Just a few hours earlier, there would have been no question about the most important player in the Jets locker room. In the entire organization, probably.
It was Aaron Rodgers’ team.
From the moment he walked in the doors in April to the moment he trotted onto the field for his first huddle with them on Monday night, he was the central figure for the franchise. They brought him in to be the star, and he was. Everyone else was supporting cast.
Even his absence after he was injured with what we now know was a season-ending torn left Achilles overshadowed what would have been very newsworthy elements of the game on any other night: The remarkable return of Breece Hall, the ridiculous touchdown catch by Garrett Wilson, the three interceptions by Jordan Whitehead.
The three interceptions by Josh Allen!
None of it measured up to the enormity of what happened on the Jets’ fourth snap of the season.
Years from now, when we recall that night, it won’t be the electrifying 65-yard walk-off punt return for a touchdown by the undrafted rookie from Stephen F. Austin College — Xavier Gipson in his NFL debut — that succinctly describes it.
It will be known simply and forever as the Aaron Rodgers Achilles game.
But as Allen Lazard stood in the locker room following the win over the Bills, one-seventeenth of the long regular season in the books, conversation eventually came around to the team’s current quarterback situation.
It was becoming abundantly clear, even before the Tuesday MRI made it official, that the Jets were no longer Aaron Rodgers’ team.
So, Lazard was asked, seems like this is Zach Wilson’s team now, huh?
“No,” he said adamantly. “It’s our team.”
That’s the biggest change of mentality that will have to take place in the coming days and weeks as the Jets adjust to their new post-Rodgers norm… and do so just as they were getting acquainted with the suddenly dated peri-Rodgers norm. It will be impossible for any one…
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