Heading into the 2023 season, for the first time in a long time, the New York Jets were one of the most exciting — as far as storylines are concerned — teams in the NFL due to the arrival of future Hall of Fame quarterback Aaron Rodgers, as evidenced by the six primetime games that the NFL gave them, including the first Monday Night Football matchup of the season.
The NFL’s and the Jets’ plans for a thrilling season, however, ended before they ever truly started as Rodgers tore his Achilles after just four plays and has still yet to complete an official regular season pass for the team.
Because of Rodgers’ injury, the Jets were not only no longer Super Bowl contenders but they were also incredibly boring, particularly on offense, which is the exact opposite of what the NFL wants when it comes to its nationally televised games. Nevertheless, the Jets still had to play in six of them.
This year, apparently not learning from their mistake, the NFL has done the same thing by handing the Jets six primetime games, which is the joint-most in the league with the Dallas Cowboys and San Francisco 49ers. Not only that, but all six of them are within the first 11 weeks of the season, meaning football fans are going to be seeing a lot of Gang Green.
And the reason that the NFL is doing this, according to VP of broadcast planning Mike North, is because the league feels like the Jets “owe” them for failing to deliver in their primetime games last year.
“We feel like the Jets kind of owe us one. We had this conversation a year ago. All of us were all in on the Jets. For that guy to last four plays was disheartening for many of us,” North told Jets beat reporter Brian Costello of the New York Post.
"We feel like the Jets kind of owe us one. We had this conversation a year ago. All of us were all in on the Jets. For that guy to last four plays was disheartening for many of us." – NFL VP of broadcast planning Mike North on Jets having 6 primetime games in first 11 weeks.
— Brian Costello (@BrianCoz)
North’s admission is particularly bold considering that a healthy Rodgers, for as good as he once was and might still be, is no guarantee that the Jets are either good or exciting this year, there’s a reason they currently own the longest postseason drought in American sports.
Plus, given that the 40-year-old Rodgers will still be getting his feet under him after blowing out his Achilles last year, it’s most likely that he, and therefore the Jets offense, looks rusty and disjointed earlier in the season rather than later.
The NFL frontloading the Jets’ primetime games also suggests that they, too, believe that Jets could be irrelevant come the latter stages of the season and therefore want to squeeze them for all the narrative juice they’re worth while they can.
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