Insiders say Jets owner urged coaching staff to bench Aaron Rodgers early into season in bombshell report

The New York Jets’ season keeps finding ways to get more chaotic. 

The latest story to emerge from the madness is that team owner Woody Johnson reportedly urged the coaching staff to bench quarterback Aaron Rodgers following the team’s Week 4 loss to the Denver Broncos. In his mind, Rodgers was holding the team and its offense back, and he should have been replaced with backup Tyrod Taylor. 

That report comes from The Athletic on Tuesday night, referencing a contentious meeting that involved Johnson, former general manager Joe Douglas and the team’s coaching staff.

From The Athletic’s Zack Rosenblatt and Dianna Russini:

“The coaches had been called in to explain what happened with their units during the 10-9 home loss to the Broncos. During the meeting, Johnson suggested to the coaches that they bench Aaron Rodgers in favor of Tyrod Taylor because he felt Rodgers’ performance was holding the team back. The coaches and Douglas, stunned at the suggestion, talked him out of it and convinced Johnson to stay the course and that benching Rodgers, with his pedigree, four games into the season would not sit well with the locker room. The coaches also felt it would embarrass Rodgers. The idea of benching the future Hall of Famer sounded so absurd that one coach asked whether the owner was serious — multiple sources from that meeting believed he was.”

On one hand, the thought of benching Rodgers four games into the season after the way the organization went out of its way to build around him the past two seasons does seem like an absolutely massive overreaction. It is made even worse when it comes from a meddling owner who can not keep his hands out of the football aspect of the team.

But Rodgers is clearly a problem. Not only for his play on the field, but for the way he has been a constant distraction off it and the way the organization has gone out of its way to bring in his preferred people on the sidelines and on the field. 

The experiment has not worked out the way anybody hoped, and now they have a mess on their hands that has already resulted in a head-coaching change and, on Tuesday, a general manager change. 

It seems likely that Rodgers will be the next person to go when the season ends. While that might be a necessary move (and a welcomed one for Jets fans given the circus that has unfolded here), it is not going to fix anything as long as Johnson keeps involving himself in the day-to-day operations of the team.

It is an almost identical situation to what is happening in Dallas with Jerry Jones. An owner who keeps making changes, keeps trying to control every aspect of the team and largely has no idea what he is doing. 

There is a reason the Jets keep losing every year no matter how many general managers, head coaches and quarterbacks they rotate through. It is the owner. He assembled this mess, and as he tries to clean it up by getting rid of everybody, he is just going to make another one. That is what he does.