EAST RUTHERFORD, NJ – When Aaron Rodgers gets hit, it takes him a little longer to get up than it used to. His knees hurt, his ankles hurt – the punches always hurt, but now they hurt even more. This is football at the age of 40.

Between the creaks and crumbles, traces of the old Rodgers sometimes appear. He's still there, and he's often great, like when he blasted a pass into the air just before halftime on Monday night – the greatest Hail Mary thrower in NFL history, throwing another 52-yard pass just before halftime Yards landed for Allen Lazard.

Hail Mary half way through! @AaronRodgers12 Let it fly!#BUFvsNYJ on ESPN pic.twitter.com/4Hf2aBmI5C

– New York Jets (@nyjets) October 15, 2024

The Jets should have gone into the locker room trailing 20-10. Instead it was 20-17. Maybe the old man has some magic up his sleeve to help a team overcome a week of turmoil when a head coach (Robert Saleh) was fired and a game manager (Rodgers' friend Nathaniel Hackett) was demoted.

Sometimes magic feels alive, and then you realize magic isn't real. At least not here.

“Those are the moments when you want to seize the momentum and keep going,” said interim coach Jeff Ulbrich. “Unfortunately we didn’t do that.”

For three weeks, toward the end of the fourth quarter, Rodgers had the ball and offered the Jets a chance to take the lead. He lost all three times. On Monday night, it ended when, according to Rodgers, wide receiver Mike Williams ran the wrong way, Rodgers underthrew him, Williams slipped — and possibly suffered a concussion when a defender landed on him — and the pass was intercepted. The game ended a few plays later when defensive end Micheal Clemons watched Josh Allen run past him to convert a first down, and the game was over. A 23:20 defeat.

“Yeah, it’s frustrating,” Rodgers said. “I’m here to win these games. But we have to pay attention to our details. It’s little things every time.”

The Jets are now 2-4 – the first time Rodgers has had a losing record after six games. Rodgers was sacked three times on Monday and scored five times after being hit 25 times in the previous two games. It's getting harder and harder to get up again. And now a 40-year-old on his last legs must do his part to get the Jets out of a 2-4 hole, something he's never had to do before.

“We have to get going,” Rodgers said. “This was a unique opportunity. Some games you win in the NFL, others you give away. That was a gift.”

Jets owner Woody Johnson made a change last week, firing Saleh and replacing him with Ulbrich with the idea of ​​giving the Jets a boost. During the Saleh era, the Jets continued to make the same mistakes. It was a different coach on Monday, but the same problems remained, and the Jets gave little reason to believe they are capable of overcoming their problems, especially because they have never managed them before to overcome.

On Monday night, the offense came out firing, scoring on its first two possessions – a 34-yard field goal and a standout 5-yard touchdown catch from Garrett Wilson – something it never did under Hackett's leadership. But the defense didn't do its part and was crushed by a rookie running back (Ray Davis) who had 75 yards on 26 carries in five games. On Buffalo's first possession, Davis had rushes of 3, 14, 6, 5, 15 and 5 yards before quarterback Josh Allen completed a 1-yard touchdown run. Davis finished the game with 97 rushing yards on 20 carries – plus three catches for 55 yards – and the Bills' running backs averaged 5.4 yards per carry.

“Just not the start we’re used to from this defense. We need to bring more urgency to everything we do,” Ulbrich said.

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Saleh has been widely criticized for making the Jets one of the NFL's most penalized teams. The coaching change didn't change that: The Jets were penalized 11 times for 110 yards on Monday, which doesn't even take into account some of the offsetting penalties that occurred. The Jets were called for four different defensive pass interference penalties and one roughing the passer penalty. Some were questionable calls — on both sides, Rodgers said — but not enough to excuse it.

“We have to look at it together, take a close look at the tape,” said Ulbrich. “What’s real? What isn't it? It's always enlightening. However, from a disciplinary perspective, this cannot happen. We went behind the scenes. It puts us behind before we even start. In that respect it wasn’t good enough.”

Things weren't much better on offense. There was a false start by the right tackle in the second quarter. Morgan Moses turned third-and-10 into third-and-15, and then Rodgers was sacked. In the third quarter, running back Braelon Allen's 4-yard touchdown was called back by a penalty by Tyron Smith. On the next play, Wilson dropped a potential touchdown when he was hit by two Bills defenders.

Then kicker Greg Zuerlein missed a 32-yard field goal attempt. He later missed a 43-yard field goal by taking kicks off the uprights, crucial misses in a three-point loss.

“At the end of the day, we lose games when you kick three,” Wilson said, “and you just never want to live in that world where you rely on the kick.”

Wilson also called the punishments “demoralizing.”

“It’s not a good feeling,” Wilson said. “It just shoots us in the foot. That's something we did, it's something we emphasized throughout the week of practice and we still go out and do those things to keep ourselves out of the end zone. … We have to get better. We have to do what we need to do during the week to get better. It's definitely frustrating, but we have control over it. We have to fix it, we have to do it and we plan to do it.”

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The Jets gained 393 yards on offense. The running game (Breece Hall: 113 yards on 18 carries) woke up and both Wilson (107 yards) and Lazard (114 yards) had big nights. But the Jets scored a touchdown on just one of four drives in the red zone and converted 4 of 12 third downs.

“I felt good all week,” Rodgers said. “I thought we were going to have a big night offensively. This should have been a 30-plus point game offensively and it shouldn’t even be talked about.”

Coaches change, but the same problems remain.

After last week's loss to the Vikings, Saleh stressed that “it's still early.” He was released two days later. Now the Jets are 2-4. It's getting late quickly – a feeling the Jets are all too familiar with over the past few years: seasons that start with promise and end in misery. Wilson said he is discovering that climbing out of such a hole is easier said than done.

“It’s harder than it sounds, that’s what I’m learning,” Wilson said. “We have to find it. I don't know, man. If I had all the answers, we would have won the game. S-man, we need to dig a little deeper. Do a little more. I can't drop the damn ball no matter how hard I get hit. You have to live it, you can't just talk about it. We have to go out and do these things and it has to happen immediately.”

The Jets had an emotional week. All in all it was a positive week around the facility, the organization was moving in the same direction, the energy was building again to achieve something positive. But that can be fleeting if the wins don't come. Everyone loves the new coach until he loses too.

For Ulbrich it's only been one game and he's already running out of time.

“I think there’s always a sense of urgency,” Ulbrich said. “It has to be. That's just the nature of this league. At the same time, 2-4, we're not out of this thing. Not at all. I know the character of this locker room. I know how we will react. I know that. I thought this week's process was correct. I thought the way we were prepared was extraordinary. We need to start bundling these weeks of extraordinary preparation. I promise you it will pay off on Sundays.”

Promise, promise.

“We just have to find a way to score touchdowns,” Wilson said, “because I don’t want to keep feeling like this.”

(Top photo: Luke Hales / Getty Images)