Aaron Rodgers playing the pied piper? Jets on verge of showing his friends the door

New York Jets brought in Allen Lazard, Davante Adams and others when they handed Aaron Rodgers the key to build a Super Bowl winning team.

Aaron Rodgers playing the pied piper? Jets on verge of showing his friends the door

Aaron Rodgers along with Allen Lazard and Nathaniel Hackett (Image via NFL/X)

The New York Jets fulfilled the needs of now their former quarterback Aaron Rodgers in their quest to win a Super Bowl. In those two seasons, he brought over his friends, Randall Cobb, Nathaniel Hackett, Allen Lazard and finally Davante Adams, all hoping to bring back their good times with the Green Bay Packers.

The friends collectively failed to even reach remotely close to that goal. Their reputations were surely in tatters, but most of them were already on the last phases of their time in the NFL. However, the New York Jets gave up a lot to bring Aaron Rodgers and co. to the East coast.

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Entering this season with a new leadership under new head coach Aaron Glenn, the situation has changed. His hiring meant the first person to be out of a job was offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett. Then they showed Rodgers the door even if they have to likely take on a colossal dead cap hit.

Once the superstar quarterback was out, rumors were rife that his friends could soon follow him. Randall Cobb was already out of the league last season. His fellow teammate at the Packers, Davante Adams, was allowed to look for a trade partner.

Adam Schefter reported that the New York Jets have also allowed Allen Lazard to look for a trade partner. This indicates the WR himself wanted to explore the option to leave the team. Lazard is a big body red zone target and still under 30. Therefore, if he cannot find a trade partner, the Jets could keep him at least for the next season.

Aaron Rodgers Packers-Jets experiment has cost many jobs

If Allen Lazard stays on, he will be the lone member remaining from Aaron Rodgers’ Green Bay Packers core. ESPN’s Adam Schefter announced a while before the Lazard news that the New York Jets have released Davante Adams.

Davante Adams follows his friend Aaron Rodgers out of the New York Jets
Davante Adams follows his friend Aaron Rodgers out of the New York Jets (Image via NFL/X)

They instantly save $29.9M in salary cap space. That will help them when free agency opens next week as they look to build a new future. That future does not include anyone from the core that came over from the Green Bay Packers.

If Allen Lazard also follows Adams, that would almost make Aaron Rodgers as the pied piper. They followed him to MetLife Stadium and are now following him out of there. Now almost all of them are going to be jobless at least until teams offer them one.

The four-time league MVP did not hope for this to transpire as he looked to emulate Tom Brady. But a lot of mistakes happened over the course of those two seasons. Now, with these cuts, the franchise makes it clear that they were wrong to trust Rodgers to build a winning team.

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