Jets' Aaron Rodgers on Zach Wilson Benching: 'There's Enough Blame to Go Around'

The New York Jets officially benched Zach Wilson this week, promoting journeyman Tim Boyle to the starting quarterback position and instilling Trevor Siemian as the backup.

During his weekly appearance on The Pat McAfee Show Tuesday, Aaron Rodgers addressed the situation:

"We need a spark, and obviously this is the decision that was made. I feel for Zach, I love Zach. Zach's such a great kid and I do think he still has a bright future in the league. This has been a tough go for all of us. A lot of times in these situations there's certain guys they've got to scapegoat, and I think there's enough blame to go around at a number of positions. If you've got 10 guys doing it right on a play and one guy not, it's hard to be efficient."

There may be plenty of blame to go around, but most of it has fixated on Wilson and, to a lesser extent, offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett.

To be fair, Wilson has earned the scrutiny. He's now played in 32 NFL games across three seasons (31 starts) and has thrown for 5,966 yards, 21 touchdowns, 25 interceptions and taken 105 sacks, completing just 56.6 percent of his passes. The Jets are 11-20 in his starts, including a 3-6 mark this year (4-6 overall).

This is a Jets team with playmakers on offense—Garrett Wilson and Breece Hall, primarily—and one of the better defenses in the NFL. With Rodgers, they would almost assuredly be in the playoff hunt and competing for an AFC East title.

Without him, they rank 30th in the NFL in both scoring (15 PPG) and yardage (270.3 YPG) and may be out of the postseason picture altogether by the time Rodgers makes his rumored return in late December.

It does seem unlikely that Tim Boyle will change their fortunes much, however.

In 18 career games (three starts) he's thrown for 607 yards, three touchdowns, nine interceptions and completed 60.8 percent of his passes. And he hasn't just been poor at the NFL level—in three seasons at UConn he threw for 1,237 yards, one touchdown, 13 interceptions and completed just 48.4 percent of his passes.

This is the man the Jets turn to in their hour of need. Perhaps there's a reason head coach Robert Saleh gave Wilson such a long leash.

Still, a change was needed. Badly. At this point, it's hard to imagine New York's offense getting much worse.

"Like I said, it's not all on him, but there are things that he needs to be better at," Saleh told reporters on Monday regarding Wilson. "And this is just another situation to see if we can get another guy an opportunity to see if something can change."

With Siemian lurking, Boyle will likely have an even shorter leash than Wilson did. At this point, the Jets need to try everything they can to salvage a sinking season.