Woody Johnson’s Jets: ‘Madden’ ratings, a lost season and ‘the most dysfunctional place imaginable’

By Zack Rosenblatt, Dianna Russini and Michael Silver

Woody Johnson decided to do his own research.

The New York Jets’ owner was at his house in Palm Beach, Fla., last February, discussing potential offseason acquisitions with team decision-makers as they watched game tape. Wide receiver Jerry Jeudy, a former Denver Broncos first-round pick, flashed on the screen. Jets general manager Joe Douglas expressed interest, according to someone familiar with the meeting. Johnson took out his phone and started typing.

A few weeks later, Douglas and his Broncos counterpart, George Paton, were deep in negotiations for a trade that would have sent Jeudy to the Jets and given future Hall of Fame quarterback Aaron Rodgers another potential playmaker. The Broncos felt a deal was near. Then, abruptly, it all fell apart. In Denver’s executive offices, they couldn’t believe the reason why.

Douglas told the Broncos that Johnson didn’t want to make the trade because the owner felt Jeudy’s player rating in “Madden NFL,” the popular video game, wasn’t high enough, according to multiple league sources. The Broncos ultimately traded the receiver to the Cleveland Browns. Last Sunday, Jeudy crossed the 1,000-yard receiving mark for the first time in his career.

Coming into this season, the Jets had hopes of ending the franchise’s 13-year playoff drought — the longest in the four major men’s North American sports — and quieting years of talk about the franchise’s dysfunction. Instead, this season has only cemented the Jets’ reputation.

Head coach Robert Saleh was fired five games into the campaign. Douglas was fired six weeks later. Johnson suggested benching Rodgers due to poor performance — a Jets spokesperson said the owner was “being provocative. He made the statement in jest to see how it would be handled.” A week later, the Jets traded for Davante Adams, the All-Pro wideout and Rodgers’ close friend and former teammate in Green Bay. New York has stumbled to a 4-10 record and will miss the postseason for the 14th straight season.

Another offseason of turnover awaits, and at the root of the franchise’s problems is Johnson, who was characterized as an over-involved, impulsive owner in conversations with more than 20 people in and around the Jets organization — current and former players, coaches and team executives — who were granted anonymity in order to speak openly without fear of reprisal.

“They keep on doing the same thing over and over: they change the football people. The football people are not the issue,” one former executive said. “It’s, ‘Hey, I have brain cancer.’ And, ‘Well, just cut off your foot.’”

Johnson, who declined The Athletic’s request for comment, soured on his franchise quarterback less than a year after betting big on him, denigrated his own players in the locker room and seemed to follow decision-making advice from his teenage sons, according to various team and league sources. And the proposed Jeudy trade wasn’t the only time Johnson cited “Madden” ratings when evaluating players.

“There are organizations where it is all set up for you to win,” said a player with the team in 2023. “It feels completely different (with the Jets). It’s the most dysfunctional place imaginable.”

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Ahead of the Jets-Giants preseason finale at MetLife Stadium in 2019, an administrative assistant popped into the team’s coaching offices to make an announcement to then-head coach Adam Gase and his staff. Woody Johnson, then serving as U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom in the Trump administration, was temporarily returning from London. The assistant said everyone should refer to Johnson as “Mr. Ambassador.”

That has held true long after Johnson left government and returned to his role as Jets chairman in January 2021, striking a discordant tone among those who believe the organization has long been plagued by mismanagement.

“I guess that’s what you’d call him,” one assistant coach said. “I’d never been around royalty before.”

Johnson is an heir to the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical fortune, but he spends most of his working days at the Jets facility in Florham Park, N.J., and often meets with the head coach and general manager. When he bought the team in 2000, Johnson thought he was inheriting Bill Belichick as coach — hand-picked by Bill Parcells to take over before Parcells resigned. Belichick lasted only one day, scribbling “I resign as HC of the NYJ” on a napkin at his introductory news conference before bolting for the New England Patriots.

The legendary coach has spent much of the past two decades torturing the Jets franchise, on the field and off of it. While out of coaching this fall, Belichick mocked Johnson in various media appearances (Belichick’s camp also reached out to the Jets about their head-coaching vacancy). In an appearance on ESPN’s “ManningCast” during a Monday night game between the Jets and Bills on Oct. 14 — New York’s first game since firing Saleh — Belichick described the owner’s approach to running the organization as “ready, fire, aim.”

Many who have been part of the Jets organization during Johnson’s tenure heard that comment and agreed. Others pointed to the owner’s words on Oct. 15, the day the Jets acquired Adams, when Johnson said, “Thinking is overrated.”

