The Jets’ season is effectively over. So what’s left for Aaron Rodgers’ legacy?

There is no shortage of ways to deal with what happened to Aaron Rodgers and the New York Jets.

We could take the micro standpoint and tell you the litany of failures that led to Sunday’s 31-6 loss to the Arizona Cardinals, arguably the ugliest loss of Rodgers’ Jets era. Or we could go the macro route and tally up this 3-7 team’s dismal and still-bottom playoff percentages. We could go back even further and look through the history books and realize how much this all feels a little like Brett Favre’s disappointing one-year stint as the Jets’ starting quarterback in 2008… except this season is exponentially worse and is declining much more quickly Cliff.

This is a failed season with an objectively bad team that was completely outmatched against a soon-to-be 41-year-old quarterback who has sunk into mediocre middle ground at his position. Once we realize that, it opens the door to the question of the legacy that will preoccupy Rodgers for the rest of this lost season.

What’s left?

This is an important question because this failure threatens to leave a lasting impression. Maybe not in the troubling neighborhood of Joe Namath failing with the Los Angeles Rams or Johnny Unitas bringing the curtain down with the San Diego Chargers. But it’s also nowhere near the memorable 29 games (including four playoff games) that Joe Montana spent in the Kansas City Chiefs jersey at the end of his career. If anything, Rodgers’ ending looks like Donovan McNabb’s failure against Washington and Minnesota.

This kind of framework for Rodgers is breathtaking to deal with. But here we are. That was evident in his post-match press conference on Sunday, another edition in which he appeared a calm and defeated passenger, caught on a journey for which there is no longer a map. When describing what went wrong, use nebulous explanations like “energy” rather than talent or tactics.

“There were definitely a lot of emotions this year,” Rodgers said Sunday. “I was thinking about a big win [against the Houston Texans on] Thursday night, a nice long week, we would come out with a lot of energy and fun in the game. We didn’t come out with great energy on either side of the ball. And offensively, you’re not going to beat someone who scores six points.”

It’s the second time this season that Rodgers has shown his energy in the face of a throttling. The last time he described the Jets as “flat” was after they suffered a 37-15 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers nearly three weeks ago. The following week, the talent-poor New England Patriots were supposed to present the Jets with a “real” game. The Jets lost that game 25-22, which was the most embarrassing loss of Rodgers’ starts at the time. Until this week, when a Cardinals team just finding its footing held the Jets to two field goals and rolled up 406 yards of total offense against a defense we once thought was among the top 5 could belong to unity in the league.

The fired head coach Robert Saleh had no part in this. Neither did demoted offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett. Wideout Mike Williams? He’s in Pittsburgh catching his first touchdown of the season from Russell Wilson for the game-winning score on Sunday. Meanwhile, recently signed receiver Davante Adams caught six balls for 31 yards and Rodgers completed just one pass that traveled more than 10 air yards. He also continued his string of games without a 300-yard passing performance, which now stands at 33 and counting. All worrisome numbers, but none more worrisome than the $49 million in dead salary cap space for Rodgers in 2025.

All of this brings us back to the original question of what’s left for him. Well, there seem to be two paths in play at the moment.

The first is that Rodgers will play through the 2024 season, salvage what he can along the way, and then return in 2025 for one final attempt to put a respectable end to his career. A league source familiar with the Adams transfer told Yahoo Sports last week that the wideout agreed to a transfer to the Jets on the condition that Rodgers stick around through 2025. The question is whether the Jets would hire either player in the next one season, especially with a new head coach in play and general manager Joe Douglas’ contract expiring at the end of the season. For Rodgers and Adams to return, there would need to be some serious clarification about who will be at the helm in 2025. And that may have been clouded by the presidential election, as multiple sources within the Jets expect team owner Woody Johnson to return to some position in Donald Trump’s future plans. There are a lot of unknowns at stake.

The second way: This is it. That we are in the middle of Rodgers’ final year with the Jets – either because he chose to retire or because the owners sat through mediocrity the rest of the season and then decided to make sweeping changes at head coach, general manager and quarterback have and beyond. In this scenario, several veterans would be expected to walk out the door, including Rodgers, Adams, Allen Lazard and others. It’s a revision that would classify the Rodgers experiment as a colossal failure, requiring a years-long autopsy to truly understand what exactly went wrong.

At the moment, neither path is completely safe. Finally, there’s another one of those do-everything-right games next week, against an Indianapolis Colts team that’s dealing with its own issues across the roster.

“We just have to focus on what’s in front of us and beat the Colts, then get to the bye and sort some things out,” Rodgers said Sunday. “We have a few opponents from the West Coast who come for singles matches. And we have one, two, three division games. There’s still a lot ahead of us.”

A lot is still ahead and so much remains behind. And in between there is nothing but question and disappointment.