Have you seen the latest AFC East standings?

As the late, great Don Meredeth once sang during a Monday Night Football game, “Turn out the lights, the party’s over.”

The Bills, who defeated the Chiefs this past Sunday, lead the division with a 9-2 record. The injury-compromised Dolphins are in second place at 4-6. The Jets and Patriots are tied for last (or third) with 3-8 marks.

Do you think this is what New York’s owner, Woody Johnson, had in mind when the team made a huge move–both financially and in terms of draft picks–to acquire quarterback Aaron Rodgers in a trade with the Green Bay Packers during the 2023 offseason? Nope.

Do you think general manager Joe Douglas envisioned such a mark for his team in Rodgers’s second season? Absolutely not, because if he had, he might have gotten his resume together and prepared for the inevitable. I’m talking about his dismissal on Tuesday after five seasons.

Douglas now joins Jets head coach Robert Saleh, who was made a former HC in early October.

So, the general manager and the head coach who sat next to Rodgers during his introductory press conference with the Jets are gone, but the quarterback is still around.

The Jets should have known better. After all, the Rodgers and Packers divorce was not a positive one. Tensions had been building between the legendary organization and the four-time NFL MVP for a few years, and the latter was often openly disrespectful to his bosses while talking with the media.

Green Bay’s first-round selection of quarterback Jordan Love in the 2020 NFL Draft certainly didn’t help with the tensions. In fact, it may have fueled them.

It would have been silly to dispute Rodgers’s abilities back then, even as he approached his late ’30s. He was clearly still one of the best quarterbacks on the planet, and he proved it by winning his final two MVP awards during Love’s first two seasons with the Packers. Furthermore, Green Bay won 13 regular-season games in 2019, 2020 and 2021. Despite the drafting of Love in the first round and Rodgers’s advancing age (he turned 38 in December of 2021), Green Bay signed the future Hall of Famer to a contract extension during the 2022 offseason that guaranteed him over $101 million.

It may have been tempting for the Packers to part ways with Rodgers. After all, he and they kept coming up short in the postseason. Why not a bit of a reset?

Nope. Couldn’t do it. It’s a huge gamble to part ways with franchise quarterbacks who are still at the top of their game–even as they’re closing in on their 40th birthday.

The decision became easier following the 2022 campaign that saw the Packers miss the postseason with an 8-9 mark. Rodgers was still pretty good, but he clearly wanted out of Green Bay, and he finally got his wish when he was sent to the Jets in April of 2023.

You know the rest of the story. Rodgers’s debut with the Jets lasted just four plays before he was lost for the year with an Achilles injury. New York went on to finish with a 7-10 record in 2023 and missed the postseason for the 13th straight season.

Rodgers has been healthy in 2024, but the Jets are well on their way to missing the playoffs yet again.

So, the Packers guaranteed Rodgers $101 million prior to the 2022 season and missed the playoffs. The Jets then traded multiple draft picks to Green Bay to acquire Rodgers’s services during the 2023 offseason and signed him to a contract extension which guaranteed him $75 million.

If you’re counting at home, that’s $176 million in guaranteed money and zero playoff appearances with two different teams over the past three seasons.

It’s good work if you can find it.

What lesson did the Jets learn? Don’t go all-in to acquire an aging and problematic quarterback.

Maybe the Jets have learned that lesson. Then again, maybe they haven’t.

After all, they once traded for an aging and problematic Brett Favre, who helped them miss the playoffs in 2008.