“Woody is just acting on instinct,” said a current Jets executive. “With Woody, it’s like, ‘I’m right — prove me wrong.’ You just don’t know what to expect … He’s been right enough, just with his random opinions, that (a bad decision) doesn’t dissuade him. And when he’s wrong, who’s gonna hold him accountable?”

During the annual NFL Draft, Johnson is known to keep to himself while decisions are being made, according to one former executive, then exit the room and retreat to a nearby snack bar with confidants to make “smart-ass lines” about the front office’s decisions. Team decision-makers didn’t appreciate Johnson’s after-the-fact critiques, but the owner was occasionally proven correct: The executive remembers Johnson being especially vocal when former general manager Mike Maccagnan drafted quarterback Christian Hackenberg out of Penn State in the second round of the 2016 Draft. Hackenberg never played a regular-season snap for the Jets.

Some inside the organization believe Johnson is consumed with the public perception of his franchise, sometimes at the expense of on-the-field success. When the Jets traded quarterback Zach Wilson to the Broncos last April, Denver asked Douglas to include the final pick of the draft (257th overall). According to a source familiar with the negotiations, Johnson instructed Douglas to instead trade the 256th pick — which the Jets also owned — so New York could select “Mr. Irrelevant,” the final pick of the draft who is annually celebrated upon his selection.

“Can you believe that?” the source said. “He thought he needed the Mr. Irrelevant pick to get a Brock Purdy (the final pick of the 2022 draft who has emerged as a franchise quarterback in San Francisco). I don’t think that’s ever happened in the history of the NFL: A team wanted a worse pick.”

The Broncos used pick No. 256 to take offensive guard Nick Gargiulo, who is now on the Broncos’ active roster. The Jets used the “Mr. Irrelevant” pick on Alabama safety Jaylen Key, who didn’t survive the final roster cutdown and is no longer on their practice squad.

Johnson weighs in on matters throughout the organization, from lineup decisions (he forced interim head coach Jeff Ulbrich to bench starting safety Tony Adams in November) to the team schedule (he wanted the Jets to practice during their bye week, much to the chagrin of team leaders). “He’s like most team owners,” the team spokesperson said. “He asks questions of his staff to better understand what their plans are.”

“Your job becomes managing Woody,” a current team executive said. “That’s not unique for an NFL GM — the difference here is that not only are you managing Woody, but you have to manage all the people who influence him. That could be family, that could be media, that could be people in the building.”

When Johnson left for the U.K. in 2017, his sons, Brick and Jack, were 11 and 9, respectively. When he returned, they were teenagers. Last year, Johnson started including his sons in some meetings at the team facility. For some Jets employees, the sons’ increasing involvement clarified their father’s propensity for sharing posts from X and articles from various outlets, including a blog called “Jets X-Factor,” with the organization’s top decision-makers.

“When we’re discussing things, you’ll hear Woody cite something that Brick or Jack read online that’s being weighed equally against whatever opinion someone else in the department has,” said one Jets executive.

“I answer to a teenager,” Douglas quipped to people close to him before the season in an acknowledgment of the perceived power dynamic.

Johnson’s reference to Jeudy’s “Madden” rating was, to some in the Jets’ organization, a sign of Brick and Jack’s influence. Another example came when Johnson pushed back on signing free-agent guard John Simpson due to a lackluster “awareness” rating in Madden. The Jets signed Simpson anyway, and he has had a solid season: Pro Football Focus currently has him graded as the eighth-best guard in the NFL.

The Jets spokesperson disputed the idea that Brick and Jack’s observations impact the organization’s decision-making process. “It is used as a reference point; it is not determinative,” the spokesperson said. “It’s really sad that an adult would use a misleading anecdote about teenagers to make their father look bad. It’s ridiculous, quite honestly, the idea that this was used to influence the opinion of experienced executives.

“(The sons) have no roles in the organization. It’s completely ridiculous to suggest that any outside info is intended to replace the opinions of (Woody Johnson’s) staff.”

The Johnson family’s behavior inside the Jets locker room has also become an issue, according to team and league sources. NFL locker rooms are restricted-access spaces typically limited to players, coaches, team personnel and media members. But Brick and Jack have brought friends — male and female — into the locker room, and current and former players and coaches told The Athletic that Woody Johnson, his wife, Suzanne Ircha Johnson, and his sons criticized players inside the locker room.

In 2022, quarterback Mike White played through broken ribs in a late-season game against the Seahawks with postseason hopes on the line. White played poorly; the Jets lost and were eliminated from playoff contention. After the game, with the quarterback in the showers after throwing his helmet to the locker room floor, multiple Jets players said they heard Woody Johnson say, “You should throw your helmet, you f—ing suck.” The statement got back to White. The team spokesperson said Johnson apologized to the quarterback, who declined to comment for this story.

