The offseason’s here. I’m about to go skiing. But first, the Takeaways …
Aaron Rodgers
There was no easy way for the Jets to say goodbye to Aaron Rodgers. The final call, for new GM Darren Mougey and coach Aaron Glenn, wasn’t made overnight. And handling the end was tricky given Rodgers’s stature and standing in football history.
So Mougey had a series of conversations with Rodgers that led up to the last meeting on Feb. 6 at the team facility in Florham Park, N.J, where the Jets’ decision was communicated.
Leading up to that point, the sides had discussed their plans while trying to get a feel for whether or not all the pieces would fit together—when deep down, both knew it would be difficult to mesh the Jets’ desire to turn the page on their recent past with where Rodgers is in his career. Things came to a crescendo with the in-person meeting, with Rodgers playing as much a part in planning the Jersey summit as the team did.
Here’s a little more from the last few weeks …
• Rodgers did tell Mougey and Glenn that it was his tentative intention to play in 2025. These things can change, of course, but Rodgers gave the Jets the impression that he had unfinished business to take care of.
• Rodgers showed plenty of self-awareness in his exit interviews with the team, bringing up on his own the possibility that the team would want a fresh start, and showing that he knew the decision on that wouldn’t be his own. As such, there was really no attempt from either side at negotiating a third year for Rodgers with the team.
• Contrary to popular belief, Rodgers did have strong relationships in the building, with ex-coach Robert Saleh, team president Hymie Elhai and co-owner Christopher Johnson, among others. And those close to Rodgers did want to do right by him out of respect for all he’s accomplished as a pro and the effort he’d given the Jets the last two years. In this case, doing right by Rodgers meant giving him a decision as early as they could.
• It sounds like a “it’s not you, it’s me” explanation, but the reality was that the Jets’ desire to move on was about them and not Rodgers, and timelines that don’t match up. New York, under its leaders, was looking at a deliberate reimagination of its football operation, which was going to be tough to marry up with a quarterback playing for this year alone.
• Part of that is, yes, the larger-than-life presence Rodgers brings with him, so his effect on and in the media was a factor, if a smaller one. So while there was no ultimatum on giving up appearances on different platforms, like The Pat McAfee Show, there was discussion on that stuff.
• For what it’s worth, the Jets do believe Rodgers still has bullets left in the gun.
And, really, a lot of this, again, boils down to goals that don’t really match up.
When Rodgers first arrived in New York, he told folks in the building that the Lombardi Trophy he won at the end of the 2010 season had gotten awfully lonely, and that he felt like he had to put another one next to it. Obviously, getting one is the goal of every team every year.
But in realistic terms, the pursuit of it doesn’t look the same for everyone.
For the Jets, now, it means doubling down on the young core that Garrett Wilson, Breece Hall, Olu Fashanu, Alijah Vera-Tucker, Quinnen Williams, Quincy Williams, Jermaine Johnson and Sauce Gardner make up, and creating a sustained winner off it. Remember, this is a Jets organization coming off a 5–12 season. Had it been a 12–5 year, everyone wouldn’t have been fired. So some form of culture reset was coming regardless, and it is now.
For Rodgers, conversely, it means being with a team that will lean into winning right now, the way the Jets have the last couple years, and the way the Broncos and Buccaneers did years ago behind Peyton Manning and Tom Brady. Whether or not that sort of team will be out there for Rodgers is an open question. But after the last two years, the Jets weren’t going to be that team again.
Kellen Moore
Kellen Moore just went through a really weird week in New Orleans. The then-Eagles OC was in town to coach in the biggest game of his life, Super Bowl LIX, and … also in his future place of work. And not just in the city, but in the actual building itself.
“We practiced at the Saints facility all week, so you’re walking the halls, you’re in the coach’s locker room, you’re in the cafeteria, you see the logo everywhere,” Moore said Sunday morning. “Certainly, any time you have the chance to potentially be a head coach, and you know where that home is gonna be, I mean, our offices many times feel like home. And you’re looking at it right now, while we’re preparing for the biggest game of our lives.
“It was a unique aspect of it.”
Ultimately, Moore got the win he was after, and the job, too.
