Are the Jets cursed?
Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers said they might be. Rodgers was asked on Wednesday whether the team always feels like something bad is going to happen because of the history of losing with the Jets.
Rodgers said that might be the case or it might be something more they’re fighting.
“It might be some sort of curse we’ve got to snap as well,” Rodgers said. “Whatever the case, this team, this organization is going to figure out how to get over the hump at some point.”
The Jets were eliminated from playoff contention with Sunday’s 32-26 overtime loss to the Dolphins, extending their playoff drought to 14 years, the longest current streak in North American major sports.
The team is 3-10 in Rodgers’ first full season as the starting quarterback and the Jets have lost seven games decided by six points or fewer.
The way the Jets have found ways to lose this season raises questions about the culture of the organization and the locker room.
“The culture is built by the players,” Rodgers said. “There’s a framework set down by the organization, by the upper ups, by the staff, but in the end it’s the players that make it come to life. At some point, everybody is going to have to figure out what that special sauce is to turn those games that should be wins into wins.”
How can they do that?
“It takes a conscious effort,” Rodgers said. “It takes an intentional effort to do that. There’s no specific thing otherwise every team could do it. I think, in general, your best players have to be your best people and they have to lead the way with their attitude, with their practice habits, with their leadership, with the way they’re talking to the media, with the way they are out in public. I think that’s an important part of setting the standard for the locker room. It’s a group that has to find that gel and spend time together and enjoy each other enough to take the work outside and spend time and just hold each other accountable at work and kind of let the ego go away.”
Rodgers said if players spend more time together away from work they will then feel a higher sense of accountability to each other at work.
“They’re going to hold them to a standard that’s pretty damn high,” Rodgers said. “Until that happens, you’re going to be touching the edge of that special sauce that makes the locker room have that really good chemistry.”
Rodgers said the 2024 Jets are close, but not quite there in terms of finding that chemistry.
“It’s on the edge of that,” Rodgers said. “We just haven’t quite haven’t figured out how to get that special sauce worked out, mixed up. It’s close. There’s a lot of great guys in the locker room. There’s some good mix of veterans and young guys but we just haven’t quite put it all together.”