In the postgame locker room after last year’s Week 17 loss to the Cleveland Browns, multiple players said they heard Johnson’s sons loudly disparaging certain Jets players.

This year, on Halloween night, the Jets registered their first victory since Saleh’s firing four weeks earlier. It was a significant moment for a struggling team. Rodgers walked into an energized locker room with a game ball in hand, and it was expected that he’d give the ball to Ulbrich, a customary gesture when a coach gets his first NFL win.

But before Rodgers could speak, Brick Johnson took another game ball and awarded it to wide receiver Garrett Wilson in a profanity-laced exclamation, which the owner’s son later posted to Instagram. Woody Johnson then gave Ulbrich the ball Rodgers had been holding. Multiple players said the energy felt drained out of the room.

“It was the most awkward, cringe-worthy, brutal experience,” one player said.

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The high point of the Johnson-Rodgers marriage came at Rodgers’ introductory news conference, when he spoke of the Jets’ lone Super Bowl trophy — won in 1969 — looking a little “lonely.” New York entered the 2023 season as one of the league’s buzziest teams — and potentially Super Bowl contenders — and the Jets were selected to appear on HBO’s “Hard Knocks” during training camp. Johnson wore a custom-made chain featuring 80 carats of emeralds and diamonds spelling out “Woody,” a gift from star cornerback Sauce Gardner.

Then Rodgers tore his Achilles on the fourth play of the season, and everything changed. Following surgery, Rodgers rehabbed with the goal of potentially returning at the end of the season, but only if the Jets were still in playoff contention.

In Week 14, New York was mathematically eliminated with a 30-0 loss to the Dolphins. Rodgers preferred to rehab on his own in Los Angeles with an eye toward the 2024 season, but Johnson, according to team sources, insisted that Rodgers practice with the team, so the quarterback reluctantly returned to New York. When Rodgers was activated off injured reserve five days before Christmas, which resulted in the release of fullback Nick Bawden, Rodgers said on “The Pat McAfee Show” that the move wasn’t his idea.

“There was a conversation: ‘Do you want to practice?’ And I said, ‘Not at the expense of somebody getting cut.’ I know how this works,” Rodgers said. “I didn’t feel like I needed to practice to continue my rehab. I could do on-the-field stuff on the side. But obviously I got overruled there.”

Several Jets players and coaches — Garrett Wilson and running back Breece Hall, in particular — were unhappy with offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett throughout the 2023 campaign. There were rumblings that Johnson wanted to fire Hackett, so Rodgers, who considers the coach a close friend, brought it up with the owner at the end of the season. The conversation “didn’t go over well” with Johnson, according to a current Jets executive.

Johnson ultimately didn’t force Saleh to fire Hackett, as he had with Mike LaFleur after the 2022 season. In the offseason, Saleh tried to hire a veteran offensive coach to join the Jets staff and potentially reduce Hackett’s role, speaking with Arthur Smith, Kliff Kingsbury, Luke Getsy and Eric Bieniemy. Rodgers got on the phone in an attempt to recruit, but each coach took jobs with offensive coordinator titles elsewhere.

Before this season, according to a team source, Johnson demanded that Saleh’s signature phrase — “All Gas, No Brakes” — be stripped off the walls around the facility. “Another completely out-of-context and false narrative,” the team spokesperson said. “That was removed as part of the entire organizational rebrand.” Saleh later introduced a new team motto: “Love and Regard,” which was not displayed on the facility’s walls.

Rodgers and Johnson spoke on Oct. 7, just after the Jets lost to the Vikings in London to drop to 2-3, a game behind the Bills in the AFC East with Buffalo coming to MetLife Stadium the following Monday night. According to a team source, Rodgers implored Johnson to remain patient.

The following morning, Saleh called Rodgers to let him know he was demoting Hackett and installing passing game coordinator Todd Downing as the new play caller. Rodgers made it clear to Saleh that he did not agree with the decision — so much so that Saleh told his staff to get backup Tyrod Taylor ready to play in case a banged-up, disgruntled Rodgers wouldn’t, according to a team source.

Shortly afterward, around 10 a.m. ET, Woody and Christopher Johnson, Woody’s brother and the Jets’ vice chairman, walked into Saleh’s office. Woody told Saleh he was fired. Saleh asked why. Woody told him he didn’t think Saleh could turn the season around and that the team needed a spark. Then the Johnsons walked out of the room.

Ulbrich, installed as the interim coach, went forward with Saleh’s plan to demote Hackett and managed to calm the waters with Rodgers, who hadn’t been in favor of firing Saleh, according to multiple team sources.

