Aaron Rodgers’ second act isn’t going like Tom Brady’s or Peyton Manning’s, and it could impact his legacy

Aaron Rodgers will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

That’s true even if the New York Jets can’t find a way out of their early-season spiral in which their record fell to 2-3 and their head coach Robert Saleh was fired on Tuesday. Hell, that’s if he never completed another pass for the New York Jets, or even if he didn’t become a New York Jet at all.

His 18 seasons in Green Bay, highlighted by four MVP trophies, a Super Bowl championship and 475 regular-season touchdowns, proved that long ago. He is a legend.

And yet legends are compared with legends. The degree of size matters, and Rodgers’ franchise change late in his career can also be judged, particularly when compared to his counterparts Peyton Manning and Tom Brady.

In 2023, at age 39, Rodgers left Green Bay for New York in search of a Super Bowl. He followed the path of Manning, who moved from Indianapolis to Denver in 2012 at almost 36 years old, and Brady, who moved from New England to Tampa Bay in 2020 at age 42.

Both Manning and Brady won Super Bowls, made the playoffs in other seasons and generally changed the direction, if not the hard-to-define “culture,” of their new franchises.

They finished the race strongly. They proved to be more than just their original franchises.

Rodgers, well, the jury is out.

An injury on opening night and season-ending last year delayed things. Now, five weeks into the season, the Jets look like the Jets of old. Both of their wins came against bad teams in New England and Tennessee. They looked listless in a loss to Minnesota – and old QB San Darnold – in London.

This left Saleh unemployed.

“This is one of the most talented teams ever assembled by the New York Jets,” said team owner Woody Johnson. “I wanted to give the team the best chance to win this season.”

How much does this cost Rodgers? How much does it not cost? How much could one reasonably expect him to change? These are the Jets, after all. Dysfunction was common, particularly during the Johnson era.

Well, the offense has been poor – just two touchdowns on four turnovers in the last two weeks. The offensive line struggled with Rodgers’ hard count – a familiar weapon of his – and fell into false starts too often. And Rodgers was… just OK for his standards. His completion rate (61.0 percent) and interception rate (2.2 percent) this season are close to the worst numbers of his career.

Rodgers’ decision to skip a mandatory minicamp in June and travel to Egypt was widely discussed because he considered it a “bucket list” trip. The Jets fined him $50,000, which Rodgers shrugged off. Perhaps some of the criticism leveled at Rodgers was unwarranted. How important is it really?

Well, Manning and Brady wouldn’t have done that. When Manning arrived in Denver for his first season, there was a labor lockout in the NFL. He borrowed the Colorado Rockies’ facility to train there and then organized training sessions for the players himself. Brady, meanwhile, arrived in Tampa at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. He gathered players on the field of a local high school to represent them.

That’s not the only way to make your mark on a new team, but whatever system Rodgers uses hasn’t worked yet. He spent Wednesday defending himself on The Pat McAfee Show and saying he had nothing to do with Saleh’s firing.

“I reject these allegations because they are patently false,” Rodgers said. “It’s interesting how much power people think I have.”

It’s worth taking Rodgers’ word for it here. There is no evidence that he caused the head coach’s dismissal. But the strength he has is the reason the Jets got him. It wasn’t just about throwing passes or running the offense; It was about leading a young team and teaching an organization that wasn’t successful how to do just that.

Much of the narrative surrounding Rodgers’ final years in Green Bay is that the organization failed him by failing to provide the final pieces necessary for another Super Bowl win. That may be true. But here we are in New York and the grass may be a different color of green, but it certainly isn’t greener.

New York is about to restart. New coach. New approach.

There is still a lot of time ahead of us and Aaron Rodgers will continue to be Aaron Rodgers, a supremely talented player and proven champion.

However, if he wants to prove that his second act is on par with Manning or Brady, now is the time to start making it happen.

His entire legacy isn’t at stake here, but part of it is.