Jets owner Woody Johnson suggested benching Aaron Rodgers in September: Sources

The New York Jets fired general manager Joe Douglas on Tuesday, six weeks after the team fired coach Robert Saleh. According to multiple team sources who spoke to The Athletic about the team’s inner workings, Woody Johnson suggested a more drastic move earlier in the season.

According to those sources, the day after the Jets’ loss to the Denver Broncos on Sept. 29, there was a contentious meeting at the team facility. It included Johnson, Douglas, vice chairman Christopher Johnson, team president Hymie Elhai, and Ira Akselrad, an adviser to Johnson. It also included a group of coaches: Saleh, offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett, then-defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich and special teams coordinator Brant Boyer among them.

The coaches had been called in to explain what happened with their units during the 10-9 home loss to the Broncos. During the meeting, Johnson suggested to the coaches that they bench Aaron Rodgers in favor of Tyrod Taylor because he felt Rodgers’ performance was holding the team back.

The coaches and Douglas, stunned at the suggestion, talked him out of it and convinced Johnson to stay the course and that benching Rodgers, with his pedigree, four games into the season would not sit well with the locker room. The coaches also felt it would embarrass Rodgers. The idea of benching the future Hall of Famer sounded so absurd that one coach asked whether the owner was serious — multiple sources from that meeting believed he was.

Johnson was calmed that day, but that set the tone for what happened a week later. On Oct. 8, Johnson made the decision to fire Saleh without consulting his general manager (or anyone else in the organization, for that matter).

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