On the Dec. 3 episode of McAfee’s show, Rodgers, in reference to the 12-2 Detroit Lions, talked about how much of a difference it makes when owners back their coaches and general managers both privately and publicly. The next day, he was asked by members of the media if he felt that Jets ownership operates in that way.

“Is that a rhetorical question?” Rodgers said. “I cited an example I’ve seen. There were other examples in Green Bay, both for and maybe not, as for whoever was in charge. But I think it’s an important part of ownership to hire the right guys, set the vision and support them when the outside world is trying to tear them down.”

On follow-up, he was asked again whether he believes that’s been done in New York. “I’d have to look,” he replied. “I’ll ask you guys, has there been a lot of public comments? Supportive comments?”

The response from reporters that day? Not really, there have been firings.

“Yeah, there’s your answer,” Rodgers replied.

The Jets kept the exchange out of the transcript of Rodgers’ news conference.

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In addition to firing the head coach and general manager and suggesting the benching of the star quarterback, Johnson has pursued cuts across the Jets organization.

This offseason, he forced Saleh to fire five coaches and wouldn’t allow Douglas to replace former assistant GM Rex Hogan (who Johnson forced Douglas to fire in January). “The open role was used to re-organize the staff,” the team spokesperson said. “The notion that he didn’t want that position replaced is untrue. The responsibilities were filled by employees who deserved promotions.”

The Jets didn’t hire officials for training camp, a standard practice in the NFL, after being the most penalized team in the league in 2023 (they are the third-most penalized team in 2024). They did have officials for two joint practices with the New York Giants and Washington Commanders, respectively.

Several men from Johnson’s investment group have been attending free agent, draft and other football operations meetings at Johnson’s behest over the last year, according to a current Jets executive. They’ve also interviewed Jets employees from across the organization about their roles and ways they feel the Jets can improve. “It was a positive initiative that identified real gaps in process and communication and collaboration,” the Jets spokesperson said. “(Woody Johnson) values the independent feedback. It’s a way to avoid groupthink. We learned a lot from it.”

Multiple Jets employees refer to the group of men as “The Bobs,” a nod to the condescending corporate efficiency consultants from the film “Office Space.” The arrival of “The Bobs” has only heightened a sense of dread around the building, where some employees don’t feel like they can speak freely.

“There’s no nice way to say what we need to say, which is: Unless we drastically alter our culture and the way we do things from the top down, we have no chance,” one executive said. “There’s not a comfortable environment where you can speak your mind and try to address things that could improve the situation. You have to tiptoe around it.”

The Jets spokesperson disputed that characterization. “That’s just a false premise,” the spokesperson said. “(Woody Johnson) really just seeks out and welcomes feedback and debate. We wouldn’t have been named one of the best places to work in New Jersey if people thought that way … there’s never been a complaint.”

As recently as three-and-a-half years ago, there was a different atmosphere at Florham Park. Woody Johnson’s absence during the first Trump presidential term meant that Christopher was running the show.

Like Woody, Christopher Johnson was influenced perhaps too heavily by media coverage — one team source said he was known to lean on prominent media members for advice during his head coach and GM searches in 2019 — but the impression he gave to many in the building was that he wanted to give the keys to the people he hired and let them take the wheel.

“Chris was really, really laid back,” said a former Jets coach. “He’s not a person with any type of ego. When he would talk with you, he was really a regular dude. He never, ever acted like he was the owner or he was in charge; he was just basically trying to get along.”

When Christopher Johnson hired Douglas (in 2019) and Saleh (in 2021), both were under the impression that, when he returned, Woody Johnson would take a similarly hands-off approach. They quickly learned how wrong that assumption was as Woody took control and Chris stepped back.

“It’s not like he just disappeared, but you wouldn’t know if Chris was in the building or even in the room with you,” a former Jets executive said. “He’s just so quiet and reserved. And that’s not a bad thing.”

Some Jets employees hoped Woody might retake his ambassadorship in the U.K. after Donald Trump was elected president in November, which would once again put Christoper in charge. But on Dec. 2, Trump nominated billionaire Arkansas investment banker Warren Stephens to the post. According to team sources, the decision came as a surprise to the Jets owner.

As the Jets close the 2024 season, they’ll enter an offseason promising wholesale change, familiar territory for an organization that hasn’t found much stability since Johnson bought the franchise from Leon Hess in 2000. In 25 years, the Jets have employed eight interim or full-time head coaches (nine if you count Belichick) and seven general managers. They’ll need another new head coach and general manager and must decide if they want to bring Rodgers back for what would be his 21st NFL season – if he wants to return.

Those decisions remain Woody Johnson’s to make.

(Illustration: Demetrius Robinson / The Athletic; photos: Chris Coduto, Matthew Stockman, Cooper Neil, Perry Knotts / Getty Images)