Contrary to popular belief, the Jets are not going to come to regret the events of Monday, March 6.
The signing of Derek Carr by the Saints is not some sort of detonation point for a potentially wild NFL offseason involving copious quarterback movement. This is not some kind of WallStreetBets moment in which the Jets will be left penniless, wishing they’d gotten in on Radio Shack sooner. The sheer breadth of available quarterbacks—both draft-eligible and veteran—make what happened Monday more of an introductory course on how certain franchises behave and what they really need, rather than a first whiff of dystopian Hunger Games desperation.
Carr, for example, was on a fact-finding mission during his free-agency tour and seemed hell bent on stepping off the carousel before it started spinning violently, leaving him as more of a backup plan than a primary option. After years of being only casually appreciated at best by the Raiders, this was the right move for him, both in terms of optics and scheme fit. The Saints are a franchise that has experienced life on the outside looking in, and spent a large portion of last year trying to recuperate from its inability to find a better solution at the position.
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They are a natural pair. Carr’s timeline, and that of the Jets, didn’t overlap.
With the Jets, specifically, they are a team that knows it is under some degree of organizational pressure to win right now. That means general manager Joe Douglas and coach Robert Saleh were always comfortable waiting out whatever personal quest Aaron Rodgers had to embark upon, because he is their absolute best option. Rodgers is a scheme fit, there is familiarity in the building with him and there are dynamic weapons for him to utilize.
If Rodgers decides to return to Green Bay, or retire, or create his own libertarian island off the coast of Southern California, just outside of U.S. jurisdiction, making him the president, sole lawmaker and podcast host, the Jets would pivot toward a small handful of different options that, for them, would equal about the same number of wins they would have logged with Carr but without the immediate commitment.
Jimmy Garoppolo is a perfect example.
So, no, Woody Johnson’s private jet was not summoned to idle on the runway in Teterboro. There will be no public overtures for Rodgers or any frantic increase in trade talks. The chances are, everyone knows the parameters, everyone has a Plan A and Plan B and no one is sweating the possibility that they will enter the season with Plan D: Jameis Winston under center (unless, of course, you count the Commanders as an NFL franchise).
Rodgers, Lamar Jackson and Garoppolo, as well as the Texans, Colts, Falcons, Raiders and Panthers, among others, have their own individual desires and their own predetermined lists of possible outcomes.
For now, we’re sort of imagining the world’s least interesting game of musical chairs, in that there are an equal number of participants and vacant chairs. The dancing is also slow and nonrhythmic.
From a broad perspective, a good number of quarterback-needy teams are starting over and could easily settle for the pairing of an Andy Dalton–type player and one of the top four rookies in the class, taking themselves out of the running for a perceived heavy hitter. The Texans, Colts and Panthers have a longer runway with which to operate.
The Jets and Raiders are in a slightly different bucket. The Commanders, one would hope, just get to Week 1 of the regular season without triggering some sort of international political conflict. This makes their own markets condense, and the competition a little less clamorous.
We will know when we’ve arrived at the tipping point and we’re not even close. We will know whether a team is truly without a digestible option. We will know when the lead story on this website is an impassioned defense of Carson Wentz by some truly bewildered general manager that plans were disrupted, that this offseason was truly one from hell.
The Jets aren’t close to there. We can be both happy for Carr and interested in how he’ll look in that offense without projecting that as a loss somewhere else. If he was truly the Jets’ best option, we would be talking more today about Rodgers Island, and what Carr would look like throwing to Garrett Wilson on every down.
