NFL
By: Rick O’Donnell
Most people will correctly assume that the worst trade in NFL history was DeShaun Watson to the Cleveland Browns. Some would point to the Herschel Walker trade as a quick rebuttal. However, take away the compensation involved, and shouldn’t the New York Jets be in the conversation with the acquisition of Aaron Rodgers?
Both of these former Pro Bowl quarterbacks had resumés when teams were looking to make deals for them. You can’t blame either team for going after what they thought would be one of the best movies in franchise history. Yet between the two, both teams are being left off worse than when they started. So who was the worst of the two?
First, let’s take a look at DeShaun Watson. Strip away the contract Cleveland foolishly gave him and take away all they’d given up as compensation and what were they left with? Watson never lived up to his Houston days. To make matters worse, Cleveland was a playoff contender when they decided to give up on Baker Mayfield in favor of Watson. Hindsight is always 20/20, but Tampa Bay didn’t have to rebuild for years after Tom Brady left. They moved right on to Mayfield and he’s got the Bucs looking like competitors still.
Cleveland on the other hand is stuck with DeShaun Watson after giving him his fully guaranteed contract and with his terrible play, Cleveland couldn’t even pay a portion of his contract just to trade him away.
With that being said, it’s almost foolish to assume that an Aaron Rodgers deal could be anywhere near as bad, right? At the time, the New York Jets had a team of young players performing well beyond similarly drafted players. At one point, they had two players up for Rookie of the Year. They were a quarterback away in most people’s eyes.
Aaron Rodgers was pushing for his exit in Green Bay and even wanted to come to New York. It was a match made in heaven. The Jets didn’t have to give up too much to get him and he even took a pay cut to be there. Holy crap! This was it, they finally had a Pro Bowl-level QB to lead this talented roster. Was this their year?
Then he got injured, something you couldn’t have predicted. At the end of last season, there was a media circus on whether or not Rodgers would make a return to the field and he never did. Talk about a distraction. Fast forward to the following season and the Aaron Rodgers Show takes center stage. He holds out of mandatory practices for “something that was really important to him” which causes a stir. He’s back, though, and now he’s looking like the guy they went out and traded for.
The Jets are 3-10 under Rodgers this season. He had a stretch of 34 games without a 300-yard passing game. He was and still is nowhere near his former self. To make matters worse, he’s got a Netflix special (Enigma) releasing soon.
How does a Netflix special even come to the terrible compensation and money thrown at DeShaun Watson? At face value, it doesn’t. However, when you look at what will be left of the two teams when each player is gone, Rodgers is just as guilty.
Consider this, if you will. Aaron Rodgers missed a mandatory camp for something that was very personal for him and now midway through this season, all of a sudden he has a Netflix documentary popping up. That’s a bit convenient wouldn’t you say.
Fans were on board with him taking a pay cut, but now we see why he might have. He had other means of income come his way and that’s not his only offense. He made sure the Jets brought in guys he thought would help him win, they didn’t. He got his head coach, a defensive-minded guy in Robert Saleh, fired and the defense has been in free-fall mode. The same GM who drafted the same RoTY players and made it so the team was only a QB away, is also fired.
Sticking with Zach Wilson hurt the New York Jets, but moving on hurt even more. Wilson wasn’t the answer, but at least when he left, the team wasn’t back to square one. Now, Rodgers may or may not be back next season and they have no backup plan.
Even if Rodgers does come back and they draft a good replacement, he’s never been the guy to help bring up a young QB so the rookie will sit for some time. If they decide to move on, they have to crush their QB pick on someone who can start and make an immediate impact on day 1, something that rarely happens.
Surely their next HC would want his type of guys as well so they’ll more than likely have a firesale to acquire top-tier picks for their young talent to build as quickly as possible. They will have squandered all this talent for a QB who brought them nothing in return and they’ll be 3-5 years trying to rebuild the talent level they had before Aaron Rodgers was even a thought.
Compensation and money aside, Aaron Rodgers is leaving the New York Jets in just as bad of a position as DeShaun Watson and that trade deserves just as much criticism.
