At the wedding of Aaron Rodgers and the Jets, no one even made it to the dance floor
We were robbed of a season of Rodgers' press conferences, and New York sports are in hell?
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I can’t remember the last time I was as excited for a Monday night as I was yesterday. My husband is away for work — oh, yes, I should mention that Tyler and I got married! Which is also why you haven’t heard from me in a few weeks. We were wed (what a romantic way to say it!) in a beautiful ceremony in my parents’s backyard in front of ten people. It was intimate, relaxed, and full of love. We feel very lucky; thank you to everyone who reached out <3
But back to Monday night. Because Tyler is away, I had my girl dinner/girl night all mapped out. First, I called my best friend as I walked to the grocery store. Then I bought a weird combination of things to eat for dinner, which included — but was not limited to — pasta salad, American cheese, Laughing Cow cheese, an apple, some pre-cooked salmon from the deli-counter thing, a box of rainbow cookies, and some seaweed snacks. Strange! Exciting! I sometimes feel like being an adult is as awesome as I thought it would be as a kid, like when I marry the love of my life and buy whatever I want at the grocery store. Then I remember I have to make money and pay taxes.
I got back home, watched Selling the OC (do you want me to write my thoughts on this show? I have *thoughts*) while I ate my bizarre meal, and then eagerly switched to Aaron Rodgers’ debut in New York against Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills.
The other New York football team, the Giants, played Sunday night and lost 0-40 to the Cowboys. It was a dark day at MetLife. Monday’s game was supposed to be a wedding (speaking of weddings) that would reverse those bad vibes. It was supposed to be the beginning of a beautiful marriage between Rodgers and the Jets. It was the first time in over a decade that New York was in the Super Bowl conversation. There were fireworks to commemorate 9/11. The groom made his entrance by running onto the field holding an American flag.
You know by now that they barely got through the vows and the first dance was a disaster.
Aaron Rodgers went down on the fourth possession of the game, something clearly and severely wrong with his left lower leg. He left the field, went into the injury tent, and was quickly taken into the stadium on a cart. He looked like he knew that this marriage would not be consummated. I scrolled through Twitter (sorry — X, barf) and saw that multiple arm-chair doctors were diagnosing the future Hall-of-Famer with an achilles tendon tear. On Tuesday, it was confirmed that they were correct.
It was all so deeply Jets. After years of swiping left on QBs, they finally found The One, but he went down within minutes and is now out for the season. I don’t remember this — and not to brag about predicting something awful — but my husband reminded me that when we were watching Hard Knocks I apparently said, “Rodgers is going to get hurt in the first game.”
I wish I weren’t right. But it was so predictable. The Jets can’t have nice things, and Rodgers seemed sort of…frail?…on the sidelines during training camp. With his slim frame and gray beard, he looked less like a star quarterback and more like a dad dressing up as a football player to go trick-or-treating with his kids. Something was off about the vibes.
There is nothing funny about Rodgers’ injury. Even though I think he’s a quack, I was excited to watch him play on a new team for the first time in his 19th year in the NFL. So was New York City — earlier on Monday, I watched two guys on my Brooklyn street deck a car out with Jets flags and load coolers into the trunk. The city was alive with a sense of football renewal. Remember when former Jets QB Sam Darnold got mononucleosis? Rodgers’s first start as a Jet was supposed to be the opposite of that.
But you know what was funny? The entire broadcast after Rodgers went down. ESPN commentators Joe Buck and Troy Aikman somehow managed to accidentally turn a serious situation into high comedy. At one point, Joe Buck said something like, “It seems like a very severe injury for Rodgers,” then immediately segued into product placement, saying, “And please don’t forget to watch Toy Story Fun Day Football when it kicks off on Disney+ and ESPN+.” Buck later rattled off all the early-season, devastating injuries that Jets players have suffered dating back to 1999. As if fans hadn’t been through enough.
It was theater of the absurd. After seeing the Jets buzz about Rodgers on Hard Knocks this year, we were stuck watching Zach Wilson, the second-overall pick in the 2021 NFL draft who’s generated more gossip about sleeping with his mom’s friends (???) than wins. The poor guy came into the game and threw an interception. I feel a little sorry for him, because he really shouldn’t have been taken so high in the draft and tossed right into the deep end. Rodgers was supposed to be his reprieve.
Now, there is none. The football was sloppy (Josh Allen committed four turnovers), yet somehow still thrilling. The Jets pulled out the win in overtime thanks to former undrafted free agent Xavier Gipson, who returned a punt for a touchdown to win the game for New York. As if to say, “the band and the venue are already paid for — someone might as well dance.”
It was a great ending to a horrible situation, but, unfortunately, the horrible situation is just beginning. Rodgers was the glue for the Jets’ entire offense, which was finally starting to gel. The teams’ defense is fantastic.
Now the glue is gone and head coach Robert Saleh is sticking with Wilson as the starter rather than bringing in a veteran QB. Do I sort of think maybe Wilson can have a breakout year? Sure, in a delusional way. But then I remember that Wilson has the second-highest interception rate in the NFL since he came into the league, per ESPN’s Mina Kimes.
"I don't know why people are trying to put an obituary under our team name," Saleh said in a press conference today. “Aaron is an unbelievable piece of this whole thing and we love him, but there’s 52 other guys in this locker room plus the 16 practice squad guys who believe we can do a lot of good things here.”
This is optimistic thinking, and the right thing to tell this very talented team, but the bottom line is that Rodgers’ injury sucks for him and it sucks for the Jets organization and it sucks for Jets fans.
It also sucks for the rest of us. We have been robbed of watching good football, sure, and finding out if Rodgers in New York would work. But more importantly — we’ve been stripped of what could have been the greatest New York sports content in decades. The only stage we’ll get to see Rodgers on this year is one like the psychedelics convention in Colorado he attended. New York media won’t get post-game interviews, we won’t get NY Daily News or NY Post headlines like “From Cheese-Head to Chopped Cheese,” or whatever. I will probably have fewer unhinged things to write about, because Rodgers it the gift that keeps on giving.
Instead, New York gets the Giants with Daniel Jones and Wilson, who are not, like Rodgers, agents of chaos. Nor likely Hall-of-Famers.
It’s worth noting that the Yankees are under last in the AL East, and the Mets are second-to-last in the NL East. New York sports are maybe in hell, who’s to say. I’d take this opportunity to remind you that I’m a Boston fan, but I’m above that, so I won’t.
Anyway, deepest condolences to the almost-newlyweds. I hope you can get a refund on the honeymoon suite. Or at least kick this weird guy out of it.
“From Cheese-Head to Chopped Cheese,”
Bravo!
I now believe that this season ends with Sam Darnold starting and winning the Super Bowl for the 49ers. The misery has to come full circle for the Jets' fans.