So how was the week for him? The Eagles, of course, routed the Chiefs on Sunday. On Monday, he flew back to Philadelphia with the team. Tuesday, he returned to New Orleans. He had dinner with GM Mickey Loomis and his wife at the Four Seasons that night, then went through the final phases of the hiring process on Wednesday, while the final touches were put on his contract to, officially, become the Saints’ coach.
On Thursday, he was introduced to the media. He then returned to Philly, getting back the night before the Friday parade. By Saturday, he was back in New Orleans, interviewing Vikings defensive backs coach Daronte Jones for the Saints’ defensive coordinator job.
It was a busy week and it won’t slow down any time soon—remember, New Orleans is now playing catch up with the rest of the league, with the combine just seven days away.
But Moore is ready for it all. And here, from our conversation, are a few reasons why he feels that way, moreso than he was even a year or two ago …
• From the time he retired as a player to his final days in Dallas, Moore was on a fast track to becoming a head coach. Then, rather suddenly, he wasn’t. He and the Cowboys mutually parted and he jumped to the Chargers after the 2022 season, then was part of a Los Angeles staff that was fired in 2023. That forced him to jump to a third team in as many years. It also gave him valuable experience, if the kind that no one asks for.
“To grow and to kind of get out of my comfort zone, going to Los Angeles, going to Philly, I certainly see the benefits of going into a different environment, having to build relationships from the beginning— new players, new coaches, having to adjust those environments,” Moore said. “Failing, on my side of it, going through challenges, obstacles, all those things helped me prepare myself for this opportunity.”
• In Philly, he was, in so many ways, jumping on a moving train. He was inheriting assistants and a strong core of players, many of whom had been in a Super Bowl 12 months earlier—which created a different challenge in having to meet everyone halfway.
“The first few weeks in Philadelphia, I was really mostly a listener,” Moore said. “Letting Stout [Jeff Stoutland] explain where the run game was at, Kevin Patullo explain where the passing game is at, showing those cut-ups and starting with the intent of keeping what is in place that we feel really good about. And then I’d interject with different opportunities or concepts that I feel may benefit us in the future.
“You had to be a really good listener, you learned how to embrace something that maybe you’re not as familiar with. We ask all players to go through that. Us coaches need to do it sometimes too.”
• Then, there was the in-season challenge this year, when the Eagles were 2–2 at the bye, and at a crossroads. Nick Sirianni challenges coaches and players alike to look in the mirror to find answers. Moore took the challenge, and worked through those couple weeks with quarterback Jalen Hurts to refocus the offense around the talent on hand.
“I feel like we found our identity,” Moore said. “Our style gave us a very clear identity. We’re going to run the football. We’re going to play really good situational football. And we’re gonna protect the football. That was three of the biggest things. We ran the football really well, which led to some great pass-game opportunities. Situational football, I felt like we really took a special level there moving forward. I thought that was one of our secret sauces, just playing every situation really well, our guys being on it. And we protected the football.
“We did an excellent job after that.”
And they won a Super Bowl.
So Moore takes all that stuff with him to New Orleans—the lessons from failing and from listening and from adjusting—with things already moving fast for his Saints regime.
It doesn’t guarantee success, of course. But it should give him a pretty good chance to weather whatever storms that might be coming, starting with the tornado that the last few weeks have been.
Jacksonville Jaguars
The Jaguars’ new structure will be interesting. On Saturday, Jacksonville announced the five finalists for its GM job—Bears assistant GM Ian Cunningham, Rams director of scouting strategy James Gladstone, Packers VP of player personnel Jon-Eric Sullivan, 49ers director of scouting/football operations Josh Williams, and their own assistant GM, Ethan Waugh. Each will be in Jacksonville between Wednesday and Friday to interview with EVP of football ops Tony Boselli and president Mark Lamping and meet with coach Liam Coen.
A decision is expected next weekend.
What’s notable about that list, to me, is only two of the four outside candidates have even been the No. 2 guy in a personnel department. Cunningham’s been in that role the last three years in Chicago, and Sullivan, probably the most experienced guy on the list, has been the right-hand man to Packers GM Brian Gutekunst since Gutekunst took the reins from Ted Thompson seven years ago in the spring of 2018.
