Tom Brady ruined it for everyone.

Tom Brady ruined it for everyone.

GuyWhoLikesSport

In Hot Fuzz, Nicholas Angel gets deployed to a sleepy little town in the English countryside called Sanford because he was making everyone look bad in London. He’s a type-A, hard-working, rising tide lifts all boats type.

He gets to the sleepy little town and immediately gets to the business of cleaning up the riff-raff, ultimately uncovering a cabal of apparently well-meaning older people who just want a clean town and will do anything to ensure that they win Village of the Year.

He gets to work on dismantling the full of ugly people Eyes Wide Shut scenario and is successful, killing all of the evil people with the help of teammates he empowered to be better than they ever were before him.

That’s Tom Brady in Tampa Bay.

Brady and Angel are 1 of 1s. They are uniquely driven individuals who want nothing more than success for the team. They don’t do anything that is not in service of winning at their chosen professions.

It’s not a replicable model, it relies on the individual person to bring the whole infrastructure with them, and that person has to be good enough to understand what’s needed.

Tom Brady is a business, man not a businessman.

Despite the fact that the model is not replicable, in their infinite wisdom the Jets tried to replicate with Aaron Rodgers.

The differences between Rodgers and Brady are myriad.

They range from postseason success, which Brady was addicted to for his entire career while Rodgers has been allergic to it for the past decade, to health.

But the biggest difference, I would argue, is attitude.

If Tampa Bay dropped Nicholas Angel into their situation and asked him to fix everything, the Jets dropped in Rust Cohle.

A talented, Coen Brothers style idiot-philosopher who is only interested in team success if it’s on his specific terms.

He’s more likely to describe the problem in language that he only tenuously understands than to fix it unless it’s fixed in his way.

Rodgers has got half that as the game is being played entirely on his terms, but there is no team success.

The Jets are 2-6 after just losing to the worst team in the NFL, the New England Patriots. Rodgers is piloting the 17th best offence by dropback EPA, and 19th by dropback success rate.

They are playing the offence Rodgers wants to play though, previously co-ordinated by Rodgers’ hand-picked useful idiot Nate Hackett, the Jets have one of the lowest motion rates in the league.

Rodgers loves this because it allows him to cosplay as Peyton Manning other than the offensive success.

The entire gameplan appears to constitute solely of slot fades and go-balls, it’s iso football that is entirely reliant on his guys winning, and they aren’t winning.

In a lot of ways, it reminds me of what happened at the end of the McCarthy-era in Green Bay.

McCarthy is a west-coast offence acolyte, which is an offence based on timing and execution rather than scheming up easy completions to take some load off the quarterback.

Rodgers apparently, and reasonably, was frustrated at not being schemed up easy completions by McCarthy.

As the talent on the roster diminished, Rodgers’ guys stopped winning and Rodgers’ numbers went downhill.

Rodgers eventually got to the point of just ignoring McCarthy, whom he viewed as dumb.

Does that style of offence sound familiar? It’s effectively what the Rodgers has demanded the Jets run.

It’s especially bizarre because Rodgers reached football nirvana with Matt LeFleur, who perfectly blended easy completions with Rodgers’ preternatural ability.

When Tom Brady went to Tampa Bay, he didn’t try to import his offence and have the Bucs hire Josh McDaniels or some other friend of his.

He brought the Tom Brady timing-based system and moulded it into Bruce Arians’ aggressive, no risk it no biscuit style of offence.

Brady still completed a lot of short passes and did Tom Brady stuff, but he also had the highest intended air yards seasons of his career in Tampa Bay at ages 43-35.

He adapted, Rodgers tried to import.

What makes this so egregious is that there is a replicable model proliferating around the league, especially for a team with the Jets’ offensive weaponry (even prior to Davante Adams).

Instead of going out and trying to find a Messiah such as Rodgers, or continuing to cater solely to him after his injury, the Jets should have looked at all the reclamation projects around the league.

Jared Goff in Detroit, Sam Darnold in Minnesota, Baker Mayfield in Tampa Bay and Geno Smith in Seattle are all examples of how prioritising infrastructure and dropping the quarterback in can work rather that the other wat around.

Even Rodgers’ best years came when the infrastructure was elite under Matt LeFleur with a solid run-game, an emphasis on play-action and manufacturing easy completions, and an elite number one receiver.

The Jets took no lessons from the rest of the league, or even the rest of Rodgers’ career.

They simply prioritised the quarterback and hoped desperately that he’d bring the infrastructure.

Rodgers doesn’t, and never has, brought infrastructure.

He brings baggage and an interest in furthering the interests of Aaron Rodgers.

Aaron Rodgers might look in the mirror and see Tom Brady, but the problem is the Jets made the same mistake.

 

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