Could Raiders Swing an Aaron Rodgers Trade With Jets in Disarray?

Getty Aaron Rodgers with Davante Adams.

Davante Adams may want to rethink his trade preference to the New York Jets. They are arguably more dysfunctional than the Las Vegas Raiders and just became the first team to fire their head coach this season with the dismissal of Robert Saleh.

Now, Saleh wasn’t the reason Adams wanted to go to the Jets. He wanted to go due to quarterback Aaron Rodgers. However, the Jets have the same 2-3 record that the Raiders have, they now have an interim head coach and Rodgers has a pedestrian 81.6 quarterback rating.

The Jets experiment has been just as disastrous as the Adams experiment in Las Vegas. While many still expect New York to be all-in on Rodgers, perhaps it’s time to start rethinking things. The Raiders need a quarterback and Adams wants to play with Rodgers.

If the Jets don’t think they can win this season, it might be the smart move to trade the legendary quarterback. At this point, it’s hard to imagine the price to trade for Rodgers would be too high. A third or fourth-round pick might be enough.

For the Raiders, they’d finally have a quarterback who can keep them afloat and they’d also appease Adams. For the Jets, they could finally embrace youth on the roster and go all-in on drafting a quarterback next offseason.

Jets Still Want to Trade for Adams

The Jets are clearly a mess right now and seem headed in the wrong direction. However, this has been the case for over a decade. While the team should likely try to trade Rodgers and focus on rebuilding, they’ll likely double down on the quarterback.

According to NFL insider Jordan Schultz, the Jets are still hoping to trade for Adams despite the firing of Saleh. It’s possible that Saleh was the problem and that interim head coach Jeff Ulbrich will turn things around but that seems unlikely.

Trading draft picks for an aging wide receiver isn’t the wise thing to do but that appears to be what New York wants. The Jets are probably the best destination for the Raiders to trade Adams as they’ll likely have the highest draft pick of the interested teams.

Could Rodgers Save the Raiders?

The Raiders have been in quarterback purgatory since their decision to bench Derek Carr during the 2022 season. They tried replacing him with Jimmy Garoppolo, which was a disaster, and so far, Gardner Minshew hasn’t been good this season.

If the Raiders hope to do anything this season, they need better quarterback play. Rodgers hasn’t been good this season but he’d be a big upgrade over Minshew. Also, he spent years working with Raiders offensive coordinator Luke Getsy so it should be an easy transition to the offense.

That said, the Raiders are in the same boat as the Jets. They should be focused on finding a quarterback of the future. Having Rodgers in Las Vegas and convincing Adams to not want a trade would likely make for good TV but they’re still not a Super Bowl team. Trading for Rodgers seems like a desperation move and it’s unlikely general manager Tom Telesco is that desperate quite yet.