GLENDALE, Ariz. — Woody Johnson's Dream Team has been put to sleep.
With Pro Bowl honors, All-Pro honors, gaudy individual stats, and a star roster of future Hall of Famers, Johnson's Jets have officially become a nightmare.
The Jets' 31-6 loss to the Cardinals on Sunday at State Farm Stadium effectively ended the pending reality of making the playoffs for the first time in 14 years.
The Jets are currently 3-7 and will need to lead the way in their final seven games to make the playoffs.
(You can stop laughing now.)
The Jets appeared to have just arrived in Arizona after a nine-day break after defeating the Texans a week ago Thursday. In that game, he scored 3 TDs in the decisive second half, showing his best performance all season.
The win marks the most time quarterback Aaron Rodgers, receivers Davante Adams and Garrett Wilson, edge rusher Haason Reddick, running back Bryce Hall, and Woody Johnson have ever worn green. There was at least a renewed glimmer of hope that the remaining talented members might actually make it. Something about this season.
Well, the joke is on everyone hoping that might happen. But above all, the joker is Johnson, an owner with a paranoid sense of the chaos he oversees.
This recent low point is enough for Prime Minister Johnson to beg President Trump for a second term as US Ambassador to the UK so he doesn't have to leave the country for four more years and endure any more of this stupidity. It should be.
After all, Woody's All-Star team wasn't a team at all, and that's the most egregious element of all of these Jets.
They're a group of independent contractors past their prime, racking up bloated contracts, and don't mesh well as a team.
And the result was the same as it has been for the past 13 years: too many losses. Aaron Rodgers, Zach Wilson, Sam Darnold? What's the difference? Same result. Same old Jets.
At 40, Rodgers' luster has clearly faded. He looks like a dump-off quarterback who is either afraid to throw the ball down the field or simply can't throw it anymore.
“There's definitely been a lot of emotion this year,” Rodgers said.
When asked to elaborate on those feelings, Rogers replied: Now is not the time or place to do that. There's still a lot ahead of us. ”
There are many questions, including whether this last seven games of garbage time will be the end of Rodgers as a Jet, and perhaps the end of his great career.
Adams arrived four games ago and gave that emotional team speech in Pittsburgh about five minutes after joining the team, but he hasn't made any difference. He has caught 17 passes for 206 yards and a TD in four games, including three for 31 yards on Sunday.
“It's frustrating,” Adams said. “I really don't know what to say. It was just a weird, weird day.”
Adams clearly had no warning that anything strange was going to happen with the Jets before he got here.
In the win against Houston, Adams and Wilson looked like the best receiver tandem in the league. On Sunday, they combined for 11 catches for 72 yards.
“If you think about how we practiced that week and how we worked in training camp, [and] What we have in this locker room, yeah, it's shocking,'' Wilson said of the 3-7 record. “We're playing like trash.”
Wilson was referring to the offense.
The defense has taken a step back since the day head coach Robert Saleh was fired and defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich was named to replace him on an interim basis.
The Jets' defense allowed Arizona to score on its first five possessions.
It's embarrassing.
Reddick?
The last of the All-Stars, he hasn't moved the defensive needle at all since emerging from an extension holdout (two tackles, no sacks, no pressures Sunday).
“Honestly, there's a lot of mixed emotions, a lot of mixed emotions, a lot of mixed thoughts,” Reddick said of joining a team full of stars and talent and watching something like this happen. Asked how surprised he was, he told the Post. “It's very frustrating for all of you. Whatever the answer is, we have to find it and we have to do it before things get too out of control.”
Note to Reddick: Things are already out of control, and this is clearly the beginning of the end for Woody's all-star band.
The beginning of the end for everyone involved. General manager Joe Douglas has been trying to win a championship for nearly six years and has yet to win one. To the coaching staff. Rogers' noisy experiment was a huge failure. To virtually everyone and everyone associated with the Jets.
What a nightmare!
