Mike McCarthy makes the best case yet for the Jets to hang on to Aaron Rodgers

Woody Johnson might be the only owner to be ridiculous enough to persuade Aaron Rodgers to play one more season with one last meeting. Thanks to another incompetent owner Jerry Joneswho wasted everyone’s time and botched an expansion for McCarthyin a few hours, he will become a free agent.

The only reason Johnson would be interested in interviewing, much less hiring McCarthy, would be to salvage everything he can from what has been an anti-climactic Rodgers era in New York.

And truth be told, aside from Jones, Johnson seems to be the only owner in all of football who would be stupid enough to think this would produce results even remotely close to enough to end the Jets’ playoff woes.

Then again, this is exactly why this could be a genius move. Johnson has a decision to make. He has to decide if Rodgers is worth keeping and if McCarthy is worth hiring. McCarthy isn’t going anywhere on a one-year deal.

This decision should therefore go beyond simply keeping Rodgers. Let’s be honest, the 2025 season will likely be his last if he doesn’t retire before the season starts. If McCarthy is truly interested in getting back with Rodgers, it’s worth it. But aside from that, Johnson better think long and hard before making an impulsive move.

If Rodgers comes back and decides he wants to finish his career with the coach he won a Super Bowl under, then he might have enough influence to convince Johnson to pull the trigger. But this is a short-term response to a problem that may never be solved.

Rodgers has already brought back his friend and former Green Bay teammate in Davante Adams. Does McCarthy really want to build a Packers reunion team in New York, knowing it probably won’t go anywhere?

I doubt it. If he can’t make a deal with Jones to stay in Dallas, that means he wants to go somewhere he can build. Somewhere with good bones to put together to form a competing piece. It’s not New York.

If McCarthy ends up anywhere, it seems like Jacksonville would be ideal. He’ll inherit a veteran team with good pieces to build on and one that could turn around from the trainwreck it became toward the end of the Doug Pederson era.

Chicago has already expressed interest in McCarthy, so that’s obviously an option as well. But is this really an ideal situation for a veteran coach? New Orleans and Jacksonville seem to be the best options. But thanks to Jones, McCarthy’s options are a bit limited. Which leaves him with the Jets. If he wants to coach that bad, then sure, go for it.

But having a final encore with Rodgers, most likely Adams and everyone else who doesn’t give up on dumpster burning in New York, seems more of a fantasy than something that would produce real results.

That said, Johnson seems to be the only person crazy enough to pull the trigger on this move. And that would be another punchline to the never-ending joke that is the New York Jets.