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All NY Jets offseason discussion comes down to 1 simple principle

Aaron Rodgers, NY Jets, NFL, QB, Return, 2025
Aaron Rodgers, New York Jets, Getty Images

Is Aaron Rodgers the most important question of the New York Jets’ offseason?

Despite the endless rhetoric about it, the answer is clearly no. At most, Rodgers would be with the team one more year. Whoever the Jets hire to be their general manager and head coach will most likely be there for at least four seasons unless they are Adam Gase and John Idzik-level disastrous, given Woody Johnson’s track record.

Once the Jets make their hires, there’s a fundamental issue at hand that involves Rodgers (if he does not retire) but goes far beyond just whether to bring him back or not. It will imbue their entire vision for the organization going forward.

The Jets’ new regime will need to decide where they think the Jets’ roster is in the cycle of team-building. From that decision will flow all future moves of the offseason, including cuts, re-signings, free agency signings, and the draft.

The entire offseason should come down to one simple principle: the hallmark of building a successful NFL team is marrying the window of opportunity to personnel and salary cap.

Conceptually, this is fairly easy to understand. A team must recognize whether and to what extent it is ready to compete and correspondingly fill out its roster within the constraints of the salary cap for both the coming season and several seasons in the future.

Salary cap approach

Although the salary cap is a somewhat mythical invention of accounting for a team’s dollars, its core principles have some overlaps with personal finance.

How the flow of cash works is less important for fans to understand (except when an owner refuses to sign or extend a player due to cash flow). The more critical aspect is how that cash affects a team’s salary cap budgeting.

The idea that “the cap is fake” is patently untrue. It is not fake at all. There is a legitimate accounting system that exists. In some ways, just like an accountant can take advantage of legal loopholes and exceptions to minimize a client’s tax payments, a savvy capologist can find ways to minimize the accounting in any given season.

However, the fundamental difference between the salary cap and regular taxes is that even if the money is pushed into the future, the bill will always come due at some point.

Think of pushing cap dollars into the future via void years or signing bonuses as borrowing against the team’s future cap. It is easy to think that the cap will rise in future years to make room for the money, but remember, future salaries for other players rise correspondingly.

Taking out future debt to pay one’s present bills is worthwhile only if the payoff is substantial and the debt can be paid off at a reasonable rate. It’s the difference between a mortgage payment and credit card debt.

When approaching player contracts, both on a collective and individual level, a general manager must evaluate whether the cap structure of the contract is equivalent to taking out a mortgage or credit card debt.

Will the investment pay off in the projected term and allow the team to pay it off in a reasonable manner? Or will the contract simply be a drain on cap resources without providing enough payout to justify the cost?

While there is no surefire way to answer that question, this is where the principle I mentioned above comes in. By understanding the team’s competitiveness timeline, a general manager can properly decide how much money to push into the future, how much to keep in the present, how to structure contracts, and what players to sign, release, and let walk in free agency.

Of course, this is not a science. Teams’ fortunes fluctuate from year to year. Identifying why the team’s fortunes turned is not always easy, and making decisions based on the supposed factors can go horribly wrong.

Still, this may be the most fundamental question a front office executive must get right.

The Jets’ last two seasons

In 2023-24, Joe Douglas’ moves reflected the attempt to balance this trifecta of window of opportunity, personnel, and salary cap correctly. He thought the Jets had a narrow window of opportunity to compete in 2023-24, and maybe also 2025.

Therefore, the Jets’ reworked deal with Rodgers included two seasons with very low cap hits and the potential for a third if it would still prove to be worthwhile. Accordingly, Douglas made short-term investments in the free agent market and backloaded most of those deals with void years to push cap hits into the future.

For the most part, Douglas tried to balance that out to avoid a cap disaster upon Rodgers’ exit, although in some cases it proved impossible (principally C.J. Mosley’s contract).

Douglas made a fundamental though somewhat different mistake in that calculation in each season. In 2023, he traded for Rodgers while failing to build a roster that was truly a contender, even on paper. The team’s offensive line and receiving corps would have set Rodgers up for failure even if he had not torn his Achilles. That was on the general manager for not marrying his personnel to the window of opportunity.

