Whatever Aaron Rodgers wanted, Aaron Rodgers got in his time with New York Jets. He had Allen Lazard and Randall Cobb provide some familiar faces to the entire receiving corps. He installed his friend Nathaniel Hackett as offensive coordinator, a job no other team in the league was willing to give him. When all of that still wasn’t enough to spark the Jets offense, it did a new number 1 wideout in old friend Davante Adams. (Rogers claims not to have wanted firing Robert Saleh, but it’s hard to imagine the team going through with the move if he had opposed it.)

And yet, at the end of it all, New York is… well, pretty much back to where it started: struggling to move the ball without shooting itself. The Week 8 performance against the New England Patriots provided pretty definitive proof that the only common denominator in all of this is Rodgers himself.

It’s well documented how special Rodgers is when it comes to digesting information and controlling the line of scrimmage. He likes to take his time, both to figure out what the defense is going to give him and to try to manipulate the defensive linemen. Which is all well and good…when you don’t double your offense by doing it. That wasn’t quite the case against New England, when the Jets used all three first-half timeouts after just 10 offensive plays.

No, that’s not a typo: On every third play, the Jets were forced to take a timeout to avoid a delay of game penalty. The problem wasn’t as acute in the second half, but Rodgers was forced to burn another timeout with the ball in Patriots territory late in the third quarter.

And it’s not even like the Jets are getting incredible production out of the bargain: Rodgers and the Jets have scored just 16 points through three quarters and are locked in a battle with a 1-6 Patriots that lost QB Drake Maye to a concussion. the first half. Rodgers was given everything he could ask for by GM Joe Douglas and owner Woody Johnson. If this is the best he can do, it’s time to ask some very tough questions in New York.