The other shoe finally dropped on the biggest move of the NFL offseason on Monday. The New York Jets got their guy in quarterback Aaron Rodgers from the Green Bay Packers.
The saga that was stretched over the first few months of the offseason has ended with the Jets giving up multiple draft picks, including a swap of first-round picks this year, for the four-time MVP.
This move is eerily similar to Brett Favre, Rodgers’ predecessor in Green Bay, being traded to the Jets in 2008. However, there’s another all-time great quarterback that changed teams just a few years ago and found success with his new squad.
NFL insider Brian Baldinger of the Audacy Original Podcast “In The Huddle” explained why the Rodgers situation with the Jets is very similar to Tom Brady joining the Tampa Bay Buccaneers a few years ago.
“The last time we saw this happen Tom Brady left New England after almost the same amount of years that Aaron has been in Green Bay and he went to Tampa and they won a Super Bowl,” Baldinger said (2:28 in player above). “I was just going back and looking, Tom Brady came in 2020, Carl, during the height of the pandemic, no offseason, very little workouts, the whole thing. They win the Super Bowl and he is the MVP.”
Baldinger pointed out that the Buccaneers were a 7-9 team in 2019 with Jameis Winston throwing a league-high 30 interceptions. On top of that, Tampa Bay allowed the fourth-most points in the league at just over 28 per game.
“The Jets at one point this year were 7-4 and they couldn’t win another game. They lost their last six. I feel like the situations are very similar,” he continued. “Aaron Rodgers coming to a team that desperately needs a proven quarterback. They have a defense that was top-10 last year, might be better this year, everybody returns except for a couple defensive tackles and they’ll address that in the draft, and here he is.”
It might be fair to go a step further and say that the Jets are in a better position now with Rodgers than the Bucs were with Brady, at least in terms of the overall team.
The Jets were a good defensive team last year that ran into rotten injury luck. They also had the Offensive Rookie of the Year (Garrett Wilson) and the Defensive Rookie of the Year (Sauce Gardner). Oh yeah, Breece Hall was pretty good too before his season-ending injury.
Rodgers has followed the Favre path to the Jets, but he’s hoping he’ll end up more like Brady in Tampa Bay with a Super Bowl ring rather than the fruitless season that Favre had in New York.
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