With their head coach and general manager already out the door before Thanksgiving, it’s clear the New York Jets are headed for a complete cultural overhaul in 2025. If reports are to be believed, Aaron Rodgers could be the next prominent figure to be shown the door.
Some believe that would be a mistake, and the Jets would be best off giving Rodgers another shot in 2025. Others are eager to see Rodgers go. Among the latter group, there is a wide-ranging array of suggestions as to who the Jets should choose to replace Rodgers.
Count me among those who think New York’s wisest decision is to part ways with Rodgers, and allow me to add my two cents regarding who they should select to replace him. As of right now, I have a clear preference: Tyrod Taylor.
Here are a few reasons I think the Jets should go with Taylor as their opening-week starter in September 2025.
Taylor is plenty capable of winning games as a stopgap starter
When Taylor last started for the New York Giants in 2023, he was far and away the team’s best option among its three starting quarterbacks. While outplaying Daniel Jones and Tommy DeVito isn’t the most glowing endorsement, the gap was not even close. Taylor managed to play like a competent starting quarterback on a horrific Giants team that gave him, quite literally, the worst support a quarterback could possibly have. As a team, the Giants ranked 32nd at Pro Football Focus in both pass-blocking grade (43.4) and receiving grade (62.3).
New York looked immensely more competitive when Taylor was under center. Save for a game against the Jets where he exited early due to injury, the Giants went 2-2 in Taylor’s starts. That includes two one-score losses to playoff-bound teams in the Bills and Rams, coming by a combined margin of 6 points. The Giants went 4-9 in all other games, with an average margin of defeat of 20 points across their 9 losses.
Taylor finished the 2023 season completing 64% of his passes for 1,341 yards, 5 touchdowns, and 3 interceptions, throwing for 7.5 yards per attempt and earning an 89.1 passer rating. Those are solid numbers for a stopgap starting quarterback no matter the situation, and they are especially impressive given how bad the Giants’ offensive supporting cast was.
When compared against Rodgers’ 2024 production, Taylor’s 2023 season wins the battle without much debate. The two are neck-and-neck in some overarching metrics like passer rating and QBR, but Taylor owns sizable advantages in more specific measures of QB play, such as adjusted completion percentage, completion percentage over expected, and pressure-to-sack rate – all despite playing with substantially worse teammates.
Here is a head-to-head comparison of Taylor’s 2023 season with the Giants versus Rodgers’ 2024 season with the Jets through 11 games.
While there are no logical fans left who believe Rodgers can ever lead the Jets to a Super Bowl, some fans have moved the goalposts and claim that Rodgers would be an ideal solution as the Jets’ stopgap quarterback for one more year. This chart should completely squash that notion.
Not only would choosing Taylor over Rodgers alleviate the drama overshadowing the organization, but Taylor is probably a flat-out better quarterback at this point. There is no reason the Jets should put up with the off-field implications of Rodgers’ presence when they have another quarterback on the team who played better football in his most recent season.
If Rodgers performed substantially better than Taylor, there would be a real debate as to who is the preferable stopgap, but with similar-at-best production, the tiebreaker easily goes to Taylor due to the benefit of eliminating Rodgers’ distracting aura. And calling it similar is generous; the numbers lean quite clearly in Taylor’s favor.
Not to mention, with Taylor being nearly six years younger than Rodgers, he is more trustworthy going into 2025. Rodgers is more likely than Taylor to take a steep decline in 2025, which is alarming considering how much the numbers already point toward Taylor being a better quarterback today.
Taylor is somebody you can remain competitive with while you work on finding your long-term solution at quarterback. He protects the ball extremely well, and while he is a limited all-around passer, he mixes in the occasional deep shot to keep defenses honest and give the offense just enough explosiveness to stay afloat. Rodgers still offers great ball security, but the deep ball is what he lacks in comparison to Taylor, as evidenced by the massive difference in ADOT seen on the chart above.
If you have a good defense and special teams, Taylor is the ideal stopgap quarterback to win games with. While he does not raise your offensive ceiling in any meaningful way, he is a high-floor quarterback who will not waste a strong defensive effort. It is easy to picture the 2023 Jets winning 9-to-10 games with Taylor while their defense and special teams were still elite. If they can turn those units around in 2025, they can stay in the mix for a wild card berth with Taylor under center.
Favorable cap implications
Taylor is under contract with the Jets for one more season, and he is due to have a cap hit of just $6.8 million in 2025. Rolling with a cheap starting quarterback gives the Jets plenty of extra wiggle room to make the necessary upgrades at other positions, especially at quarterback-supporting positions as they continue to fortify the environment that an eventual young quarterback will step into.
The Jets can cut Rodgers with a post-June 1 designation to save $9.5 million in 2025 cap space. They’d still be on the hook for $14 million in dead money in 2025 and $35 million in 2026, but it beats paying Rodgers a $23.5 million cap hit in 2025 just to play worse football than the immensely cheaper Taylor.
Why Taylor and not a different veteran?
There are minimal cap savings to be had by releasing Taylor; the Jets would net $1.1 million in savings while taking on $5.7 million in dead money. So, he is pretty much a lock to stay with the team. Considering that his production is plenty good for a stopgap starter and could even be viewed as a bargain at his $6.8 million cap hit, why not just start him, then?
Whether it’s Jacoby Brissett, Marcus Mariota, Drew Lock, Jameis Winston, Justin Fields, or Jimmy Garoppolo, the Jets will not find a stopgap quarterback on the 2025 free agent market who is decidedly better than Taylor. With the majority of Taylor’s contract on the books whether he stays or goes, there is no reason for the Jets to add another QB contract into the mix to acquire a player who is unlikely to be better.
The only definitively better quarterback on the market is Sam Darnold, who will likely command a mammoth deal, and… let’s be honest, that’s not a road that either side wants to go down. Imagine this: The Jets traded Sam Darnold, watched him have a one-year breakout in his fourth year away from the team, and then gave him a large contract, only for him to revert back to his old ways and prove 2024 to be a one-year wonder. It would redefine the term “Same Old Jets.” Does Darnold want to play here, anyway? And why wouldn’t Minnesota just franchise-tag Darnold in a worst-case scenario? This is a scenario I will not entertain any further.
Russell Wilson? Please. After what they just went through with Rodgers, running it back with another headline-grabbing has-been is the dumbest thing New York could do.
Perhaps the Jets could find a definitive upgrade by swinging a trade for a surprising veteran looking for a fresh start – think someone like Dak Prescott. But they will have a new general manager who will be eager to make his stamp on the team’s foundation. With some future draft picks out the door through the Davante Adams and Haason Reddick trades and the team’s long-term cap situation muddied by a myriad of restructures and back-loaded contracts, would it really make sense for a new GM to allocate more picks and more cap space to a cast-off veteran quarterback who probably isn’t the franchise’s answer? I don’t think so, and the new GM probably will agree, so long as the owner affords him patience and does not force blockbuster moves.
New York is likely going to take a quarterback early in the 2025 draft and focus on building him up as the franchise’s eventual answer. It is difficult to envision any other type of plan. Running it back with Rodgers does not make much sense, there are no high-quality free agents realistically worth pursuing, and the team is not in a position to afford making another all-in trade for a veteran.
In 2025, the Jets’ goal is to draft their QB of the future, buy him time to develop at his own pace, and do their best to win games in the meantime with a roster that could still compete for a playoff spot under the right coaching. Rolling with Tyrod Taylor accomplishes all of those goals.