Both Sullivan and Cunningham are qualified and ready to run their own ship. That’s not where I’d question where Jacksonville is going—I think each would be a very good GM.
My bigger question is where the experience is in Jaguars football ops. They’ll have a 52-year-old executive VP of football operations, in the Hall of Fame tackle Boselli, with no real experience working for a team overseeing a young, first-time GM overseeing a 39-year-old first-time head coach with two years of NFL coordinator experience, one as a play-caller. They also have young, first-time offensive and defensive coordinators.
Now, again, I like a lot of the people they’ve hired. Coen’s whip-smart and there’s a reason the Bucs wanted to keep him so badly. The GM candidates they’ve lined up have bright futures. I think the hire of Boselli is a recognition that, because owner Shad Khan isn’t in the building much, someone was needed in-house to officiate any sort of disputes or work out any kind of division (there’s been a lot of in-fighting in that organization the last decade).
That said, this sure feels like the Jaguars simply pivoting and going the other way after choosing experienced folks the last time around. And doing that without back-stopping all the first-timers, to me, would be a mistake.
Of course, there’s still time to do that—it wouldn’t, for example, be surprising to see Cunningham bring someone like ex-Jets GM Joe Douglas with him to Jacksonville to add some on-the-job experience to the room. For the franchise’s sake, I hope the new regime has a few moves like that coming.
Meanwhile, the combine starts a week from today.
Kansas City Chiefs
There’s an underrated aspect to the Chiefs’ offseason few are discussing. And that’s the development of their young tackles—Kingsley Suamataia and Wayna Morris.
It’s really easy to look at how Kansas City’s pursuit of a three-peat crumbled last weekend and think that the Chiefs must do what they did in 2021, when a similar Super Bowl no-show from the offensive line led to GM Brett Veach overhauling the entire group. And there’s no doubt that there are tough decisions to be made, starting with the pending free agency of right guard Trey Smith, who’ll probably land more than $20 million per year.
So some change is coming. What would make it manageable, though, is progress from Suamataia and Morris. The former was a second-round pick in 2024, the latter a third-round pick in ’23, so both have talent and, now, experience, with both having started games at left tackle this year. Could one of them be better than, say, Rams free agent Alaric Jackson or Steelers free agent Dan Moore Jr.? If so, they can take the money they’d spend to fix the tackle spot, and maybe even some already spent on Jawaan Taylor, and fix other stuff.
Of course, the flip side is what happened this year, when they put young guys who weren’t ready out there, and had to move Joe Thuney out to left tackle. Which is to say having a good, honest handle on where their young guys are should be pivotal to how this plays out, and where it’ll leave them at other positions, both in keeping their own free agents (like, for example, Nick Bolton and Justin Reid) and pursuing other teams’ veterans.
The running back market
The success of the free-agent running back this year should have an effect, but maybe not in the way you’d think. To be sure, the way Saquon Barkley, Derrick Henry and Josh Jacobs played this year is indicative that players at that position have been devalued to the point where signing one has become a value. Each logged over 300 carries. Each made things easier on the offensive line and quarterback. Each made the playoffs. One won it all.
Ordinarily, you might think that would benefit the next class of free agents. The trouble with that idea, in this circumstance, is with the free agent class itself. The top names are Aaron Jones, Najee Harris and J.K. Dobbins—good players, but not the needle-movers that last year’s best were. But that doesn’t mean teams won’t consider the cases of Barkley, Henry and Jacobs this offseason. And the draft may be the place where you see the reaction.
Boise State’s Heisman finalist, Ashton Jeanty, has long been accepted as the top back in the draft, and my guess would be it’ll stay that way until late April, and he’ll go somewhere in the first 20 picks. Still, North Carolina’s Omarion Hampton may be good enough to give him a run for his money. And from there, there’s great depth, with Tennessee’s Dylan Sampson, Iowa’s Kaleb Johnson, Ohio State’s TreVeyon Henderson and Quinshon Judkins, and Arizona State’s Cam Skattebo among those giving the class plenty of depth.
It’d be hard, of course, to ask any rookie to have the impact that Barkley just had on the world champs. But it’s not too difficult to see how he illustrated that while the value of the position may not be what it was 40 years ago, having a really good one can make a difference.