In 2024, though, it looked like Douglas had gotten it right. Multiple prognosticators ranked the Jets’ roster as one of the best in the NFL. But then the season started, and after an alarming Week 1 defeat, it became increasingly clear that Douglas had gotten it wrong.

Why and how that happened have already been hammered at endlessly throughout the season and will undoubtedly come under even sharper scrutiny during an agonizing postmortem. But the central point is that the team’s window of opportunity, personnel, and salary cap situation were not in sync. Douglas brought in veterans for a win-now team and pushed salary into the future, but the team wasn’t anywhere near competitive.

Now, anyone observing the Jets’ situation should look at the cold, hard facts. If the 2024 iteration of this Jets roster went 5-12, there is no earthly reason to expect that a Band-Aid version in 2025 would suddenly become a contender. As important as coaching is in football, it takes an incredible amount of hubris to believe that a given coach could take virtually the same roster and make it a contender.

Realistically speaking, this team needs to re-tool, at the very least.

Therefore, at least for the sake of offseason decision-making, the window of opportunity is closed in 2025. That means personnel and salary cap must follow.

Just between a traded player (Mike Williams) and free agents (D.J. Reed, Haason Reddick, Tyler Conklin, Tyron Smith, Javon Kinlaw, Wes Schweitzer), the Jets will already have over $29.6 million in dead cap next season. They can push some of that into the future by re-signing Conklin, but not much of it.

Should the Jets hold on to the rest of their expensive veterans and try to patch up those holes via free agency? With the assessment that this team is highly unlikely to be a contender in 2025, the answer can only be no.

A player like Allen Lazard is an easy decision; he’d be released no matter what, adding $6.6 million in dead cap to the ledger (although also freeing up $6.6 million, assuming it was an outright cut without a post-June 1 designation). Greg Zuerlein is also a no-brainer release with the $2.31 million/$2.47 million dead cap/cap savings split.

But then you have players like C.J. Mosley and Davante Adams.

Despite Mosley’s injury-ridden season and Jamien Sherwood’s rise to Team MVP, the veteran’s leadership was clearly missed on the field. His contract is like a gift that keeps on giving for the Jets, an albatross around their neck for the past six years.

If the Jets were going all-in, they might have still chosen to keep Mosley around for one more year just because of the onerous cost of releasing him, perhaps asking him to take another pay cut. But given that the Jets will not be contenders in 2025, releasing Mosley is the overwhelmingly sensible option.

The bigger question is whether to do it with a post-June 1 designation (which would offer at least some cap savings) or without it (which would incur a $16.4 million dead cap charge and actually cost the Jets $3.65 million in cap space rather than saving them any money).

Again, this is the kind of personnel/salary cap decision a team makes based on its window of opportunity. It’s not just about how good the player is anymore, but about the player’s value to the particular team in the context of its overall situation.

Adams is the most complicated part of the equation. He has a $38.3 million cap hit in each of the next two seasons, which would be untenable for any team, let alone one that does not seek to compete. Given that the Jets are not in that situation, the simplest path forward is to release Adams outright, absorb the $8.4 million dead cap charge, and take the nearly $30 million cap savings.

However, this is where it is important to evaluate what the team’s precise window of opportunity is. While this roster may not be ready to compete in 2025, barring a complete teardown, it still has enough talent to re-tool rather than re-build. Under a re-tooling structure, having a second good receiver opposite Garrett Wilson is a positive all around.

Therefore, it is likely worthwhile for the Jets to try to negotiate a pay cut with Adams. No team will pay him anywhere near his $35.64 million salary in 2025-26. The Jets should take the first crack at trying to come to a more workable contract number.

Prior reports indicated that Adams is not expected to be back with the Jets next season. If that’s from his initiative, there is nothing to talk about; he won’t negotiate with the Jets, and they’ll release him. But if it’s not coming from Adams, it would behoove any new regime to at least come to the table with him and try to work something out.

