich is head coaching material, but everyone is aware that offense is not his area of ​​expertise.

This is still Rodgers’ offense.

If he doesn’t find his game, and finds it soon, Ulbrich, Downing and likely GM Joe Douglas will be looking for work.

It’s great that the Jets have spent so many hours since Bloody Tuesday looking in the mirror, but it’s more critical that Johnson likes what he sees on the field. The team he was waiting for from the moment Rodgers walked into the facility. Whose team sprung Bloody Tuesday. The team he was waiting for when Douglas strengthened the offensive line. And most of all, the future first-ballot Hall of Fame quarterback he was waiting for. Even after a losing season. Even two months away from his 41st birthday.

Allen and the Bills have owned the division for four consecutive years. It used to be Tom Brady and Bill Belichick who stood in the way of the Jets.

Rodgers needs to play the kind of inspired game the rest of the team did when his Achilles snapped four plays in the Jets’ era in the 2023 opener on Sept. 11.

No one should have expected the ’24 flight to blow up in the early part of the season, but Rodgers is a nastier performance and perhaps a more heartbreaking hit for having to rehash his RELAX message from a decade ago, when he was. a 30-year-old chasing his Super Bowl as a Green Bay Packer.

While it’s true that the Jets were forced to play catch-up against the Vikings, in no universe is it advisable for your 40-year-old franchise quarterback to attempt 54 passes.

“We’ve got to run the ball,” Rodgers said. Early and often. If only to try and keep Allen on the sidelines.

The draft, never a reality under Zach Wilson, still calls for Rodgers to take a lead so Ulbrich can unleash his predators on the opposing quarterback.

Rodgers can still do it with the best of them, but imagine if he underestimated how difficult it would be for him to return to the stratospheric standard he expects of himself? Should he step away from Father Time to prove he’s not as young forever as Brady was with Tampa Bay?

The Jets last won a division title in 2002, the year Rodgers was throwing 26 touchdowns to lead Butte College to a NorCal Conference championship. This season has always been his chance. It’s time for them to wake up and seize the moment.

First place, or a dark place.