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It’s only Wednesday, leaving plenty of time this week for more drama from Woody Johnson’s Jets. Today, we’re covering:
- Rodgers nearly benched?
- Second-most underpaid position
- Ranking rookie QBs by EPA
What Dianna’s Hearing: Rodgers nearly benched
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 had suggested an even more drastic move earlier in the season.
According to those sources, the day after the Jets’ 10-9 home loss to the Broncos, there was a meeting at the team facility that included Johnson, Douglas and three other high ranking members of the Jets organization. It also included a group of coaches, with Saleh, offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett, then-defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich and special teams coordinator Brant Boyer among them.
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 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.
A week later, Johnson made the decision to fire Saleh without consulting his general manager (or anyone else in the organization, for that matter).
Yesterday, Zack Rosenblatt and I published a story on why Douglas never stood a chance. Back to you, Jacob.
The Lost Superstars: Cornerback
Deion “Prime Time” Sanders dominated headlines during his playing days. Years later, “Revis Island” stranded many receivers before Richard Sherman embodied a style that he called “more of a tourist attraction. You stop here, I take your money and you go.”
Darrelle Revis vs. No. 1 receivers, 2009: pic.twitter.com/QJOsaC1x5X
— Jeremy Bergman (@JABergman) July 18, 2018
Few could match the lockdown corners in their prime. But those were the good ol’ days for corners, a position former CB Domonique Foxworth called “the most underappreciated” in football during an episode of “The Athletic Football Show,” which covers the disappearance of the star cornerback (and inspired this deep dive).
While the plight of running back salaries dominates the headlines, cornerback pay is quietly the second-slowest-growing in the NFL, judging by the growth of superstars’ (i.e. highest-paid players) change in average annual pay over the past 10 years:
It’s especially drastic when comparing corners to the players they defend. The number of corners making 9 percent or more of their team’s salary cap has remained unchanged since 2016. The receiver market has skyrocketed, though, making it clear: Star corners are no longer considered as valuable.
Back in 2015, positional spending at cornerback was $13.1 million per team (per OvertheCap), which was 22 percent of what the average team allocated to their defense that year.
Ten years later, cornerback rooms are allocated a similar 20 percent of a team’s spending on defense ($18.3 million). This illustrates that while cornerbacks on a whole are paid similarly, the superstars are not.
Maybe teams are drafting fewer first-round corners, hence the lack of pay? I looked up the last 20 years of cornerbacks drafted in the first round. Nothing has changed, with four or five corners in the first round each year.
That overall decrease in corner value is especially notable this year, with the top two players in The Athletic’s Dane Brugler’s 2025 NFL Draft Big Board both being corners — though one, Travis Hunter, is also a receiver.
Why has this happened
“I’m not sure the market makes sense,” Foxworth said on the podcast. “The only logic I can come up with is the volatility of the position — that even the best corners have bad years. That doesn’t happen to the same extent at other positions.”
At the 15-minute mark of his podcast, Robert Mays weighs in on the seismic shift that led to this trend: “The way that the game is structured today makes a single corner less valuable,” and offenses “have gone from running (three-WR) personnel at a 36 percent clip to 61 percent today.”
I agree with Robert’s assessment. The additional pass-catchers on the field and prevalence of pre-snap motion means teams need more than just a No. 1 corner, even if that corner is Heisman favorite Hunter.
If Hunter chooses to focus more on receiver in the NFL, compensation might be why. Then again, his coach at Colorado, Deion Sanders, sure knew how to get paid. Maybe the 2025 draft marks the return of the superstar corner — assisted by potential DPOY Patrick Surtain II.
Will we see a cornerback revival?
Are the days of superstar corners over, or will potential No. 1 pick Hunter and fellow 2025 CB Will Johnson mark a revival? And why do you suspect we’ve seen this change? Click here to share your thoughts.
Rookie QB outlook keeps evolving
Earlier this season, we took a long look at the QBR of Caleb Williams, Bo Nix and Jayden Daniels to find that only Daniels seemed like a sure thing. Much has changed since.
Here’s how the rookie QBs currently stack up by EPA per drop back, together with their ranks against other rookie quarterbacks who were drafted top-12 across the past 20 years, per TruMedia (trigger warning for Bears fans):
- No. 4: Jayden Daniels, 0.2. For context, among rookies, Daniels’ number ranks behind only Deshaun Watson’s shortened 2017, Ben Roesthlisberger’s 2004 and Robert Griffin’s 2012. It’s also worth noting that Daniels is not injured, despite recent concerns.
- No. 18: Drake Maye, 0.05. Seeing him land right between the rookie years of Matt Leinart and Baker Mayfield feels appropriate for a potential star surrounded by question marks.
- No. 26: Bo Nix, -0.04. Squarely between a rookie Ryan Tannehill and Jay Cutler, Nix has sported a 0.17 EPA since Week 8, which would be the eighth-best rookie mark since 2004 if across an entire season.
- No. 43: Caleb Williams, -0.10. Calling this “the Chicago Bears quarterback range” would be all too appropriate, with Williams ranking between No. 42 Mitch Trubisky and No. 46 Justin Fields. Thankfully, rookie Matthew Stafford (No. 47) offers a glimmer of hope.
Around the NFL
Anthony Richardson impressed on Sunday but still struggled with underneath passes. Derrik Klassen explores this and more in his Week 11 Quick Outs.
The 2025 draft order continues to fall into place, with the Browns and Raiders projected to hold the top two picks.
With Tommy DeVito set to start, Giants star DL Dexter Lawrence did not express confidence in his new quarterback: “To me, [Daniel Jones] is the best quarterback on the team.”
As a Bengals fan, I regularly get “what’s wrong with your team” texts. For now, I’m sending them Paul Dehner Jr.’s column, which explains why the Bengals are 1-6 in one-score games.
Yesterday’s most-clicked: The Athletic’s Week 12 Power Rankings.
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(Photo: Jonathan Ferrey / Getty Images)