I believe this point is arguable from either angle, though. Adams is really the only player on the roster whose status with the Jets can be argued either way based on the team’s realistic expectations in 2025.

That brings us to Rodgers. How good he is or is not at this point in his career is not the issue anymore. As long as there is recognition that this roster will not contend — although I’m talking about Super Bowl contention here, you could set that bar at winning one playoff game or even making the playoffs altogether — the path forward with Rodgers is eminently clear.

No NFL team with a roster in flux, no realistic chance of contention, and a new head coach and general manager should continue to field a 41-year-old quarterback.

I believe that statement is accurate enough on its face without any performance qualifier. Going off that premise, bringing Rodgers back in 2025 would be institutional malpractice.

Rather than biting the bullet with a $49 million dead cap hit in 2025 (or even splitting it into $14/35 million in 2025-26), kicking the can down the road is exactly what a team in the Jets’ situation should not do.

I wholeheartedly agree that Woody Johnson should leave the decision about Rodgers’ future to the new general manager and head coach. Accordingly, I concede the viewpoint that the Jets should not push Rodgers away if he chooses not to retire.

But the premise I do not accept is that any new regime should even entertain the notion of bringing Rodgers back. This is not even a performance-based argument (although I could certainly make it one, as I did in a 6,000-word treatise a few weeks ago). It is a philosophical argument that goes to the very heart of team-building.

I would go as far as to say that any general manager who decides to bring Rodgers back is sabotaging his chances of success from the outset. When inheriting a football team in flux without a clear direction, the absolute worst thing an executive can do is prolong that flux and unclear direction. That is exactly what bringing back Rodgers would entail.

In this framework, the argument that there is no one better to be the Jets’ quarterback does not even matter. The goal of 2025 is not to field the most competitive team that a tight salary cap and borrowing against the future can buy. Rather, the goal is to re-tool the roster on a path toward sustainable success. And keeping around a 41-year-old quarterback who will play for a maximum of one more year is not the way to do that.

One roadblock

One problem a new regime may face is the fact that more of the Jets’ previous draft picks and other players will look to get paid in the next year or two. The four picks from the class of 2022 are eligible for extensions this offseason. Alijah Vera-Tucker will play under his fifth-year option. Jamien Sherwood is a free agent and may be a priority re-signing. Quincy Williams will likely seek an extension of his own.

The question is whether to invest in these players, either, if the team is not in a competitive window. I believe that is a question best left to a new regime, as there is no clear-cut answer.

I’ve already expressed my opinions on this score. I think the Jets should extend Vera-Tucker and Garrett Wilson this offseason while holding off on anyone else. Whether to re-sign Sherwood and give Williams an extension will depend on the new defensive staff.

I don’t agree with the argument that the Jets should uproot the roster completely. I think there is still talent worth re-tooling around. But if a new regime decided to run a complete overhaul, I would understand the thought process while disagreeing with it fundamentally.

I bring this up only because some fans will argue that I got my timeline for the Jets’ window of opportunity wrong. It is completely irrelevant to the Rodgers discussion (as in a complete rebuild, bringing back Rodgers makes no sense whatsoever), but it does apply to the general offseason approach.

Instant vs. delayed gratification

Yes, Jets fans, I am aware the team has tried and tried yet again to reset. The fact that it failed in the past does not mean the endeavor is fruitless, but rather that the Jets have not done it correctly.

The biggest glimmer of hope in the endless abyss of a 14-year playoff drought is that the Jets likely aren’t starting from scratch (barring a teardown decision). Think about where the Jets’ roster was the last two times they hired a head coach. The new coach will have a chance to rejuvenate the roster without requiring a three-year slog just to return to a base level of NFL-caliber players.

Undoubtedly, the biggest obstacle facing any new regime will be the quarterback position. How the Jets should approach that hole will be the subject of endless debate throughout the offseason (whether or not Rodgers returns, because they would need a succession plan regardless).

But the worst way to start a re-tool would be to bring back the most expensive ticking time bomb of them all, setting into motion a slew of other moves that would likely take an axe to the Jets’ future.

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