The New York Jets failed to get back on track against the New England Patriots on Sunday, losing their fifth straight game to fall to 2-6 on the season. And as you may expect, Jets interim head coach Jeff Ulbrich had some choiced words for everyone on the team, including star quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
Rodgers performed admirably, throwing for 233 yards and two touchdowns in the game. But it simply wasn’t good enough to get the win. And it wasn’t good enough moving forward for Ulbrich.
After the loss, Ulbrich made it a point to challenge his team to perform better moving forward. And Rodgers was one player who was mentioned by name in the callout.
“Every single human being out there has got to be better,” said Ulbrich after the game via The Athletic’s Zack Rosenblatt. Aaron’s got to be better. Coaches got to be better.”
Ultimately, Rodgers was far from the problem in this game. He and the Jets’ offense were largely let down by a fourth-quarter collapse on defense and the team’s kicking woes again keeping points off the board.
But with that being said, Rodgers isn’t playing like the Aaron Rodgers who used to be able to overcome a bad defense and poor special teams to win games. That may be due to age. Or perhaps he simply isn’t gelling with this Jets team.
Regardless, Jeff Ulbrich very much believes that Rodgers can and needs to be better for this Jets team to succeed. And unless that happens in a hurry, we may very well see Aaron Rodgers and the Jets missing out on the postseason in a highly competitive AFC.