Travis Hunter
The reality of the combine folks’ decision to bring Travis Hunter in as a defensive back is that they had to designate him as something. The reason why—players arrive, and meet, and go through testing, and work out according to their position. So Jeff Foster, the president of National Football Scouting (which runs the combine), talked with Hunter’s people to try and get to the best solution, to allow him the best opportunity in Indianapolis.
The decision, it turns out, was strictly functional. The combine’s first three days would look pretty much the same for Hunter, whether he was classified a receiver or DB. The fourth day is the workout, and obviously that would be different. The DBs work out on Thursday, the receivers work out on Friday. So the only way the combine could allow for him to attend both workouts was to have him go through the rest of the process with the DBs.
So they put him with the defensive backs, so he can go through interviews, medical and all the other assessments from Monday through Wednesday, and work out on Thursday with the DBs—and they invited him to work out with the receivers on Friday, too, if he chooses too. It’s still unclear whether he’ll work out at all, but this schedule at least gives him the option to show what he can do at both positions.
That, of course, reflects the NFS people’s belief that he can play either position in the NFL—he’s even listed with both groups on NFL.com.
As for what teams think, most still see his value as a defensive back first.
There are plenty of reasons for that. First, it’s more difficult to find a great corner than it is a great receiver. Second, it’s easier to fit a player from the defensive side into an offense, by creating packages for him, than it is to part-time an offensive player on defense (which, really, is the basis for how things were structured for him at Colorado). Third, at this point, he’s more polished and prepared to play corner than he is receiver.
That, of course, is no end-all, be-all for Hunter. His athletic potential is ridiculous, and his football character is top of the line—you can’t pull off what he did without having an incredible level of conditioning, ability to focus and retain information, and passion for football. So the idea he could start out at one spot, and eventually get to the point where he or his team sees him as more natural at the other one, could certainly eventually be in play.
And that’s part of the value in taking the guy with a top-five pick. You’ll have a lot of different ways to use him, and get the most out of him, since he’d be at or near the top of his class at either position if he only played one of them. Which, ultimately, diminishes the chance that the pick doesn’t wind up working out.
Simply put, Hunter and his next team will have options. The combine wanted that to be reflected in how he’s showcased in Indy.
18-game schedule
The NFL tipped its hand on when the 18-game schedule could be coming. We know Super Bowl LX will be held on Feb. 8, 2026 in Santa Clara, Calif. We know Super Bowl LXI will be held on Feb. 14, 2027 in Inglewood, Calif. We know Super Bowl LXII will be in Atlanta in February 2028—but no date has been set.
Generally, these are easy things to calculate. The Super Bowl used to be on the first Sunday in February. Since the league went to a 17-game schedule in 2021, it’s been held on the second Sunday in February, which would put Super Bowl LXII on Feb. 13, 2028.
That the league didn’t just give Atlanta that date back in October when it was awarded the game would indicate things are in flux with the timing of the Super Bowl. And that the NFL still hasn’t nailed down that timing, four months later, has made it more difficult for officials in Atlanta to start planning in earnest—forcing more hotel dates and dates for convention space to be held for the time being.
Bottom line, the NFL wouldn’t be doing that for nothing. Making the change for the 2027 season would also allow for the league to go to the networks with an 18-game schedule ahead of the 2029 opt-out in the television deals.
So stay tuned on this one.
Kirk Cousins
What Kirk Cousins can offer a team is different. How so? You, in all likelihood, will be able to have the Falcons quarterback for the minimum, presuming Atlanta cuts him, as most expect (regardless of how hard they try and convince folks they might keep him).
Atlanta already has $62.5 million spent on Cousins. He’s due $27.5 million this year. There is offset language in the contract. So if he’s cut, the only way his new team pays more than the minimum in 2025 is if someone decides he’s worth more than the $27.5 million he’s already due, which is pretty unlikely.
So, as was the case with Russell Wilson last year, someone is probably getting Cousins for next to nothing, and that’s another reason to connect him to Cleveland, where the Browns are working around the fully guaranteed money left ($92 million over two years) on Deshaun Watson’s contract. Add to that Cousins’s connection to Kevin Stefanski, and you can see why so many are connecting the dots between the two sides here.
Of course, the Browns are going to have determined whether or not Cousins’s downturn last year was simply of an older player coming back off the Achilles or a quarterback failing off a cliff. And if they do make the plunge on Cousins, I’d guess they still draft one.
Detroit Lions and New York Jets
Quick thing to watch in 2025—the Lions offense vs. the Jets offense. Dan Campbell’s never been afraid to think for himself, and that’s what he did in passing over his pass-game coordinator Tanner Engstrand to bring John Morton back from Denver to replace Ben Johnson as offensive coordinator.
There’s good logic to the move. The Lions are losing a ton of coaches on both sides of the ball, so having at least one experienced play-caller coming in should alleviate some of the pressure to get coaches up to speed with a roster that’s clearly in a championship window. Morton had play-calling input for Jim Harbaugh in San Francisco, was the play-caller for the Jets in 2017 and worked in Detroit as a senior assistant in 2022, giving him a blend of on-the-job experience and background in the offense he’ll be running.
Of course, the decision to go with him had fallout, and part of that was losing the bright, young Engstrand, who followed Glenn to the Jets.
So now, we’ll see how the Lions feel the loss of Johnson, and what benefit the Jets get bringing in Engstrand . There is, of course, a lot on the line with the decision that Campbell made here. And a big investment Glenn made, too, in poaching Engstrand for his first staff.
Quick-hitters
I’m about to take a quick break to go skiing for a few days. But first, I’ll leave with our quick-hitters for Presidents’ Day …
• I hope everyone looks back at what happened to Richie Incognito a decade ago, now that the rest of the story is being told, and takes a valuable lesson from it—it’s wrong to mess with someone’s career without all the evidence. Incognito got railroaded, in large part, because people felt strongly about bullying, and identified with the story they wanted to hear, which didn’t jibe with Incognito’s side of it. The reality is the truth was always there in plain sight, for people who really wanted to look, and consider the evidence.
• The Steelers, to me, remain the most attractive destination for an older veteran quarterback like Matthew Stafford or Rodgers, given how many pieces are already in place, the history of the franchise and the presence of offensive coordinator Arthur Smith.
• As for whether or not Stafford will be available? I know some folks close to him think that he ultimately wants to remain in Los Angeles and play for Sean McVay. We’ll see if the Rams can work out the contract part of this, which will determine what’s next.
• Underrated Eagles free agent: Mekhi Becton. Could Philly re-sign him? My initial instinct is— with the team already invested at guard, in Landon Dickerson signed long-term—they let him walk. But what if they see him as a potential long-term answer at right tackle, once Lane Johnson hangs ’em up? It’s something I think they’ll consider.
• The franchise tag window opens tomorrow, and the two big decisions belong to Cincinnati (Tee Higgins) and Minnesota (Sam Darnold). Teams have two weeks before the deadline for making those calls, so I wouldn’t expect anything immediate.
• I do think, for what it’s worth, Darnold would be a really good fit for Chip Kelly’s offense in Las Vegas.
• The Geno Smith situation in Seattle does bear watching—I think Smith’s a good fit for the offense Klint Kubiak’s bringing in, and a good quarterback in general. I also believe he’ll be seeking some security this year after three seasons as the Seahawks’ starting quarterback and with his contract up in a year. We’ll see how Mike Macdonald and John Schneider handle that.
• There’s been enough noise on Micah Parsons’s relationships inside the Cowboys’ building over the last year to put anyone’s radar up for a trade, with Parsons potentially commanding $40 million per year on a second contract. If you’re willing to pay that, plus high-end picks, for a uniquely talented defensive star … I’d give Dallas a call.
• For the month leading up to the Super Bowl, there was a lot of buzz that Travis Kelce was going to retire after the playoffs. I think the question now is whether or not he wants the loss to the Eagles to be his final chapter—and, to me, it’s always important for a player to get a little separation from the season before making a decision like that.
• One leftover from the Eagles parade: Credit to “Headwound” Howie Roseman for playing off the scar a rogue beer can left on his forehead by yelling to the crowd, “I bleed for this city!” (Though I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a can with sharp enough edges to leave that kind of mark … so I need someone to find out what brand it was.)
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Takeaways: Jets Moving On From Aaron Rodgers Wasn’t That Simple.
